The Four Books of the Gospels

Herod was a bloody king among the Jewish people,

under whom Zacharias, keeper of the just and priest of the temple,

whose charge it was in his turn to guard the temple,

kept his post, drawn by the arranged order of the chosen ministers.

To his marriage-bed clung a most worthy wife.

Equal care of just governance was in them both;

both were bound and held fast by the precepts of the law.

Nor was there offspring to them, their years already declining,

so that the gift might be the more welcome to them now despairing.

But when Zacharias, by lot, was bringing incense into the shrine and to the altars,

a messenger was seen to descend from opened heaven,

and to bring words commanded to him alone

(for the rest of the people, spread before the doors, were praying):

though at first the terrifying vision shook his heart with fear,

yet the grace of the joyful speech brings pleasure.

For the one Father of all things, propitious, from his high heavenly throne

bids me now come to thee with words,

and promises that soon from thy dear wife a son shall be born to thee,

for whom great glory of things remains,

who, being born, shall win very many joys for the peoples,

sober forever; whom the Spirit shall fill, enclosed

even within his mother's womb, with bright divine power.

This one shall turn a very great part of this people, by teaching,

onto the true path, to the Lord and God.

Straightway he shall be known first, and shall call the people:

remember to call him by the name John.

To him the priest replied with troubled mind:

an age rivaling such promises stands opposed,

nor can offspring come to the weary aged,

which God, averting it, denied in the first bloom of youth.

Thus trembling spoke the seer; to whom the messenger adds these words:

If any mortal were promising thee offspring,

perhaps the hesitation of thy mind ought rightly

to cling and insist upon despair at such slow words.

But now I, whom the Lord, maker of heaven and earth,

willed to appear as his minister before his own face,

received by the ungrateful ears and sight of a man,

have carried out the commands of the Most High God, worthy though they be scorned.

Therefore the promised gift remains irrevocable;

but the voice of thy trembling mind, as messenger, shall be shut up,

until all the gifts of God be confirmed for you.

This he said, and mingled himself with the tender ears.

Meanwhile the people were drawing out a long wonder,

at why the priest so lingered in the temple.

Coming out trembling, he taught by nods

that he had seen a heavenly power, and the loss of his poor voice.

Then the seer returns home, his office fulfilled in due order,

and the promises lift up his lost speech,

nor did the granted gifts of offspring come long delayed;

but his wife anxiously hid the joys of her womb,

until five lights had filled the hollow moon.

Then the same minister brought down greater commands still,

sent down to the ears of the Virgin Mary.

She, betrothed to her kinsman for a set time,

was growing chastely to maidenhood hidden within virgin walls,

and had been permitted, by the bidding of her parents, to keep her day.

To her the messenger begins with tranquil speech:

Hail, thou who shalt be profitable to the earth by wholesome offspring,

cease to trouble thy mind at this awesome sight.

For thy womb shall conceive by heavenly command

a son, whom God rejoices and bids to reign through all the ages,

and to be believed his own offspring.

When thou shalt bring him forth to the light, let his name be Jesus.

To him the Virgin then begins with fearful mouth:

They say no conception comes about without a husband.

Whence then shall I hope offspring to come to me?

The messenger in answer declares this with swift speech:

The lofty power of God shall hover round about, overshadowing,

and the pure Spirit shall come, most chosen virgin,

and shall soon bid, by chaste utterance, that a child be born to thee,

magnificent among the peoples, whom it is necessary to believe holy

and to call the Son of the Most High God.

Thus thy kinswoman, believed barren by all,

the wife of Zacharias, has lately increased her wonder with mortal offspring

in her wearied limbs of advanced age.

The sixth month is now at hand: so all things obey the commands.

The Virgin then said: Behold, thy handmaid now stands ready to serve the Lord who commands,

as thy words declare, ready and prepared.

The messenger, departing, hid himself from her empty ears.

Then she with swift steps penetrates the city of Judaea,

and the house of Zacharias, and greets her pregnant kinswoman,

Elisabeth: whose enclosed offspring's limbs at once,

within the womb's fold, leap with a greater motion:

and at the same time the mother sprang up, shaken with trembling

at the divine voice: filled with holy breath,

and crying aloud: Blessed woman, hail,

bearing a blessed fruit in the fold of thy womb.

Whence has God in his justice willed to illumine my house

with such great honor, that the mother of the high Godhead

should visit it! Behold, rejoicing in my womb the offspring

leaps, when it felt the first greeting of Mary.

Happy she, who believes the fulfillment of the words will soon be at hand,

Which God, deigning greatly, had spoken to His servants.

She, drawing her mind through joys mingled with modesty,

Turns over the trembling words of a suppressed voice:

Her soul celebrates magnificent praises and thanks

To the Lord of the immense world. Scarcely can this spirit contain

Such great joys, that God saw fit to raise me up,

Lowly as I am, to lofty estate, and willed that I be held blessed

By all peoples and ages, He who is just.

Behold, He has overthrown the throne of the cruel, and broken the proud,

He has enriched the lowly needy with abundant wealth.

Then she remained there three months in order,

And now, sure of what was to come, returns to her own home.

