Letters 71 to 80: Fabiola and Rufinus's Preface on Origen

Zeno the shipmaster, through whom you say the letters of your holiness were sent to me, delivered only one short letter of the blessed Pope Amabilis, containing the usual small gifts. And I wonder greatly what the reason was, that although he proved faithful in bringing both your blessings and his, he should be found negligent in delivering the letter. For I do not think that you, a disciple of the truth, would deceive me; unless perhaps, the man being Greek, the Latin text went astray among the papers. So I am replying to the second letter, which my holy son Heraclius the Deacon delivered to me, in which among other things you ask me to explain to you the reasons why Solomon, and Achaz at eleven years of age, are said to have begotten sons.

For if in his twelfth year Solomon received rule over Israel, and reigned forty years in Jerusalem; and his son Roboam, when he was in his forty-first year of age, succeeded his father in the kingdom, it is clear that Solomon was eleven years old, or ten, since the mother claims ten months from conception to birth as her own. Again, Achaz, son of Joathan, when he was twenty years old, was made king over two tribes, that is, Judah and Benjamin, and reigned sixteen years: at whose death, Ezechias, when he was in his twenty-fifth year of age, succeeded his father in the kingdom. From which it is understood that Achaz too, in his eleventh or tenth year, begot his son Ezechias.

2. And indeed if the histories differed, the Seventy interpreters saying one thing, the Hebrew Truth another, we could take refuge in the usual defenses, and hold the citadel of the vernacular tongue: but now, since both the authentic text itself, and the other interpreters, agree with equal authority, the difficulty lies not in the Scripture, but in the sense. For who among mortals would believe that an eleven-year-old boy could beget a son? Many other things are said in the Scriptures which seem incredible, and yet are true. For nature does not prevail against the Lord of nature; nor can the vessel say to the potter, why hast thou made me thus, or thus? Although what happens as a miracle, sign, and portent cannot make a law of nature. Just because in our own age a double-headed man was born at Lydda, with four hands, one belly, and two feet, does it follow that all men must be born this way?

Let us read the ancient histories, and especially the Greek and Latin ones, and we shall find that, according to the error of the ancients, monstrous offspring, both among men and among herds and flocks, were expiated by lustral sacrifices. I have heard, God being witness that I do not lie: that a certain little woman, while nursing an exposed infant, and dropping food into its mouth, and performing the office of nurse, and the little one slept with her, who had already reached his tenth year; it happened that, indulging herself more than modesty allows in wine, and being inflamed with lust, she led the child by shameful movements to intercourse. The first night's drunkenness, and those of the following nights, made it a habit. Not yet had two months passed, and behold, the woman's womb swelled. What more?

By God's dispensation it came about that she, who in the child's simplicity was abusing what was against nature, in contempt of God, was betrayed by the Lord of nature, that the word might be fulfilled which says: Nothing is hidden that shall not be made manifest.

3. And let us at the same time consider that Scripture covertly accuses both Solomon and Achaz of lust and impiety.

For each, though he was of the stock of David, fell away from the Lord: and the one so far followed lust that he had seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, and young girls, and passive harlots, of whom there was no number; and, having neglected the God of his fathers, he built up idols of very many nations; and became, no longer as before Ididia, that is, beloved of the Lord, but a lover of women: the other sent to the king of the Assyrians, asking for help, and in the time of his distress increased his contempt of the Lord, and sacrificed victims to the gods of Damascus, his smiters, and in all the cities of Juda built altars for burning incense; and provoked to wrath the Lord God of his fathers: to such a degree that, the vessels of the house of the Lord being plundered and broken, he shut the doors of the Temple of God, and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem, and walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and cast statues of Baalim, and burned incense in the valley of the sons of Ennon, and made his sons pass through the fire, according to the rite of the nations whom the Lord destroyed at the coming of the children of Israel.

From which it is clear that men given over to lust from a young age are shown by their premature offspring, since they began even then to sin at a time when nature does not permit it.

4. To sum up, it can be said that in the kingdom of David, Solomon, when he was twelve years old, obtained his father's throne: and afterward, because Scripture leaves it uncertain, David lived some years while his son was already reigning, which years are to be reckoned to David and not to Solomon: but after his father's death, the son reigned forty years, which he reigned without his father being alive: and thus both the beginning of Solomon's reign, and the time during which he alone reigned, are shown by the history. Nor, however, are all the years of his life contained within a mere fifty-two-year span.

But if you doubt that, while sons were reigning and fathers still living, the time of their reign is reckoned not to the sons but to the parents, read the very book of Kings, and you will find that Ozias king of Juda, after he was struck with leprosy, dwelt in a separate house, and his son Joathan ruled the kingdom, and judged the people of the land, until the day of his father's death: and yet after his death, when he was twenty-five years old, he is said to have reigned sixteen years, which he reigned alone. What we have understood of Solomon must likewise be understood of Achaz, who was the son of Joatha, and the father of Ezechias. I have heard how a certain Hebrew relates a story of this kind according to the Prophecy of Isaiah, which I recently interpreted among the Ten Visions: that when Achaz died, Philistia rejoiced, and Scripture afterward threatens and says: "Rejoice not, all thou land of Philistia, because the rod of him that struck thee is broken.

For out of the root of a serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the flying serpent": that is, from Achaz, Ezechias shall be appointed king. By which he meant to signify that the son was not immediately substituted into the kingship after his father's death, but that, either through seditions of the people, or certain interregna, or indeed through pressing evils and wars arising on this side and that, his reign was delayed.

5. In obscure matters we set forth different opinions, so that we may seem to you not so much to be writing as speaking face to face. But the Apostle, forbidding endless genealogies and Jewish fables, seems to me to forbid questions of this sort. For what does it profit to cling to the letter, and to slander either the error of the scribe, or the sequence of years, when it is most plainly written: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life?

Read again all the books of both the Old and New Testament, and you will find such a discrepancy of years, and such confusion of numbers between Juda and Israel, that is, between the two kingdoms, that to cling to such questions seems to belong not so much to a studious man as to an idle one. I gladly received the little gifts you sent, and I earnestly pray that you may persevere to the end in the love with which you have begun to seek us out. For it is not the beginning but the persevering that belongs to virtue. In turn, receive what we have sent through Desiderius (Suppose an Aquitanian Presbyter).

You have sent me an anonymous, unsigned book, and I do not know whether you removed the name from the title, or whether the one who wrote it, in order to flee the danger of disputing, was unwilling to acknowledge himself as author. When I had read it, I understood that the most famous question about the Priest Melchisedech had been carried thither with a great many arguments, so that he attempted to teach that the one who blessed so great a Patriarch was of a more divine nature, and not to be reckoned among men. And at the end he dared to say that the Holy Spirit had met Abraham, and that it was he himself who was seen in human form. But how the Holy Spirit brought forth bread and wine, and received the tithes of the spoil which Abraham had brought back after conquering the four kings, he was entirely unwilling to touch upon; and you ask that I respond as to what seems to me either about the writer or about the question.

I confess I wished to conceal my opinion, and not to mix myself in a dangerous and censorious treatise, in which whatever I said I would be sure to have censurers. But again, when I read the letter, and found on the last page that I was adjured by wondrous entreaties not to spurn the one who begged, I turned over the books of the Ancients, to see what each said, and to answer you as it were on the advice of many.

2. And immediately, at the beginning of Genesis, I found the first of Origen's Homilies written about Melchisedech, in which, arguing at great length, he came to the point of calling him an Angel. And with almost the same arguments with which your writer spoke of the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the powers above. I passed on to Didymus, his follower, and I saw the man walking in the footsteps of his master's opinion.

I turned to Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and of Emisa, Apollinaris also, and our own Eustathius, who was the first Bishop of the Church of Antioch to sound the war-trumpet most clearly against Arius: and I found that the opinions of all these, through different lines of argument and different byways, arrived at one and the same reckoning, namely, that they said Melchisedech was a man, a Canaanite, king of the city of Jerusalem, which was first called Salem, then Jebus, and at last Jerusalem. Nor is it strange if the Priest of the Most High God is described without circumcision and legal ceremonies, and without the race of Aaron: since Abel too, and Enoch, and Noe pleased God, and offered victims; and in the book of Job we read that he himself was both the offerer of gifts and the priest, and daily offered sacrifices for his sons. And they say that Job himself also was not of the race of Levi, but of the stock of Esau, though the Hebrews maintain otherwise.

3. And just as Noe, made drunk in his own house, and stripped naked and mocked by his middle son, presented a type of the Savior, and Cham a type of the people of the Jews: Samson too, a lover of a harlot and of poor Dalila, slew more of his enemies in death than he had slain living, so as to express the passion of Christ: and almost all the Saints and Patriarchs and Prophets expressed in some matter a figure of the Savior; so also Melchisedech, in that he was a Canaanite and not of the race of the Jews, went before as a type of the priest, the Son of God, of whom it is said in the hundred and ninth Psalm: Thou art a Priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

Now his "order" is interpreted in many ways: that he alone was both king and priest, and exercised the priesthood before circumcision, so that the nations should not receive the priesthood from the Jews, but the Jews from the nations; and that he was not anointed with priestly oil, as the precepts of Moses establish, but with the oil of exultation and purity of faith; and that he did not sacrifice victims of flesh and blood, and receive the entrails of brute animals, but with bread and wine, by a simple and pure sacrifice, dedicated the sacrament of Christ; and many other things which the brevity of a letter does not admit.

4. Moreover (perhaps: I pass over) this has been treated more fully in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which all the Greeks accept, and some of the Latins, that this Melchisedech, that is, "king of righteousness," was king of Salem, that is, "king of peace," without father, without mother, and how this is to be understood is explained at once in one word, ἀγενεαλόγητος (without genealogy)—not that he was without father and mother, since Christ too, according to both natures, had both a father and a mother, but that he is suddenly introduced in Genesis as meeting Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of his enemies; and neither before nor after is his name recorded.

The Apostle affirms, moreover, that the priesthood of Aaron, that is, of the people of the Jews, had both a beginning and an end; but that of Melchisedech, that is, of Christ and of the Church, exists both in the past and shall be forever in the future, and had no author; and that with the transferring of the priesthood, a change of the law also takes place: so that the word of the Lord goes forth not from Agar the handmaid and Mount Sinai, but from Sara the free woman and the citadel of Sion, and the law of God from Jerusalem. And he first exaggerates the difficulty of the matter, saying: Of whom we have much to say, and hard to be uttered: not because the Apostle was unable to interpret it, but because it was not the time for it. For he was persuading the Hebrews, that is, the Jews, not yet the Faithful, to whom he might disclose the mystery openly.

Yet if the vessel of election himself is astonished at the mystery, and confesses as ineffable the very thing he is discussing, how much more ought we, mere worms and fleas, to confess only the knowledge of our ignorance, and to show a very great house as it were through a small window; so that we may say that two priesthoods are compared by the Apostle to each other, that of the former people and that of the latter? And this is his whole argument, that before Levi and Aaron, Melchisedech was priest from among the nations, whose merit was so far preceding that Abraham blessed him in his loins on behalf of the future priests of the Jews. And all that follows in praise of Melchisedech is to be referred to the type of Christ, whose advancement constitutes the sacraments of the Church.

5. These things I have read in the volumes of the Greeks, and I have wished to show, as it were, the vastest regions of the earth on a small tablet, not extending the space of the meanings and treatises, but signifying infinite things by certain points and abridgments, so that in a small letter you might learn at once the intentions of many. But since you ask lovingly, and all that I have learned must be poured into faithful ears, I will set down also the opinion of the Hebrews: and, that nothing may be wanting to your curiosity, I will subjoin the very Hebrew words: Umelchisedec melec salem mosi lehem vajain, Uhu choen leel elion: Vaibar cheu vaiomer baruch abram leel elion cone samaim va ares: Ubaruch el elion eser maggen sarach biadach vajethen lo maaser mecchol.

Which is interpreted into Latin thus: And Melchisedech king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the Most High God; and he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, who created heaven and earth: and blessed be the Most High God, who delivered thy enemies into thy hand; and he gave him tithes of all things. And they hand down that this man was Sem, the first son of Noe, and that at the time when Abram was born, he was three hundred and ninety years of age, which is calculated thus. Sem, in the second year after the flood, when he was a hundred years old, begot Arphaxad; after whose birth he lived five hundred years, that is, six hundred in all. Arphaxad, at the age of thirty-five, begot Sale, who also, at thirty years, produced Eber, who, at thirty-four years, we read, begot Phaleg.

Phaleg again, having completed thirty years, begot Rehu; who also, after the thirty-second year of his birth, brought forth Serug; from whom, when he had reached thirty years, Nachor was born; who at twenty-nine years, begot Thare; whom we read, at seventy years, begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. Add up through each generation the number of years, and you will find that from the birth of Sem to the birth of Abram, there were three hundred and ninety years. But Abraham died in the hundred and seventy-fifth year of his age. By the reasoning worked out, it is found that Sem outlived Abraham, his great-great-grandson of the tenth degree, by thirty-five years.

6. And at the same time they also hand down this, that up until the priesthood of Aaron, all the firstborn of the stock of Noe, whose line and order is described, were priests, and offered victims to God: and that these are the "birthrights" which Jacob bought from his brother Esau.

Nor is it surprising if Melchisedech came out to meet Abram the victor, and, for the refreshment both of himself and of his warriors, brought forth bread and wine, and blessed him, since by this right he owed it to his great-great-grandson: and received the tithes of the spoil and the victory from him: or else, as is held ambiguous, he himself gave him tithes of his own substance, and showed ancestral generosity toward his descendant. For it can be understood both ways, both according to the Hebrew and according to the Septuagint translators, that both he himself received tithes of the spoils, and gave to Abraham tithes of his own substance: although the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, most plainly determines that it was not Abraham who received from Melchisedech tithes of his riches, but that the Pontiff received a portion from the spoils of the enemies.

7. Now Salem, as Josephus and all our own writers suppose, is not Jerusalem—a name compounded from Greek and Hebrew, which the mixture of a foreign tongue shows to be absurd—but a town near Scythopolis, which is still today called Salem, and there is shown there the palace of Melchisedech, its ruins in their vastness displaying the magnificence of the ancient work; concerning which it is also written in a later part of Genesis: Jacob came to Socoth, that is, to tabernacles, and made for himself there houses and tents, and passed over to Salem, a city of the region of Sichem, which is in the land of Chanaan.

8. It must also be considered that when Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the enemies, whom he pursued as far as Dan, which today is called Paneas, it was not the out-of-the-way Jerusalem but the town near the metropolis of Sichem that lay on his route; concerning which we also read in the Gospel: Now John was baptizing in Ennon, near Salim, because there was much water there. Nor does it matter whether it be named Salem or Salim, since the Hebrews very rarely use vowels in the middle of words, and according to the will of readers, and regional variety, the same words are pronounced with different sounds and accents.

9. This I have learned from the most learned men of that nation, who so far refuse to accept that Melchisedech was the Holy Spirit or an angel, that they even assign to him a most certain human name.

And indeed it is foolish—that which is said in type: that Christ’s priesthood has no end; and he himself, king and priest, has bestowed both upon us, that we might be a royal and priestly race, and as a cornerstone has joined both walls together, and out of two flocks the good shepherd has made one flock—thus for some to refer this to allegory (ἀναγωγή), so as to take away the truth of the history, and to say that he was not a king, but that an angel was shown under the appearance of a man: when the Hebrews strive so hard to show that Melchisedech, king of Salem, was the son of Noah, Sem, that they cite what is written just before this: “Now the king of Sodom went out to meet him” (there is no doubt this refers to Abraham) “after he returned from the slaughter of Chodorlaomor, and of the kings who were with him, in the valley of Save: this is the king’s valley”; concerning which it immediately follows:

“And Melchisedech king of Salem brought forth bread and wine,” and so on. If, then, this is the city of a king, and the valley of a king, or, as the Seventy translated it, the plain—which today the Palestinians call Aulon—it is manifest that he was a man, who reigned over an earthly valley and city.

10. You have what I have heard, what I have read, concerning Melchisedech. It was mine to cite witnesses; let it be yours to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.

But if you reject all of them, you certainly will not accept that spiritual interpreter of yours, who, unskilled in speech and in learning, with such arrogance and authority pronounced Melchisedech to be the Holy Spirit, so as to prove most true that saying celebrated among the Greeks: “Inexperience breeds confidence, learning breeds fear.” After a long illness, I was scarcely able to be free of fever during the days of Lent, and while I was preparing myself for another work, I spent the few remaining days on the exposition of Matthew; and I resumed my studies, which had been set aside, with such eagerness that what benefited the exercise of my tongue harmed the health of my body.

The interpretation of Solomon’s judgment concerning the quarrel of the two harlot women, as far as concerns the simple history, is clear: that a boy of twelve years, beyond the measure of his age, judged from the inmost feeling of human nature. Whence all Israel both admired and feared him, because plainly things manifest could not escape him who had so prudently detected hidden things. But as far as concerns the typical meanings, since the Apostle says: “All these things happened to them in a figure, and they are written for us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come,” certain of the Greeks maintain that this must be understood of the Synagogue and the Church, and that all this must be referred to that time when, after the cross and resurrection, the true Solomon, that is, the Peacemaker, began to reign both over Israel and over the people of the Gentiles. That adulteresses and harlots are called in Scripture the Synagogue and the Church, there is no doubt.

3. And at first sight this seems blasphemous; but if we return to the Prophets—namely Hosea, who took a fornicating wife and begot children of fornication, and afterward an adulteress; and to Ezechiel, who charges Jerusalem as a harlot, because she followed after her lovers, and spread her feet to every passer-by, and built a brothel in a public place—we shall perceive that Christ came for this very reason, that he might give harlots in marriage, and make one sheepfold out of two flocks, and, the middle wall being destroyed, gather into the same folds the sheep that were formerly diseased. These are the two rods that are joined together in Ezechiel, and of which the Lord speaks through Zachariah: “And I took to myself two rods, one I called Beauty, and the other I called Cord, and I fed the flock”.

That harlot woman also in the Gospel, who washes the feet of Jesus with her tears, wipes them with her hair, and to whom all sins are forgiven, plainly depicts the Church gathered from the Gentiles. I have recalled these things at the outset, lest it seem incongruous to anyone if the Synagogue and the Church are called harlots, of whom one, by Solomon’s judgment, was given possession of the son. Let the prudent hearer ask, how is the Church a harlot, she who has neither spot nor wrinkle? We do not say that the Church remained a harlot, but that she had been one. For the Savior is also recorded to have entered a banquet in the house of Simon the leper, not indeed because he was a leper at the time when he had the Savior as his guest, but because he had formerly been a leper.

Matthew too, in the catalogue of the Apostles, is called a Publican, not because he remained a Publican after his apostolic dignity, but because he had formerly been a Publican: so that where sin abounded, grace might more abound.

4. At the same time consider what the Church says against the slandering Synagogue: “I and this woman dwelt in one house.” For after the resurrection of the Lord the Savior, one Church was gathered from both peoples; and how elegantly it is said: “I brought forth,” she says, “with her in the chamber.” For the Church of the Gentiles, which formerly did not have the Law and the Prophets, brought forth in the house of the Synagogue; nor did she go out of the chamber, but entered into it. Whence she says in the Song of Songs: “The king brought me into his chamber.” And again: “And indeed I will not spurn you.

I will take you and bring you into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.” “But on the third day”—that is, after I had given birth, she also gave birth. If you consider Pilate washing his hands and saying: “I am innocent of the blood of this just man”; if you consider the Centurion before the gibbet confessing: “Truly this was the Son of God”; if you consider those who before the Passion, through Philip, desired to see the Lord—you will not doubt that the Church gave birth first, and afterward the people of the Jews was born, for whom the Lord prayed:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” On one day three thousand believed, and on another day five thousand. “And we were together” (for of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one soul), “and there was no other in the house with us, except us two”—not of the blaspheming Jews, not of the Gentiles serving idols. “But this woman’s son died in the night.” For while she followed the observance of the Law, and yoked the grace of the Gospel to the doctrine of Moses, she was covered with the error of darkness. “And his mother, sleeping, overlaid him,” she who could not say: “I sleep, but my heart watches.” “Rising at midnight, she took the son from the side” (of the sleeping Church) “and laid him in her own bosom.” Read again the whole Epistle of the Apostle to the Galatians, and you will observe how the Synagogue hastens to make the children of the Church her own, and the Apostle says:

“My little children, of whom I am again in labor, until Christ be formed in you.” “She took him alive, not to keep him, but to kill him.” For she did not do this out of love for the son, but out of the hatred of a rival, and placed her own dead child, through the ceremonies of the Law, in the bosom of the Church.

5. It would be long, were I to wish to run through each point: how through the Apostle Paul, and men of the Church, the Church came to understand that he who was held in the Law was not her son; and recognized in the light him whom she did not see in the darkness. Thence a quarrel arose, in the king’s presence, one saying: “Your son is dead, but mine lives”; the other answering, “You lie, my son indeed lives, and your son is dead”; and thus they contended before the king.

Then king Solomon, who is plainly taken as the Savior, feigns ignorance, and, by reason of the dispensation of the flesh, assumes human feelings falsely, as also in another place: “Where have you laid Lazarus?” and to the woman with the issue of blood: “Who touched me?” He demands a sword, of which he had said: “Do not think that I have come to send peace upon earth; I have not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies shall be those of his own household.” And the Lord tests nature against nature, and wills, according to the desire of each, to divide the living son between Law and Grace: not because he approves it, but that, in order to expose the calumny of the Synagogue, he says he wills this.

She, who did not want the Church’s son to live in grace, nor to be freed through baptism, gladly consents that the child be divided—not to possess him, but to kill him. The church, knowing him to be her own, gladly yields to her rival, provided he live at least with her adversary; lest, divided between Law and Grace, he be struck by the Savior’s sword. Whence the Apostle says: “Behold, I Paul say to you, that if you observe the Law, Christ will profit you nothing.”

6. Let these things be said under the cloud of allegory. But your prudence knows very well that the same rules do not hold in the shadows of Tropology as in the truth of history. If anywhere we have stumbled, and to the wise reader what we have written seems trifling, let him lay the fault upon the author.

For I dictated even these very things, lying in bed, worn out by a long illness, hastily to a notary, scarcely able to keep up with the writing—not in order to fill out the material, but lest, at the very beginning of our friendship, when you were commanding something, I should seem to refuse you. Pray to the Lord for me for health, that after twelve months, during which I have been worn down by continual sickness, I may be able to write something worthy of your wish; and forgive me if my discourse, gushing forth, does not flow in its accustomed course. For I do not dictate with the same charm with which I write; because in the one case I often turn my pen back, being about to write again things worthy to be read; in the other, whatever comes into my mouth I roll out in rapid speech.

I have gladly seen Caninius, who will be able to tell you how difficult and dangerous has been the wound of my right hand, which I have endured up to this present day, on which I have dictated these things.

Struck down by the mournful tidings of the falling asleep of holy and, to me, venerable Lucinius, I have scarcely been able to dictate a brief letter. Not that I grieve for his lot, since I know he has passed over to better things, as Moses says: "Passing over I shall see this great vision"; but because I am tormented by desire, in that I did not deserve to see the face of that man, whom I believed would soon come here. True indeed is that prophetic utterance concerning the necessity of death, that it divides brothers, and cruelly and harshly sunders names most dear to one another.

But we have this consolation, that death is slain by the word of the Lord, and it is said to it: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your bite, O hell"; and further on: "The Lord will bring a burning wind rising up from the desert, which shall dry up all its veins, and shall lay waste its fountain." For a rod has come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower has sprung from the virgin shoot; who speaks in the Song of Songs: "I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys." Our flower is the ruin of death; and therefore he also died, that death might die by his death.

But that which is said, that he is to be brought from the desert, signifies the virginal womb, which without intercourse or the seed of man poured forth for us God as an infant; who by the warmth of the Holy Spirit dried up the fountains of lust, and sang in the Psalm: "In a desert land, and pathless, and waterless, so have I appeared to thee in the sanctuary." Against, then, the hardness of death and its most cruel necessity we are raised up by this comfort, that we shall soon see those whom we grieve as absent. For it is not called death, but a falling asleep and a slumber.

Whence also the blessed Apostle forbids us to be saddened over those who sleep: that we, knowing them to sleep, may believe they can be roused; and after the sleep has been digested, may keep watch with the Saints, and say with the Angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." In heaven, where there is no sin, there is glory, and perpetual praise, and unwearied proclamation. But on earth, where there is sedition, wars, and discords, peace must be prayed for: and peace not for all, but for those who are of good will; and they hear the Apostolic greeting: "Grace to you and peace be multiplied from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ": that his place may be in peace, and his dwelling in Sion, that is, in the watchtower, in the sublimity of doctrines and virtues, in the soul of the believer; whose face the Angel beholds every day, and, with unveiled countenance, contemplates the glory of God.

2. Whence I beseech you, and, as they say, spur on one already running, that you should indeed long for your Lucinius as a brother; but rejoice that he reigns with Christ: because he was taken away, lest malice should change his mind. For his soul was pleasing to God, and in a short space he fulfilled many years. We rather are to be pitied, who daily stand in the battle-line of sinners, are defiled with vices, receive wounds, and must render account for an idle word. He, now secure and victorious, looks upon you from on high, and favors you as you labor; and prepares a place beside himself, with that same love and that same charity by which, having forgotten the duty of marriage, he had begun even on earth to have you as a sister, nay rather as a brother; since chaste union has no distinction of sex.

And if we, still placed in the flesh, and reborn in Christ, are not Greek and barbarian, slave and free, male and female; but are all one in him: how much more, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the Angels in heaven? When he says, they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the Angels in heaven, it is not the nature and substance of bodies that is taken away, but the greatness of glory that is shown. For it is not written, they shall be Angels; but, as the Angels, where a likeness is promised, but the reality is denied. They shall be, he says, as the Angels, that is, like the Angels: therefore they shall not cease to be men.

Renowned indeed, and adorned with angelic splendor; but nevertheless men: so that the Apostle remains the Apostle, and Mary remains Mary: and let that heresy be confounded, which promises things uncertain and grand for this reason, that it may take away things certain and moderate.

3. And since we have once made mention of heresy, with what trumpet of worthy eloquence may our Lucinius be proclaimed? Who, while the most filthy heresy of Basilides raged throughout the Spains, and like a plague and a disease laid waste whole provinces between the Pyrenees and the Ocean, kept the purity of ecclesiastical faith, in no wise taking up Armagil, Barbelon, Abraxas, Balsamum, and the ridiculous Leusibora, and other monstrosities rather than names, which they draw, as it were, from Hebrew sources, to stir up the minds of the unlearned and of little women, terrifying the simple with barbarous sound: so that they may admire the more what they do not understand.

Irenaeus, a man of apostolic times, and disciple of Papias, who was a hearer of John the Evangelist, and Bishop of the Church of Lyons, relates that a certain Marcus, descended from the stock of Basilides the Gnostic, first came to Gaul, and defiled with his teaching those regions through which the Rhone and the Garonne flow; and especially seduced noble women into this error, promising certain secret mysteries, winning their love for himself by magical arts and by the secret pleasure of the body. Thence, crossing the Pyrenees, he took possession of the Spains, and made it his study to seek out especially the houses of the rich, and among them the women most of all—women who are led by various desires, ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. This he wrote about three hundred years ago. And he wrote it in those books which he composed against all heresies, in most learned and most eloquent style.

4. From which your prudence may weigh with what praise our Lucinius is worthy to be honored, who closed his ear, lest he should hear the judgment of blood; and scattered all his substance and gave it to the poor, that his righteousness might remain forever. Nor content with the bounty of his own country, he sent to Jerusalem and to the Church of Alexandria as much gold as could relieve the poverty of many. Though many marvel at and proclaim this, I shall rather praise in him his fervor and zeal for the Scriptures. With what desire did he demand our little works, and, having sent six copyists (since in that province there is a scarcity of scribes in the Latin tongue), had copied whatever we have dictated from our youth up to the present time?

He did not honor us, who are the least and smallest of all Christians, and who, because of the consciousness of our sins, dwell among the rocks of the Bethlehem countryside; but Christ, who is honored in his servants; and who makes this promise to the Apostles, saying: "He who receives you receives me. And he who receives me receives him who sent me."

5. Therefore, dearest daughter, take this letter of my love for him as his epitaph: and whatever you know me capable of in spiritual work, boldly command, that ages yet to come may know that he who says in Isaiah, "He has set me as a chosen arrow, in his quiver he has hidden me", has, by his sharpness, wounded two men separated from one another by such great expanses of sea and land, so that, though unknown to each other in the flesh, they might be joined together in the love of the spirit.

May that Samaritan, that is, the Savior and guardian, keep you holy in body and spirit, of whom it is written in the Psalm: "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep"; that Hir, who is interpreted "the watcher," who came down to Daniel, may come to you also, and that you may be able to say: I sleep, and my heart watches.

Although I am conscious of many sins of my own, and daily say in prayer with bended knees: "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my ignorances"; yet, knowing that it was said by the Apostle: "Lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil"; and that it is written elsewhere: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," I have striven from boyhood to avoid nothing so much as a swelling mind, and a stiff neck, which provokes God's hatred against itself. For I know that my Master and Lord and God, in the humility of the flesh, said: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart"; and that he sang beforehand through the mouth of David: "Remember, O Lord, David, and all his meekness." And in another place we read: "Before glory the heart of man is humbled; and before ruin it is exalted".

Therefore I beseech you not to think that, upon receiving your letters, I was silent before this out of the fault of others; nor to attribute to me either the unfaithfulness or negligence of others. For what reason would there be, being urged by duty, that I should keep silent, and repel your friendship by my silence, I who am accustomed of my own accord to seek the fellowship of good people, and to insert myself into their affection? "Because two are better than one: for if one falls, he shall be supported by the other. A threefold cord is not easily broken, and a brother helped by a brother shall be exalted". Write, therefore, boldly; and overcome the absence of our bodies by frequent correspondence.