And now the time was at hand, when the revolving day

Compelled Elisabeth to bring forth into the airs of light

The commanded offspring. At the news of the birth a crowd

Of kinsfolk gathered and ran together, and thronging, celebrated

Wondrous joys, and bade the child bear his father's name.

The mother refuses this, but insists that he be called John.

It was then agreed to consult the mute father's wishes,

And they ask him to declare the name in writing.

But, O wondrous faith! When he attempts to write on the tablets,

His tied tongue is loosed through sounding words.

Soon, too, the accustomed breath penetrates his mind,

And, filled, he sings words conscious of what is to come:

Let all together celebrate praises, and frequent thanks

To the Father of the stars, and of earth, and sea, and men:

For He has willed to visit and to redeem His own people.

Behold, He blesses the ancient people, and with the horn of salvation

Raised up, grants light from the lineage of David.

This is what the ancient prophets sang in order:

This is that salvation, which snatches us from dark enemies,

That we may justly serve the Just One.

And you, small boy, holy, and worthy to be called a prophet,

Shall soon go before the Lord in His way.

You shall lead His people through open light:

Through you they shall spurn error, and all who follow

Your precepts shall break through the shadows of death.

From then on, the boy's life was always hidden away

In secret valleys, until, as the years demanded,

He grew to full age for the office of a prophet.

Meanwhile miracles troubled the mind of Mary's spouse,

Because he saw the manifest weight of her womb:

And he pondered within himself, by what means

He might conceal the disgrace of his kinswoman, oppressed as she was, and refuse the marriage bed.

As he pondered such things, his limbs grew numb with sleep,

And amid dread dreams he heard the voice of God:

Take to yourself in marriage her who is pledged, guilty of no crime,

Whose womb the Spirit has filled with a holy offspring.

This is the child the prophet sang would come from a virgin;

His name is God-with-us. Straightway he,

Following these commands, keeps the marriage pledge.

But then, as it happened, a new census, a reckoning of heads,

By the orders of Caesar Augustus was being taken

Throughout very many lands, while Cyrinus

Ruled Syria by right, to whom, through all its towns,

The peoples throughout the whole gave account of their own boundaries,

Their strength, name, and lineage.

The city of Judaea, Bethlehem, is that

Which bore melodious David, and which by right claimed the census of his line.

Joseph, of David's lineage, entered Mary there,

Writing her as betrothed to him, and declaring her with child.

The lodging of both, beneath the walls of the city of Bethlehem,

Was a very small dwelling of the countryside of Augustus.

There the virgin, her time now fulfilled with new offspring.

Is delivered, and they wrap the boy in an old cloth

For swaddling bands, and a hard manger is given him for a bed.

Around, the anxious watch of the flock through the night

Kept the shepherds wakeful over the joyous pastures.

Behold, by God's prompting, a messenger was seen to descend

From heaven, and sudden terror, trembling with fear,

Cast the shepherds' bodies down upon the green earth.

Such a voice, too, sent from heaven, ran to the astonished men:

Lay aside the terror of your minds: receive my words,

Shepherds, to whom I bring these great joys.

For a boy is born of the illustrious lineage of David,

Who will soon spread light and gladness to the peoples.

This sign I will tell you, by which you may now behold

The boy, filling the manger with his slender voice.

As he spoke such things, thousands of the heavenly host

Join with him, and all together praise God, and beseech Him,

And such a voice of the united host fills the air:

Let due glory attend the supreme Father,

And on earth let worthy peace follow just men.

And at once, having said these things, they return to the secret places of heaven.

The shepherds come quickly, and see the boy

Lying in the bosom of the manger: then, following after,

They scatter far and wide the scattered seeds of swift report.

Marveling they praise, rejoicing they stood astonished. That all things agreed as true with the nightly warnings.

The boy had seen the eighth dawn: behold, it is necessary

To return to the custom of the law, and to fit the name;

And there was imposed on him, according to the heavenly warnings once

Which the messenger's voice had enjoined to Mary from God, the name Jesus.

Moses had written the ordinances of the ancient law,

Among which he gave that, for the firstborn of the ancient blood of the fathers,

They should observe to offer up the sacred offerings,

And likewise bring unfledged doves to the shrine.

When these are brought by Mary, kept for the temple,

Behold, old Simeon, worthy to comprehend by his understanding

The heavenly voices, to whom once a power foreknowing of things

Had revealed that, the prison of his ailing body

Laid down, he would see death set free, and rest,

When first he had seen brought to the temple, as the solemn doves,

Him who is the praise of heaven and the salvation of earth,

Whom all the oracles of the prophets promise, the Christ.

And when he, weary, with body bent,

Now enters the temple more heavily, as the spirit, its author, had warned him,

Behold, he sensed that little Jesus had come to the temple

In the bosom of his mother, and with trembling arms

He received the boy, and joyfully spoke these words:

Now, now let the Lord free me His servant now from the tight

Bonds of the body, and deign to put an end to His words

For His servant in peace. Behold, Your splendid

Light surrounds our eyes, and shines with rays,

Which, once all the nations of men are enlightened,

The gathered glory of the people of Israel shall add to.