2. Nor grieve if you do not have what little ants, and flies, and serpents have, that is, the eyes of the flesh: but rejoice that you have that eye of which it is said in the Song of Songs: "You have wounded me, my sister, my spouse, with one of your eyes"; by which God is seen; of which Moses says: "Passing over, I shall see this great vision." Indeed we read that certain philosophers of this world, that they might force their whole thought toward purity of mind, plucked out their own eyes. And it is said by the Prophet: "Death has entered through your windows." And the Apostles hear: "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" Whence it is commanded them to lift up their eyes, and see the white harvests, which are ready for reaping.

3. But as for your prayer, that by our admonitions Nebuchadnezzar, and Rabsaces, and Nabuzardan, and Holofernes might be slain within you, you would never seek our aid, if they still lived in you. But since they are dead, and you have begun, with Zerubbabel, and with Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and with Ezra also, and Nehemiah, to rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem; and you put not your wages into a bag with holes, but lay up treasures for yourself in heaven, therefore you seek our friendship, whom you consider servants of Christ.

My holy daughter Theodora, sister of Lucinius of blessed memory, commended to me by herself, I commend by my word also, that she may not grow weary on the journey she has begun; that she may reach the Holy Land after much toil through the wilderness; that she may not think it perfect virtue to have gone out of Egypt; but through countless snares to reach Mount Nebo and the river Jordan: that she may receive the second circumcision at Gilgal: that Jericho may fall for her, overthrown by the blasts of the priestly trumpets: that Adonizedek may be slain: that Ai and Hazor, once most beautiful cities, may fall. The brethren who are with us in the monastery greet you. The saints who deign to love us we greet heartily through you.

It is now several years since I consoled the venerable woman Paula, with the wound still fresh, upon the falling asleep of Blaesilla. The circle of the fourth summer is now turning, since, writing to Bishop Heliodorus the epitaph of Nepotianus, I spent then, in that grief, whatever strength I could muster. About two years before this, I gave a brief letter to my Pammachius on account of the sudden departure of Paulina, blushing to say more to so eloquent a man, and to press upon him what was his own, lest I should seem not so much to console a friend as, with foolish boastfulness, to teach one already perfect. Now upon me, son Oceanus, willing and even eager of my own accord, you lay a duty owed, whereby, on account of the newness of the virtues, I may make an old subject new.

For in those cases either a parent's affection, or an uncle's grief, or a husband's longing had to be tempered; and, according to the diversity of persons, different remedies were to be applied from the Scriptures.

2. At present you commit to me Fabiola, the praise of Christians, the wonder of the Gentiles, the grief of the poor, the solace of monks. Whatever I first seize upon grows cheap by comparison with what follows. Shall I extol her fasting? But her alms prevail more. Shall I praise her humility? But the ardor of her faith is greater. Shall I speak of her sought-out squalor, and, to the condemnation of silken garments, her plebeian attire and servile clothing deliberately chosen? It is more to have laid aside the spirit than the attire. It is harder to be without arrogance than to be without gold and gems. For when these latter are cast off, sometimes we swell with a glorious squalor, and offer a marketable poverty to popular applause.

Hidden virtue, cherished in the secrecy of conscience, looks to God alone as judge. Hence she must be extolled by me with new kinds of praise, and, the order of the rhetoricians being set aside, the whole matter must be taken up from the very cradle of her conversion and penitence. Another, perhaps mindful of the schools, would bring forward Q. Maximus—"the one who by delaying restored our state to us"—and the whole Fabian clan; he would tell of battles, describe combats, and boast that Fabiola came through the steps of so great a nobility, so as to show in the roots what could not be shown in the branch. I, a lover of the Bethlehem lodging and of the Lord's manger, in which the virgin mother poured forth God as an infant, will bring forward the handmaid of Christ not from the nobility of ancient history, but from the humility of the Church.

3. And because at once, at the very beginning, there is set before me, as it were, a certain rock and storm of her detractors—namely, that having obtained a second marriage, she had first left one husband—I will not praise her as converted unless I first clear her as accused. Her first husband is said to have had such vices that not even a harlot or a base slave-girl could have endured them. If I should wish to relate these, I would destroy the virtue of the woman, who chose rather to bear the blame of the separation than to degrade the lower part of her own body and expose his stains. This alone I will set forth, which is enough for a modest matron and a Christian. The Lord decreed that a wife ought not to be dismissed, except for the cause of fornication; and if she has been dismissed, she is to remain unmarried. Whatever is enjoined upon men redounds equally upon women.

For neither is an adulterous wife to be dismissed while an adulterous husband is to be kept. "If anyone is joined to a harlot, he makes one body": therefore she too who is joined to a fornicator and impure man becomes one body with him. The laws of the Caesars are one thing, those of Christ another: Papianus teaches one thing, our Paul another. Among the former, the reins of unchastity are loosened for men; and, with only rape and adultery condemned, lust is everywhere permitted through brothels and slave-girls, as though rank made the guilt, not the will. Among us, what is not permitted to women is equally not permitted to men; and the same servitude is reckoned under equal condition. She dismissed, then, as they say, a vicious man: she dismissed one guilty of this and that crime: she dismissed—I have almost said—what the neighborhood cried aloud, though the wife alone did not betray.

But if she is accused because, having repudiated her husband, she did not remain unmarried, I will readily confess the fault, provided I may also relate the necessity. "It is better," says the Apostle, "to marry than to burn." She was a young woman, unable to preserve her widowhood. She saw another law in her members warring against the law of her mind, and herself bound and led captive to intercourse. She judged it better openly to confess her weakness, and to undergo a certain shadow of a wretched marriage, rather than, under the glory of a univira, to perform the works of harlots. The same Apostle wishes young widows to marry, to bear children, to give the adversary no occasion for reproach.

And immediately he explains why he wishes this: "For already some have turned back after Satan." Therefore Fabiola too, because she had persuaded herself, and thought that she had rightly dismissed her husband, and did not know the rigor of the Gospel, by which all pretext for marrying, while husbands live, is cut off from women—while avoiding many wounds of the devil, unwarily received one wound.

4. But why do I linger over things abolished and old, seeking to excuse a fault whose penitence she herself confessed?

Who would believe this—that after the death of her second husband, having returned to herself, at a time when negligent widows are wont, the yoke of servitude shaken off, to act more freely, to visit the baths, to flit about the squares, to carry about harlots' faces—she put on sackcloth, that she might publicly confess her error; and, with the whole city of Rome watching, before the day of Easter, in the Basilica once of Lateranus (who was beheaded by Caesar's sword), she stood in the rank of the penitents, while the Bishop, the Presbyters, and all the people wept together, her hair disheveled, her face pallid, her hands unkempt, her neck soiled? What sins does not such weeping purge? What inveterate stains do not such lamentations wash away? Peter erased his threefold denial by a threefold confession. Aaron's sacrilege and the head of the calf cast from gold were corrected by his brother's prayers. David, a holy and most gentle man, atoned for homicide together with adultery by a seven days' fast.

He lay upon the ground, wallowed in ashes, and, forgetful of his royal power, sought light in darkness. And looking only to him whom he had offended, he said with tearful voice: "Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee." And: "Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and confirm me with thy princely spirit." And it came to pass that he who had first taught me by his own virtues how, standing, I might not fall, taught through penitence how, having fallen, I might rise again. What do we read among kings so impious as Ahab, of whom Scripture says: "There was no other such as Ahab, who was sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord"?

When he had been rebuked by Elijah on account of the blood of Naboth, and had heard the anger of the Lord through the prophet: "Thou hast killed, and moreover taken possession: and behold I will bring evil upon thee, and will cut off thy posterity," and the rest—he rent his garments, and covered his flesh with sackcloth, and fasted in sackcloth, and walked with head bowed down. Then the word of God came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: "Hast thou not seen Ahab humbled before me? Because therefore he has humbled himself for my sake, I will not bring evil in his days." O happy penitence, which drew to itself the eyes of God, which changed the raging sentence of God by the confession of error! We read that Manasseh did the same in Paralipomenon, and that Nineveh did so in the Prophet, and also the Publican in the Gospel.

Of these, the first deserved to receive not only pardon but also the kingdom; the second broke the impending wrath of God; the third, beating his breast with his fists, did not lift his eyes to heaven; and the Publican departed far more justified by humble confession of vices than the Pharisee by proud boasting of virtues. It is not the place here for me to preach penitence, and, as if writing against Montanus and Novatus, to say that that sacrifice is pleasing to the Lord; and, "A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit"; and, "I prefer the penitence of the sinner rather than his death"; and, "Arise, arise, Jerusalem"; and many other things which the trumpets of the prophets sound forth.

5. This one thing I will say, which is both useful for readers and fitting for the present cause. She was not ashamed before the Lord on earth, and he will not put her to shame in heaven. She opened her wound to all, and Rome, weeping, beheld the discolored scar upon her body.

Her sides were unstitched, her head bare, her mouth closed. She did not enter the Church of the Lord, but reckoned herself separated outside the camp with Mary, sister of Moses, so that he whom the Priest had cast out might himself call her back. She came down from the throne of her delights, took up the millstone, made flour, and, with unshod feet, crossed the streams of her tears. She sat upon burning coals. These were her help. She struck the face by which she had pleased her second husband, hated jewels, could not bear to look at fine linens, fled ornaments. She grieved as though she had committed adultery, and sought with many costly remedies to heal one wound.

6. We have lingered long upon her penitence, in which we have as it were rested upon shallow ground, so that a broader field of her praises might open before us without any hindrance. Having received communion in the sight of the whole Church, what did she do?

On the good day, she did not forget the evils; and after shipwreck she did not wish again to try the perils of sailing. Rather, she squandered and sold her whole estate, as much as she was able to hold (and it was very ample, and matched her lineage), and, the money being gathered together, she prepared it for the uses of the poor; and she was the first of all to establish a νοσοκομεῖον (hospital), in which she might gather the sick from the squares, and cherish limbs of the wretched consumed by sickness and want. Shall I now describe the various calamities of men—severed noses, gouged-out eyes, half-burned feet, discolored hands, swollen bellies, wasted thighs, swollen legs, and worms teeming from eaten and putrid flesh? How often did she herself carry on her own shoulders those wasted by dropsy and filth? How often did she wash the purulent matter of wounds which another could not bear to look upon? She offered food with her own hand, and moistened the breathing corpse with little sips of broth.

I know that many rich and religious persons, because of the delicacy of their stomachs, exercise this kind of mercy through the ministry of others, and are merciful with their money, not their hand. These indeed I do not condemn, and I by no means interpret tenderness of soul as unfaithfulness: but as I grant pardon to weakness of stomach, so I extol to the heavens with praises the ardor of a perfect mind. Great faith despises this. I know what the rich man clothed in purple once failed to do for Lazarus, and by what retribution proud minds are condemned. He whom we despise, whom we cannot bear to look at, at whose sight nausea rises in us, is like us, formed of the same clay as we, composed of the same elements. Whatever he suffers, we too can suffer. Let us consider his wounds as our own; and all hardness of soul toward another will be broken by merciful thought toward ourselves.

Not if I had a hundred tongues, and a hundred mouths,
An iron voice,
Could I run through all the names of diseases,

which Fabiola turned into so many refreshments for the wretched, that many of the healthy poor envied the sick. Yet she was of like liberality toward clergy, monks, and virgins. What monastery was not sustained by her wealth? What naked or bedridden man was not clothed by Fabiola's garments? Into whose need did not her headlong and hastening generosity pour itself? Rome was too narrow a field for her mercy. She traversed therefore the islands, and the whole Etruscan sea, and the province of the Volsci, and the hidden recesses of the winding shores, in which the choirs of monks dwell, going about either in her own person or through holy and faithful men to whom her bounty was entrusted.

7. Whence suddenly, and contrary to everyone's expectation, she sailed to Jerusalem, where, received amid the throngs of many, she made brief use of our hospitality; and remembering that fellowship, I seem to myself still to see what I saw. Good Jesus, with what fervor, with what zeal was she intent upon the divine volumes!

And as though wishing to satisfy a certain hunger, she ran through the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Psalms, both proposing questions and storing up their solutions in the little chest of her breast. Nor indeed was she satisfied with the desire of hearing, but adding knowledge, she added sorrow; and, as it were, adding oil to the flame, she took on fuel for a greater ardor. One day, when we held in our hands the Numbers of Moses, and she asked me modestly what such a great mass of names meant to her—why the individual tribes were joined variously in different places—how the soothsayer Balaam so prophesied the future mysteries of Christ that scarcely any of the Prophets prophesied so openly of him—I answered as I was able, and seemed to satisfy her question. Then, turning back the book, she came to that place where the catalogue of all the encampments is described, through which the people, departing from Egypt, came at last to the streams of the Jordan.

And when she inquired the causes and reasons of each, in some I hesitated, in others I ran with unimpeded step, in most I simply confessed my ignorance. Then indeed she began to press me the more, and, as though it were not permitted to me to be ignorant of what I did not know, to expostulate, and to say that she was unworthy of such great mysteries. What more? The modesty of refusing wrung from me a promise that I would compose for her a work of this kind of discussion, which, up to the present time—as I now understand—deferred by the will of the Lord, shall be rendered to her memory: so that, clothed with the priestly garments of the earlier volume made for her, she may rejoice, through the solitude of this world, that she has at last come to the land of promise.

8. But let us continue what we had begun.

As we were seeking a fitting dwelling for so great a woman, since she desired solitude to such a degree that she was unwilling to be without Mary's lodging: behold, suddenly, as messengers ran to and fro, the whole East trembled, for from the farthest Maeotis, between the icy Tanais and the monstrous nations of the Massagetae, where the barriers of Alexander confine wild tribes among the crags of the Caucasus, swarms of Huns had burst forth, which, flying hither and thither on swift horses, filled everything alike with slaughter and terror. At that time the Roman army was absent, being held in Italy by civil wars. Herodotus relates that this nation, under Darius, king of the Medes, held the East captive for twenty years, and exacted yearly tribute from the Egyptians and Ethiopians. May Jesus turn away such beasts forever from the Roman world. Unlooked-for, they were everywhere present, and outstripping report by their speed, they spared neither religion, nor rank, nor age, nor did they pity wailing infancy.

Those who had not yet begun to live were forced to die; and, not knowing their own misfortune, they smiled amid the hands and weapons of the enemy. There was a consistent rumor among all that they were making for Jerusalem, and that, out of excessive greed for gold, they were hastening toward this city. The walls, neglected through the carelessness of peace, were being repaired. Antioch was under siege. Tyre, wishing to sever itself from the mainland, sought its ancient island site. Then we too were compelled to make ready ships, to be on the shore, to guard against the coming of the enemy, and, amid the raging winds, to fear the barbarians more than shipwreck—providing not so much for our own safety as for the chastity of the virgins. There was at that time a certain dissension among us, and domestic wars outdid the fighting of the barbarians. Fixed dwellings in the East, and a long-standing longing for the holy Places, kept us there.

She, who was wholly wrapped up in her bundles, and a stranger in every city, returned to her homeland, that she might live there in poverty where once she had been rich; dwelling as a stranger in her own land, she who before had entertained many guests: and (not to draw out the account further) in the very sight of the city of Rome she distributed to the poor what, as she herself testified, she had sold.

9. This alone grieves us, that we have lost the most precious jewel from the holy Places. Rome has recovered what she had lost, and the impudent, slanderous tongue of the Gentiles has been refuted by the testimony of their own eyes. Let others praise her mercy, her humility, her faith: I shall praise more the fervor of her spirit. She kept by heart the book in which, as a young man, I once exhorted Heliodorus to the desert; and, gazing upon the walls of Rome, she lamented that she was shut in there.

Forgetful of her sex, unmindful of her frailty, and desiring only solitude, she was there in truth where her mind dwelt. She could not be restrained by the counsels of her friends: she was as eager to burst forth from the city as though from chains. She called the careful management and cautious distribution of money a kind of unfaithfulness. She did not merely wish to hand out alms to others distributed by another; rather, having poured out her own resources as well, she herself wished to receive alms for Christ's sake. So she hastened, so impatient was she of delay, that you would have believed she was about to set out on a journey. And so, since she was always making ready, death was unable to find her unprepared.

10. Amid the praises of this woman, suddenly my friend Pammachius rises before me. Paulina sleeps that he may keep watch. She goes before her husband, that she may leave him as Christ's servant. He is heir of his wife, while others possess the inheritance.

Husband and wife vied with each other as to who should pitch a tent in the Harbor of Abraham: and this was the contest between the two, which of them should surpass the other in kindness. Both won, and both were overcome. Both confess themselves conquered and conquerors, since each accomplished what the other desired. They join their resources, they unite their wills, so that what rivalry would have scattered, concord might increase. No sooner said than done. A hospice is bought, and to the hospice a crowd flocks. "For there is no labor in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel." The seas bring in those whom the land receives into her lap. Let Rome send forth in haste those whom the gentle shore may comfort for the sailors.

What Publius once did on the island of Melita for a single Apostle, and (that I may leave no room for contradiction) in a single ship; this these men do frequently, and for many: nor is only the need of the poor sustained, but their bounty, inclined toward all, provides something even for those who have plenty. The whole world alike has heard of the hospice situated at the Roman Port. In a single summer Britain learned what Egypt and Parthia had truly known.

11. That which is written: "To them that fear the Lord, all things work together unto good," we have seen proved at the death of so great a woman. By a kind of foreknowledge of things to come, she had written to many monks that they should come and free her, laboring under a heavy burden, and that she might make for herself friends of the mammon of iniquity, who should receive her into everlasting habitations.

They came, they became her friends: she fell asleep as she had wished; and, laying aside at last her burden, she flew, lighter, to heaven. What a miracle Rome had in the living Fabiola, she showed forth also in her death. She had not yet breathed out her spirit, she had not yet rendered to Christ the soul she owed,

And now flying Rumor, herald of so great a mourning,

was gathering the people of the whole city for her funeral rites. Psalms resounded, and the gilded roofs of the temples, echoing, shook the Alleluia aloft.

Here a chorus of youths, there of old men, that in song they might bear
her womanly praises and deeds.

Not so did Furius triumph over the Gauls, nor Papirius over the Samnites, nor Scipio over Numantia, nor Pompey over the peoples of Pontus. They had conquered bodies, she subjugated spiritual wickednesses. I hear the troops going before, and the multitude flocking together band by band to her funeral. Neither the streets, nor the porticoes, nor the overhanging roofs above could contain those who gazed on. Then did Rome behold her own peoples as one: all rejoiced together in the glory of a penitent. Nor is it strange if men exulted over her salvation, she over whose conversion the Angels had rejoiced in heaven.

12. To you, Fabiola, I have given this aged offering of my talent, these funeral rites of duty. Often have we praised virgins, widows, and married women, whose garments were always white, "who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." Happy is the praise that is stained by no filth of a whole lifetime. Far be envy, let jealousy depart. If the master of the house is good, why is our eye evil?

She who had fallen among robbers was carried back on the shoulders of Christ. There are many mansions with the Father. Where sin abounded, grace did more abound. He to whom more is forgiven, loves more.

In the seventy-seventh Psalm, which according to the Evangelist Matthew we believe to be spoken in the person of the Lord, the history of the ten plagues in Egypt and of Israel's going forth into the wilderness is narrated. And since no one doubts that the things written actually happened, yet as though the letter sounds one thing while the spirit holds another hidden within: "I will open," it says, "my mouth in a parable: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

How great things we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us." Whence also the Apostle, in the same words, because in the same Spirit, says: "Now all these things happened unto them in figure: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come": And, "I would not that you should be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ." If, then, part of the history of the journey out of Egypt is understood spiritually, the rest as well, which the Apostle passed over for lack of time, is proved to be of the same meaning.

For the same Prophet, who in another place had said: "I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar: my soul hath been long a sojourner": unable to bear the absence of the Holy Land, groans tearfully and says: "These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: till I pass into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God: with the voice of joy and praise, the noise of one feasting." And in another Psalm: "Open thou my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things of thy law." Paul too says, "The law is spiritual": And the Lord himself says, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also: for he wrote of me." And the Gospel according to Luke:

"Then beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Therefore let the Jews, who are children, and who are unable to swallow solid food but are still nourished with the milk of infancy, read of the fleshly Pharaoh, and the Red Sea, through which one sails to India: and the Manna like coriander seed: and let them hear all that is written in a bodily sense—the leprosy of houses, and the leprosy of skin and of cloth; the murderous bull, and the beast guilty of adultery; and the Hebrew who, wishing to serve for the sake of wife and children, has his ear pierced with an awl. But let us, leaving Capernaum, once a most fair field, and going forth with Jesus into the desert, be fed with his loaves: if we are foolish and like beasts of burden, with barley loaves; but if we are rational creatures, with wheaten loaves, ground from the grain of wheat, which, falling into the earth and dying, brought forth much fruit.

Egypt was smitten with nine plagues, Pharaoh was broken, that he might let the people of God go. At the last he lost the firstborn, that the firstborn of Israel might be consecrated to the Lord. They who before had desired to hold them fast now urgently drive them out. The Destroyer passes over, and dares not touch the land of Goshen, a pastoral land watered by rains: for their doorposts were marked with the blood of the lamb, and by their deed they spoke: "The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us." Whence too that very feast is called the Passover, which we may call the "crossing over," in that, passing from worse to better things, we leave behind the darkness of Egypt. But now it is time, fulfilling our promise, to pursue in order the Stations of Israel.

2. It is written in the last part of the book of Numbers, which among the Hebrews is called Vajedabber: "These are the camps of the children of Israel, who went forth out of the land of Egypt by their companies, by the hand of Moses and Aaron"; which the Greeks call ἀπάρσεις (departures), but we, for the sake of the propriety of the language, have translated more significantly as "Mansions" or "Stations," or, since it is spoken of an army, as "camps." Now a catalogue of the Mansions is made from the first up to the last; and they are numbered together as forty-two, of which Matthew speaks: "From Abraham unto David are fourteen generations, and from David unto the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations, that is, forty-two generations in all." Through these the true Hebrew runs, who hastens to pass from earth to heaven: and, leaving behind the Egypt of this world, enters the land of promise.

Nor is it strange, if by that sacramental number we arrive at the kingdom of heaven: under which the Lord and Savior comes from the first Patriarch to the virgin, as it were to the Jordan, which, flowing with a full stream, overflowed with the graces of the Holy Spirit. Now that it is written that they went forth by the hand of Moses and Aaron, understand this as the law and the priesthood, works and the worship of God: of which the one needs the other. For it profits nothing to practice the virtues unless you know the Creator: nor does veneration of God avail unto salvation, unless you have fulfilled the precepts of the Maker. By these two hands, as by two Seraphim, we burst forth into confession of the holy Trinity, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.

They moved the camp from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; the day after the Passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians: and the Egyptians were burying those whom the Lord had slain among them, every firstborn in the land of Egypt: and upon their gods the Lord executed judgments.

Ramesses is interpreted by some as turbulent commotion, or bitterness and the commotion of the moth: but we judge it to be more truly expressed as the thunder of joy. To this city, which was in the farthest borders, the people were gathered who desired to go out into the desert, in that, leaving behind the tumult of the age, they were being moved away from their former vices, and from the moth of sins that was previously consuming them, so that, turning all bitterness into sweetness, they might hear the voice of God thundering from above on Mount Sinai. That the divine words and the utterances of the Scriptures are called thunders in the wheel of this age and world, the Psalmist declares, saying: "The voice of thy thunder was in the wheel." And those who heard the voice of God the Father at the baptism of the Savior thought it was thunder.

When, then, we have been stirred by the Evangelical trumpet, and roused by the thunder of joy, we go forth in the first month, when "winter is past and gone," when it is the beginning of spring, when the earth is in travail, when all things are renewed, and we go forth on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow of the Passover, in the full light of the month, after the eating of the spotless lamb: having our feet shod according to the Apostle, and our loins girt with chastity, and staves prepared in our hands.

For although in Egypt, on the fourteenth day of the month, keeping the Passover, we ate the lamb, yet the full light is completed for us then, when with a high hand we let go of Ramesses, which is called "high," either because it struck Egypt, or because it protected Israel while the Egyptians looked on, who marvel that we go out from the world, and are tormented with envy, and afterward, desiring to hold us back, are choked in persecutions: when also the Egyptians bury their firstborn, and dead fathers, by their earthly works, weigh down their dead sons. To me the firstborn of the Egyptians seem to be the doctrines of the Philosophers, by which men, deceived and ensnared, were held fast. These, when the living Israel has escaped them, they surround with their own dead, lest they should imitate the example of those going forth.

Further, as to what follows: "He executed judgments upon their gods," or as the Septuagint translated it, "vengeances": the Hebrews suppose that on the night the people went out, all the temples in Egypt were destroyed, whether by earthquake or by the stroke of lightnings. Spiritually, however, we learn that as we go out from Egypt, the idols of errors collapse, and all the cult of perverse doctrines is shaken.

And the children of Israel setting out from Ramesses, pitched camp at Soccoth.

The Second Station. Here they bake unleavened bread, and first pitch their tents, whence also the place received its name from the thing itself. For Soccoth is interpreted in our language as tabernacles, or tents. And for this reason, in the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, is the feast of Tabernacles. When, therefore, we have gone out from Egypt, we first pitch our tabernacles, knowing that we must press on further. Then we do not eat of the leaven of Egypt, of the leaven of malice and wickedness: but we feed on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, fulfilling in deed the Lord's precepts: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." In this Station it is enjoined upon us that we should always be mindful of our going forth out of Egypt: that we should celebrate the passing over, that is, the Passover of the Lord; that we should consecrate to the Lord the firstborn of our womb, and of all virtues, in the place of the firstborn of Egypt, who were struck down.

And setting out from Soccoth, they pitched camp at Etham, which is at the edge of the wilderness.

The Third Station is offered after the tabernacles, in which the Lord is first seen by night in a pillar of fire, and by day in a pillar of cloud, so that he might go before the people, and become the leader of the journey. Etham sounds to us as strength, and perfection, of which the prophet sings: "Thou didst rend the rivers of Etham," that is, "of the strong." It is great strength to leave Egypt, and to abide at the edge of the wilderness. From this we understand that the place Soccoth was still near the regions of Egypt. For in that it is said, which is at the farthest borders of the wilderness, it is shown to be among the confines both of the desert and of Egypt. Let us prepare for ourselves strength, let us take up perfect vigor, so that amid the darkness of errors and the confusion of night, the light of the knowledge of Christ may appear.

Let our day too have a protecting cloud: that with these as guides we may be able to reach the holy Land.

And setting out from Etham, they returned to Phihahiroth, which is opposite Beelsephon, and pitched camp facing Magdol.

The Fourth Station is Phiahiroth, which is interpreted "the mouth of nobles," and is written with the letter Heth. Some wrongly think "hiroth" means "villages," and the error is manifest, in that for the aforesaid letter they read the letter AI. Beel-sephon is turned into our language as "lord of the north," or "the ascent of the watchtower," or "having secrets." Furthermore Magdol means "greatness" or "tower." Having taken up strength, then, we are ennobled in the Lord, and we despise the secrets of the idol Beel-sephon, and we decline its magnificence and towered pride. For it is not from the south, whence the Lord comes, and from the noonday quarter, in which the bridegroom reclines among flowers; but the possessor of the north wind, most cold, from which evils grow hot upon the earth: which, though most cold, is called by the name "right," falsely assuming for itself the name of virtue and of the right hand, though it is wholly on the left.

And setting out from Phihahiroth, they passed through the midst of the sea into the desert: and they walked a journey of three days in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched camp at Marah.

The Fifth Station is at Marah, which is interpreted "bitterness." They could not have come to the depths of the Red Sea, and seen Pharaoh perishing with his army, unless they had first had nobilities in their mouth, that is, virtues in the confession of the Lord, when they believed God, and Moses his servant: and heard from him: "The Lord fought for you, and you shall be silent": and, as victors, with Miriam leading, they began to resound songs of triumph with timbrels and dances. "Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously glorified; he has cast horse and rider into the sea." After the preaching of the Gospel, after the tabernacles of those migrating, after strength taken up, after the nobility of confession, the Egyptians and Pharaoh again meet us. From which we learn that ambushes are always to be guarded against, and the mercy of God is to be invoked, so that we may be able to escape Pharaoh pursuing us, and that he may be drowned for us in spiritual baptism.

To those going out from the Red Sea, the desert of Sur presents itself, which is also called the wilderness of Etham, in which, walking three days, they had no water: and they came to Marah, which took its name from bitterness. The spring had water, but did not have sweetness. The people murmur, seeing water, and unable to bear drinking it. Understand Marah as the waters of the letter that kills, into which, if the confession of the cross be brought, and the sacraments of the Lord's passion be joined: everything that seemed undrinkable and sad and harsh is turned into sweetness. Whence also it is written: "God set for the people a law and judgments, and tempted him." For where there is greatness of grace, there is greatness of peril. And be not afraid, if after victory you come to bitterness: because those keeping the true Passover eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and temptation brings proof, proof brings hope, hope brings forth salvation.

Among physicians also, a certain antidote, tempering harmful humors, is named from bitterness, which is shown to be sweet, restoring health: just as, on the contrary, pleasure and luxury end in bitterness, Scripture saying: "Which for a time makes thy throat fat, but in the end thou wilt find more bitter than gall".

And setting out from Marah, they came to Elim, where there were twelve fountains of waters, and seventy palm trees; and there they pitched camp.

The Sixth Station is rendered "rams" and "the strong." How beautiful the order of the virtues: after victory, temptation; after temptation, refreshment. From bitterness we come to rams, and to the robust leaders of the flock, whom before Ezekiel the Lord says he will judge: because some of them trampled the waters and pressed down the sheep: others were gentle and placid. Of these the twenty-eighth Psalm also speaks: Bring to the Lord, O sons of God, bring to the Lord the sons of rams. We hold the lodging of the Sixth Station. Never before have the purest fountains appeared, except where the teaching of masters burst forth. Nor is there doubt but that this speaks of the twelve Apostles: from whose fountains derived waters irrigate the dryness of the whole world. Beside these waters grew seventy palms, which we understand to be teachers of the second order, Luke the Evangelist testifying that there were twelve Apostles, and seventy disciples of lesser rank, whom also the Lord sent before him two by two.