Why did the breast of Mary the mother marvel so greatly?

This boy is given for the fall of the people: that one will grant

the peoples to be reborn: a sign will come that speaks against

contrary things; he will run through the debts owed to death,

and a gleaming sword shall pierce the soul of the mother,

that the hidden folds of the shadowed heart may be laid open.

This God says through Simeon: and lo, presently

a holy breath fills the womanly mind of the prophetess.

Anna was advanced in years, whom in the flower of her youth

untimely death had left widowed of her husband.

But chaste, she lived always in the temple in place of a husband,

and gave herself to the worship of God; who, bidden by the divine will,

recognized Christ, and spoke in like words.

Thence, when the mother had fulfilled the solemn law

for the naming of the boy, and Joseph, marveling at all things,

they glad returned to their homeland, and carried the boy back.

There is a people further off, familiar with the rising sun,

skilled in marking the risings and settings of the stars.

The foremost of these bore the name of Magi.

From here chosen nobles, through the long stretches of the roads,

come to Jerusalem, and approach the king, and beg to be told

what region Judea's rule holds the boy

who was born: they say that, warned by the rising of a shining star,

they came on the way, so that with suppliant hand

they might adore the venerable divinity that had arisen on earth.

Herod, terrified, orders the chief men of Jerusalem, the seers,

and those who recount the predictions of the ancient prophets,

summoned by his command, to search out all things of the law,

by which it may be revealed what walls gave birth to Christ;

all the oracles of the seers promise that he is to come.

Then it is made manifest that it remains that he be born

within the walls of Bethlehem, he who must, by holy power,

lead the sacred people of Israel.

Then Herod orders the Persians to press on their way,

and, when the boy is found, to show him to himself for worship.

Behold, in the midst of their journey they see the star run before them,

plowing the air with flames, which at the highest point

stood still, and shows the dwelling place of the boy laid open.

The Magi rejoice with great joy, and greet the star:

and after they saw the boy at his mother's breast,

they cast themselves down, covering the ground with prostrate body.

And bowing low they worshipped: then threefold gifts,

frankincense, gold, myrrh, they gave to king, and man, and God.

Soon terrifying dreams disturb the whole night,

and bid them avoid the savage tyrant.

Then by different paths, avoiding Herod's court,

the Magi flee, and return hidden to their homeland.

The boy himself too, driven by heavenly warnings,

Joseph carries away into Egypt together with his mother.

But fierce Herod believes that he whom the diligent care

of the Magi had sought by the stars was rising up against him.

Disturbed by their cautious departure,

he ordered a horrible slaughter throughout the crossroads of Bethlehem,

commanding that the infants, the tender folk at the breast,

be torn away by the sword under no charge of guilt.

This slaughter too had once been foretold,

which good Jeremiah, bidden by divine power,

laments, that the mothers, for the wretched death of their offspring,

grievously beat heaven with horrible complaints.

But when the fury was lulled to sleep, and the savage

cruelty of the tyrant, sated with the horrible blood of infants,

thinks it has destroyed all whom the first and the second

year of that death-bearing age had oppressed, the wretched ones:

again, bound in limb by wondrous sleep,

Joseph is pressed by warnings to carry Mary and the boy

back from Egypt to their homeland, where happy Nazareth

once gave the name that had been foretold to be added to the boy.

And the voice of another prophet, once foretelling,

inspired by God, spoke: He will come, my offspring will come

out of high Egypt, the light and salvation of the lands.

The infant grew with swift steps of years,

his wisdom outrunning and going before his age,

and grace shone venerable in his face and in his words.

And now he had reached his twelfth year of age,

when, as was the custom of the parents to keep the rite of Passover,

they were accustomed, gladly, at every yearly turning of the feasts,

to bring the boy to the temple.

So they were present together at the Passover, and when all

the days of the feast were fulfilled, they prepared to return home.

When the boy, amid the crowd, left the steps of his accompanying

mother, and willingly sought the hidden places of the temple.

Through the streets of the city, and through hidden dwellings,

and through the paved ways of the road, through the known and the near,

his mother sought him: but when the third light came,

she quickly returns to the temple; and finds him seated amid

the company of the teachers, and dealing with the obscure points

of the law among the elderly assembly. Scarcely was there fitting

admiration among the elders at the boy's words. But the loving mother said:

"Son, I seek you, lost, with flowing tears, anxious,

groaning together with your father: what cause separates you

from your parents' step, and detains you seated in the temple?"

But he said: "Why do you seek me so greatly? Do you not yet perceive,

mother, that it is right that the son must dwell in the seats

and houses of his father?"

He said this, and joined his step, and returned to his homeland:

nor did his mother fully perceive the weight of so great a word,

yet they kept in order all the secrets in their hearts.

But the boy, by fittingly most sweet compliance, ever

drew both of them, binding them to his own love.

Meanwhile, running through the due course of the ancient writing,

the whole series of the ages drew on the promises.