Of these Paul also relates that the Lord appeared first to the eleven, then to all the Apostles, meaning some to be understood as the first, and others as the second disciples of Christ. Let us drink of fountains of this kind, and, devouring the sweet fruits of victory, let us be prepared for the remaining Stations.

And setting out from Elim, they pitched camp by the Red Sea.

The Red Sea, which in Hebrew is called Jam suph, is the seventh Station. And it is asked how, after the crossing of the Red Sea, and the fountain of Marah, and Elim, they should have come again to the Red Sea, unless perhaps, as they went on their journey, some bay of the sea presented itself, near which they pitched camp. For it is one thing to cross the sea; another to pitch tents nearby. From which we are warned that even after the Evangelical discipline and the sweetest foods of triumphs, the sea sometimes appears to us again: and past dangers are set before our eyes. Although there is a great difference between crossing the sea and beholding the sea from afar. The word Jam suph, among the Hebrews, is composed of "sea" and "red." Suph, moreover, is called both "red" and "reed." Whence we may suspect that they came to a certain marsh and lake, which was full of sedge and rushes. That Holy Scripture calls every gathering of waters "sea" is beyond doubt.

This Station is not found in Exodus: but it is written in its place, that from the Red Sea they came to the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month of their going out from Egypt, that is, the thirty-first day after they went out from Ramesses.

And setting out from the Red Sea, they pitched camp in the wilderness of Sin.

The Eighth Station, though according to the order of Exodus it is the seventh. But it should be known that the whole desert up to Mount Sinai is called the wilderness of Sin, and from the whole province even the place of a single Station received its name: just as Moab is the name both of the city and of the province. In this wilderness there are five Stations: Jam suph, of which we spoke above, and the wilderness of Sin, and Dophca, and Alus, and Raphidim, of which we shall speak in what follows. Sin, moreover, is interpreted "bush," or "hatred," both of which serve for mystical understanding, because after we have come to the place from which the Lord is to speak to us, we deserve great hatred from the enemy. Then we shall see the bush burning and not consumed: the Church inflamed by persecutions, and, the Lord speaking within it, not perishing.

And note that in the eighth Station, in which are our winepresses, whence also the eighth Psalm is titled with this heading, we take the desert of the bush: because more are the children of the desolate one than of her who has a husband.

And setting out from the wilderness of Sin, they pitched camp at Dophca.

The Ninth Station. This name among the Hebrews is called κροῦμα, that is, "a knocking": according to which the Lord also says: Knock, and it shall be opened to you. In the book of Hebrew Names, however, we have translated it "adhesion" and "remission," which should not disturb the reader. Nor let him think we write inconsistently; for there, according to what is commonly held, we published it, if the middle letter is written with the letter BETH: but here, in the Hebrew volume, I have found it written with PHE, which letter sounds more of knocking than of glue: and the sense is manifest: after the responses of the Lord, after the number eight of the resurrection, we begin to knock at the sacraments of Christ. I would ask the prudent and studious reader to know that I translate names according to the Hebrew Truth.

Otherwise, in the Greek and Latin codices, apart from a few, we find everything corrupted: and I marvel that certain learned and ecclesiastical men have wished to translate things not found in the Hebrew, and to seek fabricated explanations from mistranslated words, so that in the present case, instead of Dophca, they read Rephca, putting one letter for another, because RESH and DALETH are distinguished by a small point, and they interpret it as "healing": and thereupon pursue a similar tropology.

Setting out from Dophca, they pitched camp at Alus.

The tenth Encampment is not found in Exodus, and is believed to be contained within the wilderness of Sin, as the same book relates. "All the multitude of the children of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin, by their Encampments according to the word of the Lord, and they came to Raphidim." From which it is clear that several Encampments are indicated under the name of one region. And Alus is interpreted "leaven," which a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour until the whole was leavened. In this wilderness the people murmur because of hunger, and turning back they behold from afar in the cloud the glory of God; and in the evening they received a quail, and in the morning of the next day, manna.

And note that at the tenth Encampment leaven is placed, and after the eating of flesh, manna is given, and the Scripture is fulfilled: "Man did eat the bread of Angels."

"Having set out from Alus, they pitched camp in Raphidim: and there was no water there for the people."

The eleventh Encampment is one which I found violently interpreted in the book of Hebrew Names as "he saw the mouth sufficing for them," or certainly "the vision of the mouth of the mighty"; but it is better rendered "the dissolution of the mighty," or "the health of the mighty," or, according to the property of the Syriac tongue, "the relaxing of hands." This too is read in Exodus after the departure from the wilderness of Sin. In it the people complain because of the burning of thirst: a fountain bursts forth from the rock of Horeb, and flows: and because they tempted God, the place obtained also the name of Raphidim, of temptation, that is, Massah. Moses ascends the mountain: Joshua fights against Amalek on the other side: at the sign of the cross the enemy is overcome: when the hands of the one praying are let down, the victorious foe pursues.

Moses sits upon the stone spoken of by Zechariah, which had seven eyes: and in the book of Samuel it is called Aben ezer, that is, "the stone of help": and both his hands are supported, Aaron and Hur, that is, "the mountainous one" and "the shining one." When the adversary is overcome, Jethro arrives, brings back Zipporah and both his sons; he gives counsel concerning the seventy Elders: and, as a figure of the Church gathered from the Gentiles, the fortification of the Law is completed, the Gospel supplying what is lacking. Beautifully, moreover, Raphidim is called "the dissolution and health of the mighty," either because of Amalek scattered, or because of Israel healed. But if, according to the Syrians, Raphidim sounds "the relaxing of hands," we shall say that this name was imposed on the place because of the offense of the people, since they murmured against the Lord.

These things we touch upon rather than expound, content to have briefly indicated that after the leaven of Alus and the Massah of the Church, manifold temptations of demons are wont to arise against us.

The twelfth Encampment. At once the number of the Apostles should come to your mind. One out of many, but greater than all, is not set apart in order, yet excels in merit. They arrive at this place on the forty-seventh day, Scripture saying: "In the third month of the going forth of the children of Israel out of Egypt, on this day they came into the wilderness of Sinai, and having set out from Raphidim, they came into the desert of Sinai, and pitched camp in the wilderness, and Israel encamped there over against the mountain; and Moses went up to God: and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying," and so forth. And again: "Go, he said, to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready for the third day: because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai, in the sight of all the people." Which was also done.

And they washed their garments, and having been separated from intercourse with their wives, on the third day the Lord came down upon the mountain; which, as it smoked, and with lightning, thunder, darkness, voice, and trumpet terrifying the hearts of mortals, Moses spoke, and the Lord answered him. Let us reckon the number, and we shall find that on the fiftieth day of the going forth of Israel out of Egypt the law was given on the summit of Mount Sinai.

Whence also the solemnity of Pentecost is celebrated, and afterward the sacrament of the Gospel is completed by the descent of the Holy Spirit: so that, just as to the former people, on the fiftieth day—the true Jubilee, and the true Year of Remission, and the true fifty and five hundred denarii which are forgiven to debtors—the law was given; so also to the Apostles, and those who were with them, constituted in the number one hundred and twenty of the age of Moses, the Holy Spirit descended, and with divided tongues of believers, the whole world was filled with Evangelical preaching. It would be long were I to wish to relate again what was commanded in the law: how the tabernacle was made, what variety of sacrifices, what diversity of vessels, what vestments of the Pontiff, what ceremonies of the Priests and Levites, what they did; how the people were numbered.

This much only will I say, that the middle part of Exodus, and the whole book of Leviticus, and not a few precepts of Numbers, and the distribution among the several tribes of the people, and the offerings of the princes, are described at this Encampment, and the discussion of many volumes could scarcely suffice for this place. Now SINAI is interpreted "bramble bushes"; not one, as above in the wilderness of Sin, but many: so that there it is the beginning, here the perfection; there solitary, here the number multiplied. For it is one thing to possess one grace, and another to possess all.

The thirteenth Encampment, whose name is given by way of interpretation, is called among the Hebrews Cabatorh atthava. The sense of it, moreover, is that of the Gospel, that Jesus, having been baptized, was at once led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and tempted by the devil. So too Israel, after familiar converse with the Lord, after he had tarried near Mount Sinai for one year and four days, by a wondrous disposition of the camps went forth into the wilderness of PHARAN, which is interpreted "the wild ass" or "wildness," and there succumbs to the evil beast, loathing the heavenly bread, and desiring the flesh of the Egyptians, when a sudden fire devoured many; and by the intercession of Moses, the devouring flame consumed the ground. Then they receive quails, and devour them even to nausea and vomiting. Seventy Elders are chosen; they go to the door of the tabernacle; two remain, Eldad and Medad, not neglecting the command, but submitting in humility, deeming themselves unworthy of the honor.

Whence also, though absent, they prophesy; and when the people had been satisfied, while the food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God went up against them, and slew the fat ones among them, and hindered the chosen of Israel, lest they should run swiftly to evil: whence also the place was called "the graves of lust," or, as we read in the Septuagint, "the memorial of desire." From all of which we are all taught, we who have dismissed worldly wisdom, and have despised the pots of Egypt, that we ought not to murmur against the heavenly bread of the Scriptures, nor seek the poisons of the Egyptians, who are men of much flesh, but the simple food of manna; otherwise, if we should wish again to crave those things, we shall devour them even to nausea; and at once we shall be tormented by the fire of the Lord, and our desire shall be turned into graves, so that we shall be whitened sepulchres, which appear beautiful to men outwardly, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness.

The fourteenth Encampment is in the wilderness of Pharan, which is rendered "courts." In it Aaron and Miriam murmur against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman, and, as a figure of jealousy against the Church gathered from the Gentiles, the people of the Jews are covered with the filth of leprosy: nor does it return to the tabernacle and recover its former health, until the appointed time of the fullness of the Gentiles is fulfilled. And let the careful reader attend to this, that after virtue had been consummated in the number twelve, because Israel grew proud, and in the graves of lust desired the flesh of Egypt, again a different foundation is laid, and it enters the courts, that is, the vestibule of virtue, showing us both that those who stand can fall, and that those who have fallen can rise again. For Jesus was set for the fall and rising again of many, and he himself speaks through the Prophet: "Shall not he that falleth arise again?"

This, moreover, is the fifteenth Encampment. And it should be noted that the remaining eighteen Encampments, whose catalogue is now briefly set down, from Rithmah as far as Ezion-geber, that is, up to the thirty-second Encampment, are contained under the name of the wilderness of Pharan, in which we understand all the things that are written to have occurred at various times: which, because they are not distributed among the several Encampments, will likewise be spoken of by us in common, so that afterward we may come to the rest. RITHMAH is translated "sound," or "juniper," although many contend that ἄρκευθος among the Greeks signifies another kind of tree.

Now the first Gradual Psalm too, according to the Hebrew Truth, means "juniper," where it is written: "What shall be given to thee, or what shall be added to thee, for the deceitful tongue?" and the Prophet answers: "Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper," for which among us it is read "desolate." They say that this wood preserves fire for a long time, so that if embers be covered with its ash, they will last even to a year. From this we learn that after the graves of lust and the vestibules, we pass to the wood which retains heat for a long time, so that we may be fervent in spirit, and with clear sound and exalted voice preach the Gospel of the Lord. From this Encampment, then, as far as the thirty-second, histories of this sort are contained. Twelve spies are sent to the Holy Land: a cluster of grapes is brought back on a pole, and the Passion of Christ is briefly shown.

The people of the Jews murmur, dreading the assault of the giants. He fights against Amalek and the Canaanite, God not willing, and being conquered understands what sacrifices he ought to perform in the Holy Land. Dathan and Abiram, and the sons of Korah, rise up against Moses and Aaron, and are swallowed by a chasm of the earth. Between the dead and the living the High Priest, armed with a censer, enters in the midst, and the running wrath of God is stayed by the voice of the priest. The rod of Aaron brings forth both flower and leaves, and, ever green in its dryness, is consecrated to eternal memory. Not yet is there a temple, and already there are keepers of it; not yet Priests, and already Levites offer sacrifices, and a mystical discourse describes their portions. A red heifer is burnt in holocaust, and its ashes are a sprinkling of atonement. The figures of all these things demand books of their own, and I think it better to be silent than to say too little.

The sixteenth Encampment, which is interpreted in the Greek tongue ῥοά ἀποκοπή, in Latin "the division of the pomegranate," which others call the "malum granatum." The fruit of this tree is understood in Scripture in two ways: either as the bosom of the Church, which covers with its rind the whole multitude of believers, or as the variety and harmony of virtues, according to that which is written: "Now the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul"; and thus the individual grades are divided, so that all are held together in the same structure.

"And having set out from Rimmon-perez, they pitched camp in Libnah."

The seventeenth Encampment, which we may render as "brick," although some, translating it "Lebbona," have wrongly interpreted it as "whiteness." We read in Exodus of the bricks of the Egyptians, in the making of which the people groaned. We read in Malachi of bricks, in place of which Idumea, when destroyed, strives to set up polished stones. And a brick in Ezekiel, upon which the siege of Jerusalem is depicted. From which we learn that in the journey of this life, and in the passing from one thing to another, we now grow, now diminish, and often, after the order of the Church, pass again to the works of brick.

"And having set out from Libnah, they pitched camp in Rissah."

The eighteenth Encampment is rendered "bridles." For if after setting out we descend again to works of clay, we must be curbed, and our wandering and headlong course must be directed by the reins of the Scriptures. This word, as far as memory suggests, I know I have nowhere else found in the sacred Scriptures among the Hebrews, apart from the apocryphal book, which the Greeks call λεπτή, that is, the Little Genesis: there, in the building of the tower, it is set for the "stadium," in which boxers and athletes are exercised, and the swiftness of runners is proven. The Psalmist also says: "With bit and bridle bind fast their jaws, who come not near to thee." And the Apostle: "Know ye not that they who run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain."

"And having set out from Rissah, they pitched camp in Kehelathah."

The nineteenth Encampment is interpreted "Church." The wandering steps of the runners are drawn back by the bridles to the Church, and they hasten to enter again the doors which they had before left.

"And having set out from Kehelathah, they pitched camp in Mount Shepher."

The twentieth Mansion is interpreted "beauty," and is established on the mountain of comeliness, of which also the beginning of the fourteenth Psalm speaks: "Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? Or who shall rest in thy holy mountain?" See what bridles profit. They draw us back from vices, they lead us in to the choirs of virtues, and cause us to dwell in Christ, the most beautiful mountain. This, according to Daniel, is the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, which grew into a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This one, according to Ezekiel, wounded the prince of Tyre. To this one, in Isaiah and Micah, the peoples flow together, saying: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths."

And setting out from mount Sapher, they encamped in Arada.

The twenty-first Mansion is turned into "miracle." How beautiful the order of advances, how excellent the weaving together of believers. After the work of brick we are bridled: after the bridles we are led into the Church: after the dwelling of the Church, we ascend to Christ the mountain, placed on which we are astonished and marvel: so that our speech in his praises is overcome, finding in him what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man.

And setting out from Arada, they encamped in Maceloth.

The twenty-second Mansion is turned into "assemblies." For in this the multitude of believers stands together: the Church of the firstborn, the harmony of all virtues. Then indeed we can say: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. And, The Lord made those of one manner to dwell in a house.

And setting out from Maceloth, they encamped in Thaath.

The twenty-third mansion can also be understood as "beneath," but we shall better interpret it as "fear." You have come to the Church, you have ascended to the most beautiful mountain, in astonishment and wonder you confess the greatness of Christ: you see there many companions of your virtue: be not high-minded, but fear. For the Lord resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. And he that exalteth himself, let him take heed lest he fall. The mighty shall be mightily tormented. Fear is the guardian of virtues: security is easily prone to a fall. Whence also in a certain Psalm, after the prophet had said: The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing, in a place of pasture there he hath set me: he joins fear, which is the guardian of blessedness, and adds: Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me. And the sense is: while I dread torments, I preserved the grace which I had received.

And setting out from Thaath, they encamped in Thare.

The twenty-fourth Mansion, which some render as "malice," or "pasture," and they would not err if it were written with the letter Ai; but now, since there is a double aspiration in the last syllable, the cause of the error is manifest. I find this same word, written with the same letters, applied to the father of Abraham, who, in the above-mentioned apocryphal volume of Genesis, having driven off the crows that were laying waste the grain of men, obtained the name of "driver away" or "repeller." Let us therefore also imitate Thare, and carefully drive away the birds of the air which hasten to devour the sown wheat beside the way. For also the Patriarch Abraham, in a type of Israel, divided the members of the victims of sacrifice, which he does not allow to be devoured by the birds; and the crows of the valleys pluck out the eye of the scorner; and the true Moses takes an Ethiopian woman; and Elijah is fed by ravens.

If you have fear, you will be careful: if you are careful, the lion will not be able to enter into the folds of your sheep: which you may refer either to the leaders of the Churches, or to the guarding of your own soul, into which the lion, the devil, strives to enter through the various openings of the vices.

And setting out from Thare, they encamped in Methca.

The twenty-fifth Mansion is turned into "sweetness." You have ascended to the height, you have admired the choirs of virtues, you have feared ruin, you have driven off the ambushers, the sweet fruit of your labor immediately follows you: and, in the manner of letters, the bitterness of the roots will be compensated by the sweetness of the fruits, and you will say: "How sweet are thy words to my throat, above honey to my mouth." And you will hear the Bridegroom singing in harmony with you: "Thy lips, my sister, my spouse, drop as the honeycomb." For what is sweeter than discipline? What better than instruction? What sweeter than the Lord? "O taste and see that the Lord is sweet." Whence also Samson, who had driven away the birds from his fruits, and had tied together the foxes which lay waste the vineyards, and had slain the roaring lion, found a honeycomb in the mouth of the dead beast.

And setting out from Methca, they encamped in Asmona.

The twenty-sixth Mansion in our tongue sounds "haste," according to that which is written in the Psalm, "Ambassadors shall come out of Egypt." Instead of "ambassadors," in the Hebrew we read "those who hasten": so that after we have harvested the sweet fruits of our labor, we should not be content with rest and leisure; but again hastening toward further things, forget the things behind, and stretch ourselves out unto the things before.

And setting out from Asmona, they encamped in Moseroth.

The twenty-seventh Mansion sounds "bonds," or "disciplines," so that with hastening step we may proceed to the teachers, and wear down their thresholds, and count the precepts of virtues and the mysteries of the Scriptures as eternal bonds: according to that which is said in Isaiah, "And the men of Saba, tall of stature, shall pass over to thee, and shall be thine; they shall walk after thee bound in chains." And "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ." There are twofold bonds in the Scriptures: as long as Samson broke them, he conquered his enemies. And we read of the harlot, "a bond in her hands". And from the person of the Lord, saying, "Let us break their bonds, and cast away their yoke from us." And elsewhere, "The snare is broken, and we are delivered." But Christ's bonds are voluntary, and are turned into embraces. Whoever shall have been bound with these will say, "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me."

And setting out from Moseroth, they encamped in Banejacan.

The twenty-eighth Mansion is rendered "sons of necessity," or of "stridor." If you begin from the number one, and gradually adding proceed up to seven, the number twenty-eight is produced. Who these sons of necessity are, let the Psalm itself teach us: "Bring to the Lord, O ye sons of God, bring to the Lord the young of rams." What is this necessity so great that it is imposed on the unwilling? When you have been instructed in the divine Scriptures, and have made their laws and testimonies the bonds of truth, you will contend with adversaries, you will bind them, and lead them bound into captivity; and out of enemies once wretched and captive, you will make them free children of God, so that you will suddenly say with Sion: "I was barren and did not bear, carried away and captive, and who has nourished these?

I was forsaken and alone, and where were these?" You marvel at Isaiah: recognize the mysteries of the same Psalm. "The voice of the Lord is in power, the voice of the Lord is in magnificence, the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars," so that after he has broken the adversaries, and shaken the peoples of the nations, formerly desolate, the stags may be prepared in the mountains, and the beloved may be as the son of unicorns, and in his temple all may speak of glory. Furthermore, what we have translated "sons of stridor," refer to that sense, that through fear of punishment and of that place where "there is weeping and gnashing of teeth," forsaking the bonds of the devil, the crowd of believers submits its neck to Christ the Lord.

The twenty-ninth Mansion is interpreted "messenger," or "expedition," and "girding," or certainly (which we judge more truly) κατακοπή, that is, "cutting down." We cannot, as teachers, make our disciples and believers sons of necessity, except by having slain their teachers. Let us be cruel in slaying them: let not our hand spare to draw out the shoulder, or even the tip of the ear, from the mouth of the lion. "Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord negligently, and who keeps back his sword from blood." Whence also David: "In the morning," he says, "I put to death all the sinners of the land." Concerning the messenger, however, and the girding, we can say briefly this, that we should suggest great goads toward virtue to the sons of necessity, when we have announced to them the rewards of things to come, and taught them, girded, to enter into wars. Whichever of these three the teacher has accomplished, he stands upon the mountain.

The thirtieth Mansion is interpreted "goodness," so that when we have arrived at the perfect man, at the priestly degree, and at the age of the fullness of Christ, in which age also Ezekiel was, beside the river Chebar, we may be able, with David, to sing in the thirtieth Psalm: "In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded." For "the good shepherd layeth down his life for his sheep."

The thirty-first Mansion is interpreted παράβασις, that is, passage or crossing over.

To this comes the true Hebrew, that is, περάτης, or "one who crosses over," who can say: "Passing over, I shall behold this great vision"; concerning which also the Psalmist sings: "Neither did they that passed by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you." For the figure of this world passes away, and therefore the saints desire to pass over to better things, and, not content with their present state, groan daily. "I remembered these things, and poured out my soul in me, for I shall pass over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God." It would take too long, if I wished to gather examples from all the Scriptures on the word "passage."

The thirty-second Mansion is rendered "woods of a man," or "the hewings of a man," which is more meaningfully said in Greek ξυλοκισμοὶ ἀνδρὸς, and is written with the letter "Ai," not, as the Greeks and Latins mistakenly do, with "Gimel." Whence in the wilderness is a multitude of woods, unless it be that the discipline of a diligent and careful teacher is shown, hewing shapeless logs, and shaping and making various vessels which are necessary in a great house? "The hewings of a man" can, by the forests and every kind of tree, thereby also signify the multitude of believers, David saying: "We have found it in the fields of the wood." Up to this point the wilderness of Pharan contains eighteen Mansions, which, described in the catalogue, are not placed in the itinerary above.

It is asked why the eighth Mansion is now said to be the thirty-third. But it must be known that the former is written with the letter "Samech," and is interpreted "bramble," or "hatred": but this one is written with "Sade," and is rendered "commandment." And that which is joined to it, "Cades," is not, as many suppose, said to mean "holy": but "changed," or "translated." We read in Genesis according to the Hebrew Truth, where Judah, thinking Thamar a harlot, sent gifts; and the messenger of the gifts inquires, "where is the cadesa," that is, "the harlot," whose garb is changed from that of other women. In many other places also we find this same thing. But if it is interpreted "holy," it must be understood kata ἀντίφρασιν by way of contrast: just as the Fates (Parcae) are so called from the fact that they by no means spare (parcunt), and war (bellum) is called such though it is by no means beautiful (bellum), and a grove (lucus) though it gives no light (luceat).

In this Mansion Mary dies and is buried; and because of the waters of contradiction Moses and Aaron offend the Lord, and are forbidden to cross the Jordan; and messengers having been sent to Edom, passage is requested, and is not granted. Who would fear, after so many advances, the murmuring of the people, and the offense of the teachers, and the denied passage of the way? It seems to me that in Mary, Prophecy is dead: in Moses and Aaron, an end is set to the Law and the Priesthood of the Jews: because neither can they themselves cross over to the land of promise, nor lead the believing people out of the wilderness of this world. And note that after the death of Prophecy, and the waters of contradiction, they cannot cross the fleshly and earthly Idumean; and although with many prayers and effort they do not obtain the way; but Edom goes forth against them with a numerous people, and with a strong hand.

The interpretation also of the name suits death and offense and the denied passage. For where there is a commandment, there is also sin: where there is sin, there is offense: where there is offense, there is death. This is the Mansion of which the Psalmist sings, "The Lord will shake the desert of Cades."

And setting out from Cades, they encamped in mount Or, in the utmost edge of the land of Edom. And Aaron the priest went up into mount Or at the commandment of the Lord: and there he died in the fortieth year of the departure of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, the fifth month, the first day of the month. When Aaron was one hundred and twenty-three years old when he died in mount Or. And king Arad the Canaanite, who dwelt towards the south, in the land of Chanaan, heard that the children of Israel were come.

The thirty-fourth Mansion, which most interpret as "light": nor would they err, if it were written with the letter "Aleph." Others say "skin," and they too would speak truly, if "Ai" were placed there. Some say "opening," which could be accepted, if it had the element "Heth." But since it is read with "He," it is rather understood as "mountain": and it can be read, "Aaron the priest ascended into the mountain of the mountain," that is, into its summit. From which we observe that the Pontiff died not simply on a mountain, but on the mountain of a mountain, so that a place worthy of his merits might be shown. He dies, moreover, in that year in which the new people was about to enter the land of promise, on the farthest borders of the land of the Idumeans.

And although he left the priesthood on the mountain to his son Eleazar, and though the Law leads those who fulfill it to the summit, yet that very sublimity is not across the streams of the Jordan, but at the farthest limits of earthly works: and the people mourn him thirty days. Aaron is mourned; Jesus is not mourned. In The law there is a descent to the underworld; in the Gospel, a passage over to paradise. The Canaanite also heard that Israel had come, and in the place of the spies, where he once knew the people had stumbled, brings on battle, and leads Israel captive.

And again battle is fought in the same place: the victor, by his vow, is conquered, the conquered prevail, and the name of the place is called "Horma," that is, "anathema." It is not tedious for me to say these same things, and it is necessary for readers, that human condition always fluctuates in the way of this age, and one dies in the valley, another in the plains, another on the mountain: nor simply on the mountain, but on the mountain of the mountain, that is, on the lofty summit. And when the enemy, finding us bereft of God's help, invades and leads us captive, let us not despair of salvation, but arm ourselves again for battle. It can happen that we conquer where we were conquered, and triumph in the same place where before we were captives.

And setting out from Mount Or, they pitched camp in Selmona. And setting out from Selmona, they came to Phinon.

These two Mansions, the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth, are not found in the order of the history, but instead it is written for them: "They went out from Mount Or, by the way of the Red Sea, and went around the land of Edom." From which it is shown that they were placed within the borders and circuit of the land of Edom. Nor is it read according to custom: "And setting out from Mount Or, they pitched camp in Selmona," or "in Phinon," but after the circuit of the land of the Idumeans it comes to the end, and says, "The children of Israel, setting out, pitched camp in Oboth." Nor did it say, they set out from this or that place, because it had passed over two Mansions in silence, which, having omitted them in the reckoning, it restores in the total sum. The first Mansion, "Selmona," is interpreted "a little image." The second, "Phinon," diminutively "a mouth"—understand this from "os" (mouth), not from "os" (bone).

In these, after Aaron's death, they murmur against God and Moses, they loathe the manna, and are wounded by serpents, and—as a type of the Savior, who triumphed over the true and ancient serpent on the gibbet of the cross—the poisons of the devil are overcome. Whence also the little image of the true and express image of the Son of God is preserved by one who gazes upon His Passion: and what he believes in his heart, he pronounces with his mouth, reading that saying of the Apostle: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." And note at the same time, that both Mansions are named diminutively (ὑποκοριστικῶς), because we see in part, and we prophesy in part: and "now we see through a glass, darkly."

The thirty-seventh Mansion is rendered "magicians," or "pythons"; or according to the words of Elihu, "great wineskins, which, when full of new wine, without a vent, are at once burst apart. The magicians fought against Moses and Aaron; and the king of Israel is deluded by the woman who was at Endor, and had, according to the Seventy interpreters, a "python" spirit, according to the Hebrews, a "magician." Many are the tricks, and countless the snares, by which human souls are caught; but let us say, trusting in the Lord, "The snare is broken, and we are freed." And, "If I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for you are with me": "A thousand shall fall at our side, and ten thousand at our right hand. We will not fear the assault, and the noonday demon; but let us stop our ears, lest we hear the voices of enchanters, and let us disregard the songs of the Sirens.

After the image of God, which is shown in the reason of the heart, and the confession of faith, which is uttered by the mouth, serpents rise up, and the arts of sorcery provoke us to wars. But let us, who have this most precious treasure in earthen vessels, which can be broken, so that scarcely a shard remains, in which a little water might be drawn, guard our heart with all watchfulness.

The thirty-eighth Mansion signifies "heaps of stones of those passing by." There are holy stones, which roll upon the ground, smooth, polished, and by their roundness similar to the courses of wheels. There are also others which the Prophet commands to be taken up from the way, lest they hinder the feet of those walking. Who are these walkers? Surely travelers and those passing by, who hasten through this age to other Mansions. Now what is said, "in the borders of Moab," and what was written above, "in the wilderness that looks toward Moab against the rising of the sun": shows, according to the letter, that up to this point they had been in the borders of the land of the Idumeans, and now they come to the boundaries of Moab, passing from one province to another.

For not always is effort to be given to one virtue alone: but as it is written: "They will go from strength to strength," one must pass from one virtue to another: because they cling to each other, and are so bound together, that whoever lacks one, lacks them all. And yet to pass from one to another belongs properly to those who consider the rising of the Sun of Righteousness.

The thirty-ninth Mansion is interpreted, "temptation strongly understood." In place of this I found something else written in the order of the history. For after they pitched camp in Jeabarim, in the borders of Moab, against the rising of the sun, it is read: "From there they set out, and turned aside to the torrent Zared.

And setting out from this place, they pitched camp across the Arnon: which is in the wilderness of the borders of the Amorite: because the Arnon is on the boundary of the Moabites and the Amorites": and after these things they came to a well, where Israel sang this song: "Spring up, O well, which the princes dug, which the leaders of the peoples opened, with the lawgiver, and with his staff: and from the wilderness to Mattanah: and from Mattanah to the torrents of God: and from the torrents of God, to the heights: and from the heights, to the valley, which is in the region of Moab, at the summit of Pisgah, which looks out toward the desert." Some, interpreting these places as within the borders of the Amorites, think that they are not Mansions, but passages, and that the extraordinary exposition should not prejudice the catalogue of Mansions.