The offspring of Zachary called all, in the deserted valleys,

with his cry, to lay down their stains,

that they might receive the wondrous washing of the clear river,

by which the appearance of the soul, washed clean of filth, might shine—

as the prophet Isaiah sang, bidden by the divine will:

A voice resounds far and wide in the deserted valleys;

prepare broad roads, let every path of the ways be straight,

which may worthily bear the footsteps of the Lord.

The hills shall sink down, every valley shall be filled:

a good straight line shall correct the windings of the crooked way,

and to bodily eyes the Father and Lord of salvation grants

to all to behold a serene light.

So the peoples were present, and rushing hither and thither

they filled the banks, and eagerly sought the washing.

Woven garments of camel's hair had been his covering,

and a belt of skins girded the middle of the prophet,

who was accustomed to have locusts from the rustic fields,

and wild honey furnished his thin fare.

And when he saw so many peoples, sprung from diverse dwellings,

rushing to the river, thus he cried out with his mouth:

"Offspring of the viper's race, who shows you how to escape

the punishment owed to you, and the pressing wrath?

But make, O wretched ones, if you repent, fitting fruit,

and let not confidence in your lineage take away your minds."

For easily even from stones a people

Shall succeed to your name, offspring, since the degenerate one strays.

Now, now the axe's edge is raised,

Poised before all eyes at the very roots of the oaken trees.

The barren forests shall be cut down, and shall feed the fire.

Now I have set out to wash away in the pure river

Past stains: but a stronger one shall come,

Whose sandal-straps I am not worthy to touch.

He shall wash men, plunging them in the holy breath,

And shall cleanse guilty hearts with balls of flame.

In his hands too is held the rustic winnowing-fan.

And his own threshing-floor of grain shall be cleansed,

And the abundance of hidden wheat shall fill the barns,

And eternal fire shall consume the light chaff.

Thus he spoke, and with hastening steps through the forest

He beheld him seeking the venerable washing of the Jordan.

But the prophet forbids him, crying out, and speaks thus: Do you deign now to be plunged in the waters by my hands,

When your washing could better cleanse me?

So spoke John; to him Jesus makes this reply.

Allow it now: for this is fitting: thus through all things for us

The order of righteousness to be followed shall be fulfilled.

Saying this, he entered the glassy waves of the river.

To the people the manifest presence of God shines clear.

The golden air of the sevenfold heaven is split open,

And bearing a bodily form there descends from on high

The Spirit, in the likeness, out of an airy cloud, of a dove,

And with holy breath bathed the body of Jesus.

Then a voice sent from God ran through the long void,

And addresses Christ, washed in the waters and anointed with the breath:

You, Son, I testify today through joys

To be begotten of me; this glory of the offspring pleases me.

Then he seeks the shadowy mountains, and the lairs of wild beasts,

And the ministering servants of the Father strove

To render him homage; soon the envy of the raging demon seized

His dark mind with terror, nor was there lacking meanwhile

Deceitful cunning to tempt the ailing Christ.

Forty suns in succession had passed

Since no nourishment of food or drink was given him:

But the fasting of his steadfast heart, woven together,

Held the secrets of the mind toward the kingdom of the earth.

Then at last his body prompted him to seek out food.

Meanwhile, essaying the deceit of a horrendous crime,

If God has indeed begotten you, he says, to all

These stones you will be able, with a mighty word, to command

The use and form of wheaten bread to take.

Christ answers to this: Such things no longer frighten me.

For I remember it is written, that not by bread's substance alone

Shall the life of the believer easily be sustained:

But the power of God's word fills pious hearts.

Again, that other, fitting deceits with cunning arts,

The tempter hastens to weave. For within the walls of the city

He soon perceived Christ setting foot; the malignant power

Persuaded him to stand upon the marble summit of the temple.

Then thus he approaches with the deceiving venom of his voice:

If God is truly your begetter, from the temple's summit

Hurl your body in a leap through the empty air.

Scripture shall be your witness, which openly promises

Such a command given by the highest Father to his servants,

That they should strive to guard your falling body with care,

And with serving hands take care to lift up your limbs,

Lest the stumbling of a stone should harm the soles of your feet.

To these words Christ returned contrary words:

It behooves me rather to remember the heavenly scripture,

Lest presuming boldness should tempt the powers of the Lord.

Again the raging deceit soon perceived Christ

Standing on the lofty ridges of a steep mountain,

Showing him the shining kingdoms throughout the world,

Do you see, he says, what is the glory of such great things?

All these I can even now grant to your kingdom,

If, having revered me who bestow such gifts, you would worship me.

Then thus Jesus rejected him pressing on with these words:

Flee, mad rage of pestilent poison,

That the unmoved command may forever remain fixed with us,

That the just man should devoutly worship the Lord of heaven,

And, serving, should revere the divinity of the One forever.

Shaken by such words, the demon fled through pathless ways.

He, when he learned that John in the shadows of prison

Had been immersed, pressed his heart with sad sorrow,

And resolved to set his dwelling within the borders of Zabulon,

So that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled in the order of the age:

The land of Zabulon, and the region called Nephthalim,

And the way beyond the sea, and the fields of Galilee,

And beyond the Jordan the nations, and the peoples enclosed

In darkness, shall see a great and sudden light:

And for those sitting in the shadow of death,

A kindly will of faith arises, shining with light.

Therefore Christ announces that the gifts of God's reigning kingdom

Are at hand, proclaiming with rebuke the abundant heralding of salvation.

And passing by, he sees brothers along the shores of the sea,

Steadfast Simon, worthy of the name Peter,

And Andrew together, the winding coils of linen,

Setting snares for fish in the waves of the sea.

Now, he says, you catch fish in the deep swells of the sea:

But if it please you to follow me, mighty gains

Of men shall come to you through a most beautiful hunting.

They at once, resolute with steadfast hearts,

Casting away their nets, together follow his commands.

After them, the brothers James and John, plying

Snares for the sea-flocks with speckled net,

When he saw them, he gave a like call from the shore,

They straightway leave their father Zebedee in the boat,

Following the most beautiful commands of salvation.

Thence through the land of Galilee Christ sowed holy things,

Instilling in the peoples the proclamation of the kingdom,

And granting swift healing to the weary and the sick,

And soon frequent report was reaching Syria far off,

Sounding with a thousand tongues the present gifts of Christ.

At last, vying with one another, those consumed by the wasting of sickness,

And bound by diverse ills, whom long decay of sufferings

Had consumed, ravaging the strength of their limbs,

They showed to Christ: but with ready gift he swiftly

Restored them all, made whole, to wondrous joys.

And now the sicknesses of her very soul, and savage furies,

And the madness of her mind that followed the moon's course

Departed, commanded by the weighty force of his word.

Him, as he works great miracles, mingled crowds

Throng about and follow, men of Solyma and Syria,

And the peoples of Judaea in throngs, and the folk of Galilee,

Whom the stagnant stream of Jordan also parts.

Beholding these peoples, he sat down upon a lofty crag,

And thus began, while his disciples ringed his lap:

Blessed are the humble, whom the poor spirit embraces:

For them the lofty kingdom of heaven receives.

Like to them are the gentle, whom meekness crowns,

To whose right the fairest earth is owed.

Those now mourning shall be followed by fitting consolations.

Those who now seek the food and drink of righteousness,

Them a full abundance of table awaits to satisfy.

Blessed is he who has grieved in his heart over another's wretched lot:

For him the ample mercy of the Lord shall await.

Blessed are they who behold heaven with a pure heart:

The visible God shall be open to them through all ages.

The peacemakers God adopts into the number of his own offspring.

Blessed exceedingly are they whom gnashing persecution

Presses down for righteousness' sake: for them soon the royal hall of heaven

Shall be opened. Rejoice, you who, holding to the just course of your works,

Headlong injury shall drive with savage goads.

For a very great reward is kept for you in heaven;

For such was the persecution of the prophets.

Learn that you upon this earth are the savor of salt.

If this savor, its virtue lost, now grows stale,

What substance of salt shall sharpen the spent taste?

Nor is there any use left thereafter for vain salt,

Save to be cast far off, that all footsteps may trample it.

You are the bright light of the world (do not hide it).

For who could conceal a city set upon lofty crags?

But let your light reach all people, and let the beauty of things

Be set beneath a serene light.

Let the glory of your Father be praised by all,

Whose throne is the lofty palace of heaven.

I have not come now to dissolve the ancient laws,

Nor to overturn the commands which the old prophets set down.

For all things shall be fulfilled through me for you.

Truly I speak, until the destruction of heaven, and earth, and sea

Shall come, not so much as one letter of the law,

Nor the slender mark of a small point, shall be lacking,

Until all things come to pass in order, laid out from the world's course.

For if anyone dares to loose even the smallest part

Of a commandment, and likewise teaches men by persuading them so,

He shall bear the name of "least" in the heavenly seat.

But whoever, keeping the rule of his own work,

Delivers at the same time the precepts of the elders unbroken,

Shall be great, and shall bear a great name beyond the stars.

You have heard the command in the rule of the old law:

If anyone stains his hands with human blood,

He, guilty, shall pay the penalty by the avenging sword.

But I shall command: let no one dare to rise up into anger,

Nor be moved by burning hatred against his brother.

For this guilty one shall pay the penalty under a just judge.

Nor shall a lesser flame follow the insults of those

Who call their brother "fool" or "wretch."

But if, revering the altar, you wish to offer gifts,

And then it touches the silent recesses of your mind,

That you have a quarrel undertaken at home with your brother,

Leave all your offerings there before the shrine,

And hasten first to seek peace, and pass on.

Then, reconciled at last to brotherly love,

Offer your pleasing gifts to God with a tranquil heart.

Besides, you have a virtue ever opposed

To the body: let this be tended with swift, chaste love,

While it walks with you through the crossroads of swift life.

For the use of a defiled body shall accuse you,

And shall set you bound before a lofty judge.

The condemned shall be seized by ministers to cruel chains,

Nor shall you be released from the darkness of the grim prison

Until the last portion of the smallest coin is paid.

Not unknown to you, I think, is the caution of the law,

Which forbids the body adultery: but now my commands

Shall restrain the hidden stirrings of the inward mind:

No less must the desire be atoned for than the deed.