Others, however, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, do not wish regions to be signified; but that through the names of places, there are advances of virtues: because after the magicians, and the gathering of stones, we frequently come to the torrents of "Zared," which is interpreted "a strange descent": and, placed in the descent, we cross over to "Arnon," which sounds like "curse," which is set in the borders of the "Amorites," who are either "bitter" enemies, or "speak much," puffed up.

But if we cross the boundaries of Moab, who was begotten of incest, and withdrew from his true father: at once a well meets us, which no one of the common people dug, no ignoble man, but princes and leaders, who give laws to the peoples: and singing a song at the water of the well, and rejoicing in the gifts of God, they prophesy where they are about to cross over: to what places they are about to arrive, namely that they come from the desert into "Mattanah," which is interpreted "gift," and from Mattanah to "Nahaliel," which is called "to the torrents of God," and from Nahaliel to "Bamoth," which is interpreted "heights," or "death approaching": when we are made conformable to the death of Christ, and from Bamoth there meets us the valley of humility, which nevertheless is placed on the summit of the mountain "Pisgah," which is interpreted "hewn," because it has nothing shapeless or rough, but is polished by the artisan's hand: which mountain looks out upon the wilderness, which is called in Hebrew Jeshimon.

For when we shall have been established at the summit of the virtues, then we look back upon the ruins of the whole world, and the wasteland of all sins. Running on with our discourse, we almost forgot to say why Dibon-Gad is interpreted, "temptation strongly understood." After Dibon-Gad war is waged against Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan; and we learn, that when we shall have come to the summit, and drunk from the fountain of princes and kings, ascending to Mount Pisgah, we ought not to be lifted up in pride, but should recognize the wilderness set before us in contrast. For before destruction the heart of a man is lifted up, and before glory it is humbled.

And setting out from Dibon-Gad, they pitched camp in Almon-Diblathaim.

The fortieth Mansion is rendered as contempt of pastries, or of reproaches. And through this we learn that all sweet things and the allurements of pleasures in this age are to be despised, and that we ought not to be drunk with wine, in which is luxury. Honey is not offered in the sacrifices of God, and wax which contains sweetness does not burn in the Tabernacle, but the purest oil, which is drawn from the bitterness of the olive. For honey drops from the lips of the harlot woman; of which, I suppose, according to the mystical understanding, Jonathan tasted, and was perhaps caught, scarcely freed by the prayers of the people. Now that reproaches are to be despised; and, if falsely brought against one, produce blessedness, the Savior teaches most fully.

And setting out from Almon-Diblathaim, they pitched camp in the mountains of Abarim, opposite Nebo.

The forty-first Mansion is rendered as the mountains of those passing over, and is opposite the mountain of Nebo, where Moses dies and is buried, the land of promise having been seen beforehand. Nebo is interpreted "conclusion," in which the Law is ended, and no memory of it is found. Further, the grace of the Gospel extends without any end. Its sound has gone out into all the earth, and its words unto the ends of the world. And consider at the same time, that the dwelling of those passing over is situated in the mountains, and still needs further progress. For after very many mountains we descend to the plains of Moab and the streams of the Jordan, which is interpreted "descent." For nothing, as we have often said, is so dangerous as the desire for glory and boasting, and a mind swollen with the awareness of its own virtues.

And setting out from the mountains of Abarim, they pitched camp in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, near Jericho, and there they fixed their tents. From the house of the wilderness as far as Abel-Shittim, in the plain of Moab.

In the forty-second stopping-place, which is also the last Mansion, let us relate briefly what things were done. The people, dwelling in it, are blessed by God's command through the seer Balaam, whom Balac son of Sephor had hired for a fee, and the curse is turned into praise: he hears the voice of the Lord resounding from a profane mouth, "A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise from Israel, and he shall strike the princes of Moab, and shall lay waste all the sons of Seth, and Edom shall be his possession." He fornicates with the daughters of Madian: and Phinees, son of Eleazar, zealous with the zeal of the Lord, pierces Zamri and the Madianite harlot with a dagger: whence also he received a reward in everlasting memory, the shoulder of the victim. The people is numbered again, so that, the worst ones having been slain, a new people of God might be reckoned.

The five daughters of Salphaad make petition, and by the judgment of the Lord receive an inheritance among their brothers, nor is the female sex excluded from the possession of God. Jesus succeeds Moses on the mountain, and learns from the Law what he ought to offer spiritually in the Church. First what should be offered on each day, then what on the sabbath, what on the Kalends, what at the Passover, what at Pentecost, what at the New Moon of the seventh month, what at the Fast of that same month, on the tenth day: what at the Feast of Tabernacles, when the tents are pitched, on the fifteenth day of the aforesaid month. The vows of wives and daughters, made without the authority of fathers and husbands, are recorded as void; the war against the Madianites: and the death of the seer Balaam, and the division of the spoil, and the offering from it in the tabernacle of God. Ruben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasses first receive their possession beyond the Jordan in the wilderness.

For they had very many cattle, and had not yet come to the point of being able to dwell with the Temple. The people is instructed to destroy the idols in the Holy Land, and that none of the former inhabitants should be spared. The long-desired province is described, and the inheritance of the two and a half tribes is marked out. The princes of the tribes who were to enter the Holy Land are numbered. Forty-two cities with their suburbs, up to a thousand paces round about, the Levites receive, equal in number to these very Mansions. And there are added six other cities of refuge, three within the Jordan, and three across the Jordan, so that together they are forty-eight. What sort of fugitives are to be received, who ought to be put to death, who kept until the death of the High Priest.

Deuteronomy follows, the second Law, a meditation-preparation for the Gospel; and there we briefly learn what things Moses spoke to the people between Pharan and Tophel and Laban and Azeroth, and the golden places, the most wretched Judas being cast aside, on the eleven days' journey from Choreb, by the way of mount Seir as far as Cades-Barne, and he sings his final Canticle, in which the Synagogue is most plainly cast off, and the Church is joined to the Lord: "He grew fat and thick and broad, and the beloved kicked, and forgot God his Saviour." And again: "A most wicked generation: unlearned children: they have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me with their carved images: and I will make these nations jealous of them, and will provoke them against a foolish nation". The sons of Israel are blessed. And again, in Simeon, wretched Judas is excluded.

Moses goes up to mount Nabo, to the summit of Phasga, which is over against Jericho: and the Lord shows him all the land of Galaad as far as Dan, and Nephthalim and Ephraim and Manasses, and all the land of Juda, as far as the great sea toward the south, and the plain region of Jericho, the city of palms, as far as Segor. Who can know such great mysteries?

Who, stationed at the last bounds of the Law and the ends of this life, understands that he must always be fighting, and that then full victory is granted, if he shall be in the plains, if in Abel sitim, which is interpreted "mourning of thorns," he shall have put away the old sins, and the thorns which choked the sowing of the word of God, and of which the Prophet says: I have been turned about in misery, while a thorn is fixed in me: and then, prepared, the Manna failing, under the leadership of Jesus he may cross the Jordan: and, circumcised with the knife of the Gospel, may first eat of the heavenly bread: and may there meet him the captain of the hosts of God, so that he may eat the true Passover, not at all in Egypt, but within the borders of the Holy Land. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and untraceable his ways. Who is wise, and will understand these things?

He who understands, and will know them? Because the ways of the Lord are right: and the just shall walk in them. But transgressors shall fall in them.

I fear lest this office be thought ambition; and that, because we do it after the example of him who says, "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart," we should be said to act out of desire for glory: and not to address a widow, one placed in distress; but to insinuate ourselves into a royal court; and, under pretext of a discourse, to seek the friendships of the powerful. This, whoever knows that it is commanded will clearly not think: "Thou shalt not accept the person of the poor in judgment": lest under the pretext of mercy we judge that which is unjust. For each one is to be judged not by his condition of men, but by the weight of his deeds. Nor do riches harm the rich man, if he uses them well: nor does poverty make the poor man more commendable, if amid squalor and want he does not guard against sins.

Both these things are attested to us both by the Patriarch Abraham, and by daily examples: of whom the one, in the highest riches, was a friend of God; others, daily caught in crimes, pay the penalty of the laws. We address, therefore, a poor rich woman, so that she may not know the very things she possesses. For we do not examine her purse, but the purity of her soul. We speak to her whose face we do not know, and whose virtues we do know, whom fame commends to us, whose modesty her youth makes more venerable. She so wept the death of her young husband as to give an example of marriage, so bore it as to believe him advanced, not lost. The greatness of her bereavement was an occasion for religion. She seeks her absent Nebridius in such a way as to know him present in Christ. Why then do we write to her whom we do not know? There is, to be sure, a threefold cause.

The first, that by the duty of the Priesthood we love all Christians as sons, and their advancement is our glory. The second, that the father of the deceased was joined to me by intimate connection. The last, and the stronger, that I could deny nothing to my son Avitus asking; who, overcoming me with frequent letters like the widow importuning the harsh judge, and setting before me the examples of many to whom I had before written on the same matter, so overwhelmed the shame of one refusing, that I considered more what he desired than what befitted me to do.

2. Another perhaps may praise Nebridius, because, born of the sister of the Augusta, and reared in the bosom of his maternal aunt, he was so dear to the most invincible Prince that he sought for him a most noble wife, and made Africa, torn by civil wars, faithful to him, with this man as it were a hostage.

To me, from the very beginning, this at once must be proclaimed, that, as if foreknowing his own approaching death, amid the splendor of the palace and the summits of honors which outran his age, he so lived as to believe he would go forward to Christ. The sacred history relates that Cornelius, centurion of the Italian cohort, was so accepted by God that he sent an Angel to him, and taught that the whole mystery, by which Peter was carried over from the straits of circumcision to the breadth of the foreskin, pertained to his merits, who, first baptized by the Apostle, dedicated the salvation of the Gentiles. And it is written of him: "There was a certain man in Caesarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of the cohort which is called Italian, religious, and fearing God with all his house, giving many alms to the people, and praying to God always." Whatever is said of him, with the name changed, I claim for my Nebridius.

So religious was he, and a lover of chastity, that as a virgin he obtained a wife: so fearing God with all his house, that, forgetful of his rank, he had all fellowship with Monks and Clerics: and gave such alms among the peoples, that crowds of the poor and the infirm besieged his doors. Certainly so was he always praying to God, that whatever was best might befall him. He was taken away, lest malice should change his understanding, for his soul was pleasing to God. Whence I too can truly use of him the Apostle's word, saying: "In truth I have perceived that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh justice is acceptable to him." The soldier's cloak did him no harm, nor the belt, nor the crowds of attendants: for under one habit, he served another.

Just as, on the contrary, a vile cloak, a dark tunic, filth of the body, and a feigned poverty profit others nothing, if by their works they destroy the dignity of their name. We read also in the Gospel the Lord's testimony concerning another centurion: "Not even in Israel have I found such faith." And to return to earlier things, Joseph, who gave proofs of virtue both in want and in riches, who as both servant and lord taught freedom of soul, was he not, after Pharaoh, adorned with royal insignia, so dear to God that above all the Patriarchs he became father of two tribes? Daniel and the three youths so presided over the wealth of Babylon, and were so among the princes of the city, that in the habit of Nabuchodonosor they served God in mind. Mardochaeus and Esther, amid purple, silk, and gems, conquered pride by humility, and were of such merit that captives ruled over their conquerors.

3. This discourse tends to this, that I may show that my young man's connection with royal blood, and abundance of riches, and the insignia of power, were material for virtues, the Preacher saying: "As wisdom protecteth, so also doth money". Nor let us at once think this contrary to that testimony: "Amen I say to you, a rich man shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom of heaven." And again: "I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Otherwise Zacchaeus the publican, whom Scripture records as very rich, would seem to be saved contrary to this sentence. But how that which is impossible with men becomes possible with God, the counsel of the Apostle teaches, writing to Timothy: "Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who giveth us all things abundantly to enjoy.

Let them do good, be rich in good works, give easily, share, lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold on the true life." We have learned how a camel can enter through the eye of a needle: how the tortuous animal, having laid down the weight of its burdens, may assume for itself the wings of a dove, and rest in the branches of the tree which grew up from the mustard seed. We read in Isaiah of the camels of Madian and Epha and Saba, bringing gold and frankincense to the city of the Lord. In the type of these camels, the Ismaelite merchants carry stacte and incense, and the resin which grows in Galaad, and which covers wounded skin, to the Egyptians; and they are of such good fortune that they buy and sell Joseph, and their merchandise is the salvation of the world. Aesop's fable also teaches that a belly full of mice cannot get out through a narrow hole.

4. Therefore my Nebridius, daily turning over that saying: "They who wish to become rich fall into temptation and the snare of the devil, and many desires," whatever the Emperor's largess and the islands of honor had given him, he devoted to the use of the poor. For he knew that it had been commanded by the Lord: "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me." And because he could not fulfill this saying, having a wife and little children, and a large household, he made for himself friends of the mammon of iniquity, who might receive him into everlasting habitations. Nor did he cast off his burden all at once, as the Apostles did, leaving father, net, and boat behind: but out of equality, he shared his abundance with the want of others, so that afterward their riches might sustain his need.

She to whom this letter is written herself knows that I relate not things known to me, but things heard; nor, from any benefit received by me, do I, after the manner of Greek writers, repay a favor with my pen. Far be such a suspicion from Christians. "Having food and raiment, let us be content therewith." Where there is a cheap little herb, and coarse bread, and moderate food and drink: there riches are superfluous, there is no flattery, which chiefly has regard to profit. From which it is gathered that the testimony is faithful, which has no motives for lying.

5. And lest anyone think that I praise in Nebridius almsgiving alone, although even to have practiced this be a great thing, of which it is said: « As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin », I shall come to his other virtues, each of which we find but singly in few men. Who ever entered the furnace of the king of Babylon without being scorched?

From what youth did the Egyptian mistress fail to keep hold of his cloak? What wife of a eunuch bears no children, pleasure having been consummated? Whom of men would that disputation not terrify: « I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members »? It is wonderful to say, that one nourished in the palace, the companion and fellow-pupil of Emperors, at whose table the world ministers, and to whom lands and seas are subject, amid the abundance of all things, in the first flower of youth possessed such modesty that he surpassed virginal chastity, and did not give occasion even to the lightest tale of scandalous rumor about himself.

Moreover, kinsman, companion, and cousin of the purple-clad, trained with both of them in the same pursuits (a thing which wins over even the minds of strangers), he was not puffed up with pride, nor did he look down upon other men with an assumed haughtiness: but, lovable to all, he loved the princes themselves as brothers, revered them as lords; and confessed that his own safety was bound up in theirs. Their servants also, and the whole order of the palace, where royal ambition throngs, he had so united to himself by love, that those who were by rank inferior thought themselves his equals in courtesy. It is a difficult thing to surpass glory by virtue, and to be loved by those whom you outrank. What widow was not sustained by his help? What orphan did not find in him a father? The bishops of the whole East brought to him the prayers of the wretched and the desires of the afflicted.