If by chance the error of the right eye entangle you,

Hastening, tear out the author of that wretched fall,

And cast it far away. For it is better to lose

A small member than to give the whole body to the flames,

And roll the soul likewise into everlasting punishments.

And if the right hand leads the mind through crooked ways,

It is better to cut off the cause of error with the sword,

Than to yield the whole body to eternal flames.

The ancients command, that if anyone breaks a marriage,

He write a bill of divorce, the grim words of the law.

Rightly only the adulteress shall depart from her husband's house,

But let the others remain: for the deserted wife,

Through the fault of her husband, loses the right of chaste honor.

The ancient laws forbid perjuries of the tongue.

But let boldness in swearing yield to my commands;

Nor is it lawful for man to swear by high heaven,

Which is the seat of the Lord, nor by the footprints

God's earth bears, nor by the venerable name of the city of Solyma,

Which is the property of the great King, shall ever be sworn by.

Nor shall it be lawful for anyone to swear by his own head,

For you see that there is no power even over the smallest hair,

Nor to change its color to white or black.

Let it suffice to say, Yes, yes; and what is not, say, No, it is not.

Whatever is beyond these, the foul force of poison

Craftily suggests, creeping into the sick mind.

You hold the long-published precepts of the law,

That a like vengeance should always follow the one who injures.

But tranquil patience shall better overcome evil.

And if anyone strikes part of your face with his palm,

Remember at once to offer the other part of your face,

Or if anyone, pressing by the force of a judge, takes away your tunic,

Yield willingly, and let him carry off your cloak as well.

If by chance someone compels you to go a mile

Along the road, and to bear the burden of a heavy load,

Go on at once, and accompany him a second mile as well.

If any needy person asks, or feigns himself needy,

Give generously from a compassionate heart; or if anyone

Begs a loan, grant it, and do not withdraw a kindly face.

Nor let it please you to help only your friends,

Or to hold enemies worthy of blind hatred.

Nay, I bid you further, with charming

in all things

Obedience, to soften God with kindly prayers

For the life of those who rejoice to cut you down,

And who pursue with hostile minds and hatred.

For our father has given the common light of the sun,

And common rains to the just and to the wicked alike.

But if we honor only friends bound to us,

What place can this justly hold as reward?

Only a race devoted to gain serves friendship for its own sake.

But be you perfect, like your Father.

Wherever a fair occasion for justice opens itself, avoid the eyes of men: for no reward will remain that follows afterward upon such a deed.

Only the barren praise of the crowd will applaud.

But it is fitting that what your right hand does, your left should not know,

And then, for just merits, the sole examiner of the hidden heart

Will render worthy rewards.

There are those whom swelling pride of mind lifts up,

Who delight to have crowds stand by for their own prayers,

And who weary the day, drawing it out with many-flowing words.

To such vows follows the empty fruit of display.

But let the secret inner chambers of the house be closed for chaste prayers,

and you shall reverence God with few words.

The Father himself knows what trepidation is in your heart.

We speak nothing when God is absent, nothing do the hidden recesses of the closed breast conceal: God, being present, sees all things.

With these words then let it please you to conclude your prayer:

Father, dwelling on the starry summit of heaven,

We pray that the reverence of thy name be sanctified in us, high Father; and may thy peaceful light come to the world, and may the bright light of thy kingdom appear.

So, as in heaven, may thy will be made clear on earth,

And may the life-giving substance of the holy bread come to us today; may thy bounty soon release, in pardon, the innumerable debts of wicked error;

And it is right that we likewise grant remission of debts to others.

Far be the savage temptation of the foul demon,

And may thy right hand lift us out of evils into the light.

For thus will the Father remit sins to the peoples,

If you are willing mutually to forgive each other's sins,

Nor harden your heart against those who err.

Fasting of the people is also most pleasing to God.

But many labor to disfigure their own face,

That their fasting may catch vain fame among men.

But you, with your hair anointed with pleasant oil,

Wash your joyful face with pure waters;

So that the Father alone, seeing the fitting service of a devoted heart, may repay praise and merit.

It is vain to watch over talents buried in the earth:

There rust and devouring moths hold sway,

And thieves plunder all things brought out from their hiding-places.

Store up your treasures in the height of heaven.

Neither rust nor moths, nor the dread band of thieves, will plunder them. Where your treasure is stored,

There also are hearts held under a like dominion.

The light of the body is that by which you see common light:

But if the gaze in the eyes is pure and simple and shall shine,

The limbs of the whole body will clearly gleam.

But if it be wicked, and shall see what is depraved,

Dark shadows will settle over all the members.

But if the light is turned into black shadows,

How great a horror will there be in those very shadows without light?

No one can serve two masters equally:

He will either yield to hatred of the one, or yield to love of him.

Nor will a slave equally endure both masters.

Never will anyone be able to serve both riches and God

at the same time. But hold you these commands.

Let not clothing for your own body trouble you,

Nor with anxious care seek easy sustenance.

Do we not value the soul more than food for the body?

Or does anyone doubt to prefer the body to clothing?

Let us behold the birds of the air: not with pressed plowshare do they subdue the back of the soil, nor sow seeds of grain, nor cut down the stalks of crops with curved sickle.