Whatever he asked of the Emperor was almsgiving for the poor, ransom for captives, mercy for the afflicted. Whence the princes themselves gladly granted what they knew was being bestowed not on one man, but on many.

6. Why do we delay further? All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. Earth has returned to its own earth: he has fallen asleep in the Lord, and has been gathered to his fathers, full of days and of light, and nourished in a good old age. For the gray hairs of a man are his wisdom. In a short span of life he fulfilled many ages. We hold in his stead his sweetest children. His wife is the heir and the reward of chastity. Little Nebridius shows, to those who seek his father, the father himself. Thus he had his eyes, thus his hands, thus his countenance. A spark of paternal vigor shines in the son, and the likeness of character bursts forth through the mirror of the flesh.

He turns over mighty thoughts in a narrow breast. Joined to him is his sister, a basket of roses and lilies, a blending of ivory and purple. So does she recall her father in her face, that she is even more inclined to loveliness. So does she paint her mother with a mingled likeness, that in one body you may recognize both. She is so sweet and honeyed, that she is the delight of all her kin. The Emperor does not disdain to hold her; the Empress rejoices to cherish her in her bosom. All vie to snatch her to themselves. She hangs from the neck, she clings in the arms, of each in turn. Prattling and lisping, she becomes the sweeter for the stumbling of her tongue.

7. You have then, Salvina, those whom you may nurture, in whom you may believe that you hold your absent husband. Behold the inheritance of the Lord, the reward of children, the fruit of the womb. For one man you have received two children; the number of your love has been increased.

Whatever you owed to your husband, render to your children. Temper the longing for the absent one by love of those present. It is no small merit before God to bring up children well. Hear the Apostle admonishing: « Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old, who has been the wife of one man, having testimony in good works, if she has brought up children, if she has been hospitable, if she has washed the feet of the saints, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has followed every good work. » You have learned the catalogue of your virtues, what you owe to your name, by what merits you hold your place according to the rank of chastity. And let it not trouble you that a widow of sixty is chosen, and you think that younger women are rejected by the Apostle. Believe that you too are chosen by him who had said to his disciple: Let no man despise your youth; not your continence, but your age.

Otherwise, all who have been widowed before the age of sixty would, by this rule, take husbands. But because he was instructing the still untutored Church of Christ, and providing for every rank, especially for the poor, whose care had been entrusted to him along with Barnabas, he wills that those be supported by the resources of the Church who cannot labor with their own hands, who are truly widows, whom both age and life approve. Eli the priest offended God on account of the vices of his sons. So, conversely, God is appeased by the virtues of children, « if they continue in faith and love and holiness with sobriety. » « O Timothy, keep yourself chaste. » Far be it from me to be allowed to suspect anything sinister of you; but out of abundant care to have admonished a slippery age is a mark of devotion.

What I am about to say, understand as spoken not to you, but to the years of girlhood. « The widow who lives in pleasures is dead while she lives. » This is spoken by the vessel of election; and it is brought forth from that treasury of him who confidently said, « Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? » This is pronounced by him who freely confessed, under his own person, the frailty of the human body. « For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do. » And therefore I subject and bring my body into servitude, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate. If he fears, which of us can be secure? If David, the friend of the Lord, and Solomon, his beloved, were overcome as men, in order that they might furnish us examples both of falling, as a warning, and of repentance, unto salvation, who, on so slippery a path, would not fear a fall?

Let Phasian birds, fat turtledoves, the Ionian attagen, and all birds by which the amplest patrimonies fly away, be far from your feasts. And do not therefore suppose that you do not eat flesh, if you reject the flesh of hares and stags and other four-footed animals for eating. For these things are judged not by the number of feet, but by the sweetness of taste. We know it was said by the Apostle: « Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, which is received with thanksgiving. » But the same speaks: « It is good neither to drink wine, nor to eat flesh. » And elsewhere: « Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. » Every creature of God is good. Let women hear this, who are anxious how they may please their husbands. Let them eat flesh, who serve the flesh, whose ardor spends itself in union, who, bound to husbands, devote themselves to procreation and children. Let those whose wombs bear offspring have their bowels also filled with flesh.

But you, who in your husband's tomb have buried all pleasures alike; you who have washed away, over his bier, with tears, a face colored with rouge and white lead; you who have taken up a dark tunic and black shoes, laying aside white garments and gilded slippers, need nothing else but to persevere in fasting. Let pallor and squalor be your jewels; let the softness of many comforts not caress your youthful limbs. Let the heat of the baths not inflame the fresh blood of a young woman. Hear what the heathen poet sings in the person of a continent widow: He who first joined me to himself in love took my love away: let him keep it with him, and guard it in the tomb. If glass, the cheapest thing, be prized so highly, how much more the costliest pearl?

If, by the common law of nature, even a Gentile widow renounces all pleasures, what is to be expected of a Christian widow, who owes her chastity not only to him who is dead, but also to him with whom she is to reign?

8. I beg you, let not general admonitions, and speech suited to a girl's condition, raise in you a suspicion of injury, nor think that I write in the spirit of one rebuking, rather than of one fearing: whose wish is that you should never know what I fear. A tender thing in women is the reputation of chastity, and like the fairest flower, it withers quickly at a slight breeze, and is spoiled by a light blast, especially where age itself inclines to fault, and marital authority is lacking, whose shadow is the safeguard of a wife. What is a widow to do amid a multitude of household servants? Amid throngs of attendants? Whom I would not have her despise as servants, but blush before as men.

Certainly, if an ostentatious household demands such offices, let her set over them an old man of upright character, whose honor may be the dignity of the mistress. I know many who, though their doors were shut to the public, were not free from the ill repute of their young slaves, whom either excessive attire made suspect, or the sleekness of a well-fed body, or an age apt for lust, or, from the awareness of a secret love, an assured swelling of spirit; which, even when well disguised, often bursts forth in public, and looks down upon fellow-servants as though they were servants indeed. Let this be said out of abundant caution, that you may guard your heart with all diligence, and beware whatever may be imagined of you.

9. Let there not walk beside you a curled procurator, nor an effeminate actor broken in gesture like a woman, nor the poisoned sweetness of a devilish singer, nor a plucked and glossy youth. Let nothing of the theatrical arts, nothing soft, be joined to your attendance.

Keep with you choirs of widows and virgins; keep the comforts of your own sex. Mistresses too are judged by the character of their maidservants. Certainly, since your holy mother is with you, and your aunt, a perpetual virgin, clings to your side, you ought not to seek dangerously the company of strangers, being secure in the fellowship of your own kin. Let divine reading be always in your hands, and prayers so frequent, that all the arrows of thoughts, with which youth is wont to be pierced, may be repelled by such a shield. It is difficult, or rather impossible, for anyone to be free from the beginnings of disturbances, which the Greeks more expressively call προπάθειαι: we, to render word for word, may call "pre-passions," in that the incitements of vices tickle the minds of all, and it is in the middle ground, so to speak, of our own judgment either to cast aside such thoughts, or to receive them.

Whence also the Lord of nature said in the Gospel: « Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. » From which it is clear, according to the testimony of another book, that the heart of man is prone to evil from his youth; and among the works of the flesh and the spirit, which the Apostle enumerates, the soul wavers in between, desiring now these things, now those.

For no one is born without faults: he is best,
Who is burdened with the fewest

as if you would find fault with moles scattered upon a noble body.

This is what the Prophet signifies in other words: I was troubled, and I spoke not. And in the same book: Be angry, and sin not. And that saying of Architas of Tarentum to his negligent bailiff: I would already have killed you with blows, were I not angry. For the wrath of man does not work the justice of God. What has been said of one disturbance, let us apply to the rest. Just as to be angry is human, and not to carry the anger into effect is Christian, so also all flesh indeed lusts after the things that are of the flesh, and by certain allurements draws the soul to death-bringing pleasures: but it is ours to restrain the heat of pleasure by a greater love of Christ, and to subdue the wanton beast under the reins of fasting: so that it may seek and desire not lust, but food, and may carry, with measured and orderly gait, its rider, the Holy Spirit.

10. To what purpose is all this said?

That you may know yourself to be human, and, unless you take care, subject to human passions. We have all been made from the same clay, framed from the same beginnings. In silk and in rags the same lust holds sway. It fears not the purple of kings, nor scorns the squalor of beggars. And it is much better for you to suffer in the stomach, than in the mind: to command the body, than to serve it: to falter in step, than in chastity. Nor let the remedies of penitence at once flatter us, which are the cures of the unfortunate. The wound that is cured by suffering must be guarded against. It is one thing, with ship intact and cargo safe, to enter the harbor of salvation; another, to cling naked to a plank, and, driven by the repeated onrush of the waves, to be dashed against the roughest rocks. Let a widow not know the indulgence of a second marriage, nor be acquainted with that saying of the Apostle: It is better to marry than to burn.

Take away the worse thing, to burn, and marrying will not in itself be good. Far be the calumnies of heretics. We know marriage to be honorable, and the bed undefiled. Even Adam, expelled from Paradise, had but one wife. Lamech, first accursed and bloody, and descended from the stock of Cain, divided one rib into two, and the plant of bigamy was straightway overturned by the punishment of the flood. Whence that saying of the Apostle, which he is compelled to allow through fear of fornication, writing to Timothy: « I will that the younger women marry, bear children, be mistresses of households, give no occasion to the adversary for reviling. » And why he allowed it, he immediately subjoined: « For already some have turned aside after Satan. » From which we understand that he extends his hand not to those who stand, but to those who have fallen.

See what sort of things second marriages are, which are preferred to brothels, « because some have turned aside after Satan. » Therefore let the young widow, who cannot, or will not, contain herself, rather take a husband, than take the devil.

11. Truly a beautiful and desirable thing, which is undertaken by comparison with Satan. Jerusalem too once played the harlot, and spread her feet for every passer-by. In Egypt she was first deflowered, and there her breasts were broken. And when she had come into the desert, and impatient of the delays of Moses her leader, had said, raging as it were with the frenzy of lust: “These are thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt,” she received precepts that were not good, and ordinances that were worst of all, in which she should not live, but be punished.

What wonder, then, if to wanton widows also, of whom the Apostle had said in another place: “When they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry, having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith,” he granted the precepts of second marriage, not good, and ordinances that were worst of all; indulging a second husband in such a way that he indulged also a third, and, if it pleased them, even a twentieth; so that they might know that not so much husbands were given to them, as adulterers cut off? These things, dearest daughter in Christ, I press upon you, and repeat again and again, that, forgetting the things which are behind, you may reach forward unto those which are before: having of your own order those whom you may follow—Judith from the history of the Hebrews, and Anna the daughter of Phanuel from the splendor of the Gospel, who day and night dwelt in the Temple, and by prayers and fastings preserved the treasure of chastity.

Whence one, in a figure of the Church, cut off the head of the devil; the other first received the Savior of the world, conscious of the sacraments to come. This one thing I ask at the end of my discourse, that you judge the brevity of this little book to have arisen not from poverty of eloquence, nor from barrenness of matter, but from the greatness of modesty; while I fear to intrude for long upon ears unknown to me, and dread the hidden judgment of readers.

1. “I know that very many of the brethren, moved by desire for the knowledge of the Scriptures, have asked certain learned men skilled in Greek letters to make Origen a Roman, and to grant him to Latin ears. Among these, our brother and colleague also, entreated by Bishop Damasus, when he had translated from Greek into Latin two Homilies on the Song of Songs, prefaced that work so elegantly and magnificently that he stirred in anyone the desire of reading Origen, and of seeking him out most eagerly, saying that it befitted that soul what is said: “The king brought me into his chamber”; asserting that, though he surpasses all in his other books, in the Song of Songs he even surpassed himself. He indeed promises, in that very Preface, that he will bestow upon Roman ears both those very books on the Song of Songs, and very many others of Origen.

But he, as I see, pleasing himself in his own style, pursues a matter of greater glory, so as to be father of the word rather than interpreter. We, therefore, follow a work begun and approved indeed by him, but not with equal powers of eloquence can we adorn the sayings of so great a man. Whence I fear lest it happen through my own fault, that this man, whom he rightly approved as, after the Apostles, a teacher of the Church in knowledge and wisdom, may seem, through the poverty of my speech, to be far inferior.

2. “Considering this often, I kept silent, and did not yield to the brethren who frequently entreated me for this work. But your force, most faithful brother Macarius, is so great, that not even inexperience can withstand it; wherefore, lest I should suffer you any longer as so grievous an exactor, I have yielded even against my own resolve: yet on this condition and order, that, as far as it can be done, in translating I follow the rule of my predecessors.

And especially of that man (Jerome), whom we mentioned above; who, when he had translated into Latin more than seventy little books of Origen, which he called Homiletic, and also some of the Tomes written on the Apostle, in which, though certain stumbling-blocks are found in the Greek, so smoothed and purged all things in translating, that the Latin reader finds in them nothing that differs from our faith. Him, therefore, we too, though not with the powers of his eloquence, yet as far as we can, follow in the rules of his discipline, taking care, namely, not to bring forward those things which are found in the books of Origen at variance with himself and contradictory.

The cause of which diversity we have set forth more fully for you in the Apology which Pamphilus wrote on behalf of the books of Origen himself, with a very short little book added, in which, by evident proofs, as I think, we show that his books have been corrupted in very many places by heretics and malevolent men; and especially these, which you now demand that I translate, that is, περι Αρχων, which may be called Of Principles, or Of Principalities, which are indeed elsewhere both most obscure and most difficult. For he disputes there of such matters, in which philosophers, having consumed their whole age, could find nothing. This man of ours, however, did as much as he could to turn to piety the faith of the Creator and the reason of created things, which they had drawn to impiety.

Wherever, then, we have found in his books anything contrary to what had been faithfully defined by him elsewhere concerning the Trinity, we have either passed it over as adulterated and foreign, or have set it forth according to that rule which we have frequently found affirmed by himself. If indeed, speaking as it were to men already skilled and knowing, wishing to pass briefly over something, he has expressed it too obscurely, we, that the passage might become clearer, have added those things which we had read more openly on the same matter in his other books, striving for explanation; yet we have said nothing of our own: but although in other places, we have restored to him his own sayings. This I have noted in the Preface for this reason: lest perchance calumniators should think they had found matter for accusation therein. But let them see themselves what perverse and contentious men do.

3. “Meanwhile so great a labor, if indeed God, at your prayers, shall grant it, has been undertaken not that we might close the mouths of calumniators (which cannot be done, though perhaps even this God will do), but that we might provide material for those wishing to advance to the knowledge of things.

This one thing indeed I attest and enjoin upon everyone who shall either transcribe or read these books, in the sight of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, by the faith of the kingdom to come, by the sacrament of the resurrection from the dead, by that eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: so may he not possess that place by eternal inheritance, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and where their fire shall not be quenched, and their worm shall not die, let him not add anything to this writing, nor take away, nor insert, nor change; but let him compare it with the exemplars from which he shall have copied, and correct it letter by letter, and punctuate it, and not have an uncorrected or unpunctuated copy; lest, if the copy be not punctuated, difficulty of sense should generate greater obscurities for readers.