Yet abundance of food and drink comes to them.

Is not the care of men dearer to God?

Nor was it fitting to hang the care of clothing upon our hearts. Can men add a cubit's growth to their own limbs?

Behold, how the lilies bloom through the rich fields.

Yet no labors have ever been spent on them.

Nor did such grace of clothing cover even Solomon, when the court of his rich kingdom overflowed.

A natural good common to the earth will please.

But if God himself clothes the green joys of meadows and shrubs, exposed to our fires,

Why is not your trust in the Father greater?

Therefore leave to the faithless nations the earthly care of food, drink, clothing, and all vain things.

Seek rather worthily the heavenly kingdom,

And the justice of God: the rest will come of its own accord:

Nor let tomorrow's abundance of things be your care.

Each day is sufficient to itself for its own trouble.

Let harsh condemnation flee from your judgment.

For the Lord will follow the pattern of your own judgment.

Whatever you establish on earth in your time of trial,

This same the Father will keep for you in heaven.

The measure that you set, you must bear yourself.

Do you see the mote clinging in your brother's eye,

Yet do not perceive that a beam stands in your own?

And do you strive first to cleanse another's eye?

Rather pluck out the beam, deceiver, from your own eye.

Then you will take care to remove the least splinter from another's.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor be willing

shamefully to throw pearls before unclean swine.

For they will lie trampled underfoot in the mud,

And the swine, turning, will tear you with a great wound.

To him who asks it will be given, he who seeks will find and hold,

And to him who knocks, the door will be opened wide.

Will any of you men give a stone to your sons asking for bread,

Or a serpent to one seeking a fish?

You, I say, hardened ones, in whose hearts is deeply set

Hardness, will yet always give good things to your children.

How much more does the indulgent Father of men delight rather worthily to bestow good and gentle gifts on those who ask rightly!

Whatever good deeds of men you wish to come to yourselves,

render these same to all with your own favor.

This is the sum of the law, this is the right the prophets have spoken.

Go, you righteous, through the narrow gate, above the stars.

How broad and spacious is the way which, on the left path,

Winds its steep course in the darkness of death,

And countless throngs pass through it downward!

The path of life is hemmed in by vast rocks,

And lofty virtue leads but few through the rugged crags.

But if the deceptive, alluring plain of evils

Has enticed too many into the ugly slip of its slippery course,

It seizes these, and drags them headlong, like a broad assault,

Or a spirited steed unbridled with reins broken,

Or a ship lacking a helmsman across the windy seas.

Watch out for those who under a false name

Set snares for you, and are called prophets.

The appearance of sheep clothes these, but savage wolves'

Hearts they cover with deceit, and they tear, dragging away

The unwary flocks of believers, whom cruel error deceives.

By their own fruits such monsters are known:

It must be seen what end deceitful teaching aims at.

Wherefore let the working of things be examined.

For neither have you ever noted that figs come from thistles, nor grapes

From brambles, across the back of the countryside.

And as a tree is clothed with its own kind of fruit,

So their deceit is revealed, the fruit showing it forth.

I shall not be moved by the words and honor of flatterers,

Nor will very sweet adulation, because it calls me Lord,

Win of itself the rewards of the heavenly seat.

But those will rejoice deservedly in the gift of the kingdom,

Who willingly do the commands of our Father.

Soon the final day will come, which by strict justice

Will grant rewards to righteousness, and Gehenna to crime.

Then to me the weeping of many will cry out such things:

Did not once, under your great name, for us

Powers subdue all things by holy commands?

Often too our voice was numbered among the prophets:

And a demon served us under your name.

Then I shall swear to them, that such a life of men,

Which is defiled by unjust deeds, was never known to me.

Whoever shall devote both ears and deeds to my warnings,

Him I shall liken to a man, who lays foundations upon solid rock,

Placing them, upon which balanced walls will rise.

That house will remain unharmed by rains and winds,

And will overcome the threats of torrents with strengthened firmness:

Since the foundations cling immovable to the rock.

But whoever hears my commands only,

And goes on through slippery paths far off with different deeds,

Him I shall make like the swift one who props upon sand

The foundations of his house, for whom at the first blast of wind,

And when the rain began to press upon it with poured-out streams,

The whole mass, its weight overturned, collapses,

And ruin follows with the heavy wreck of the roofs.

At such words a great wonder of the people

Stood immensely astonished, since the power granted to Christ

Had exceeded far the teaching of the ancients.

At last, as he left the heights of the lofty mountain,

A rejoicing crowd of following peoples thronged around him.

But behold, pierced through in his wretched flesh with dread decay,

A young man, whom leprosy had defiled, beset over his whole body,

Fell down in reverence, and prayed to Christ,

That at last he might be free of so great a weight of illness—

Let it suffice that you have willed it. Then the right hand of Christ

By touch alone cleansed the disfigured limbs.

And then, safe and sound, he bade him hide his joy,

And, obeying the law, offer gifts at the temple.

Then, as he was departing, a centurion at once offers himself as suppliant,

And thrown down, prays with such words.

The sick spirit of a boy not yet come of age is tormented,

Whose limbs a sudden weakness has dissolved from all their functions,

And a lingering punishment now barely holds his life.

But by your command have mercy, I beg: for our sins

Forbid the parent of life and light to enter under our roof.

Now a word suffices; bid health to return.

Men subject to me my own authority has often

Compelled by word alone to obey commanded duties thus.

He had spoken: he, moved by the man's prayers and faith,

Turning, gives such words to the following people.

Never do I recall having found such faith

In our ancestral people; but learn from true words,

That many men, born in different parts of the world,

The lofty kingdom of heaven will call

To recline at the table of life with our fathers:

Whose offspring, sunk in blind darkness,

Gnashing their teeth in dread and repeating weeping,

Driven, shall undergo punishment in perpetual torments.

But now to you, faithful in strength of mind, young man,

As you believe, the fruit of health shall come with the light.

He had spoken, and swifter than the word, with the very voice of the speaker,

The gifts of the swift word run through to the boy.

And entering the house, the soldier, in hastening return,

Rejoices that the gifts of the healing God had gone before him.

Then holy Jesus was entering the house of Peter,

Whose mother-in-law lay gasping with heat and fever.

And as the Savior Jesus touched her right hand,

The woman, healed, was offering service at the tables.

And now the day, declining with sloping light, had fallen

Into the sea, and dark night was drawing its blue-black robe

Painted with starry flames across the void:

When many men, falling in weakness of mind,

And bound in soul by the wicked art of a demon,

The people were carrying eagerly, even in the blind night.

But the word of Christ, such weakness removed,

Granting to all, provided the gifts of the Father.

But behold, a greater tumult arose with the light

Of a rejoicing people with the crowds: he, anxious,

Bade his disciples bring the sail-winged ship

Down to the sea. Then a scribe, with prayers poured out,

Likewise begged to depart in the Holy One's vessel.

To him Christ said: Where do you follow me, scribe?

The rock hollowed out in the wooded glen offers a hiding place to foxes,

And the forest gives rest to birds of the air,

But for the Son of Man it is allowed to enter no roofs:

Thus are the labors of your people.

Then one of the disciples spoke thus:

Last rites are owed to a departed father.

Hence let your holy will grant us time,

That it be permitted to bury the body of my poor father.

To this Christ replied: Rather accompany our journey,

And let the dead bury their dead in the earth.

They board the ship, and the sails, filled with wind, swell

Their canvas, and the keel flies with hissing wave.

After the ship held the deep, the sea began to rise into wrath

The sea, and on this side and that it presses to swell with boundless

winds, and to raise up raging mountains to the sky.

And now it strikes the stern with its mass, now the prow with its whirlwind,

and the planking of the sides receives the waves dashed

upon it, and the deep opens as the earth is laid bare below.

Meanwhile in the stern Jesus was taking sleep.

Him the disciples alike, and the terrified sailors,

beg to wake, and show him the perils of the sea.

He then says: How little trust is in you!

Fear rushes into faithless hearts! Then upon the storms

he commands, and lays out a calm peace over the waters.

They among themselves exchange the wonders in fearful

converse: what power so great was granted to him,

or what dominion is his, to whom the seas stirred up by winds,

and the storm rising with threats, thus bow their necks.

Now the boat had stood beneath the shore of the Gerasenes;

but behold, to him as he disembarked (wondrous to tell) a young man

runs to meet him, whose wretched mind a black spirit

filled, tearing it with the unclean power of madness.

Dear to him was to dwell in foul tombs:

Nor could anyone restrain his raging madness.

Indeed he even broke the strong bonds of iron,

and tore heavy chains apart, as if they were threads of wool.

And now it was sport for him, freed of his fetters, lightly to leap about,

and to bruise his fierce breast with stones.

And when he saw Christ passing along the shore,

he rushed with a cry, and ran from afar, worshipping:

Most certain offspring of the ever-reigning Lord,

we beg you not to drive us out from the shores

of our accustomed region, tormented and tortured far away.

For our name is Legion, and the sole power

of harm unites many spirits under one name.

Do you see how unclean swine crowd these pastures?

Let it be permitted at least to sate our repelled madness upon these,

we ask, by the sublime name of the high-throned Father.

Christ commands them to release the man's mind,

and allows their madness to end in the herds of swine.

And now the man's stunned breast, the demon shaken off,

reveres the unhoped-for gift of his own salvation.

And now the swine, headlong from the edge of the cliffs,

cast into the sea, hasten to destroy their lives.

But those watching from the heights, terrified by such great wonders,

flee, and the swineherds rush to the dwellings of the city,

and kindle rumor, and gather the people to the shore.

But after the crowd of people, gathered to see,

was compelled to believe that the mad young man had regained his senses,

they, frightened, begged that he would leave that region.

Then Jesus, the light of the world, returns home.

Behold, as he returned, a young man whose torpid limbs,

whose function fierce disease had loosened,

they placed lying on a bed before the feet of Christ.

Whom Jesus, pitying in his heart, addresses with words:

Let sure constancy be present in your mind, young man,

for the past error of your life shall be forgiven you.

This saying the Scribes, in the hidden malice of their minds,

carped at, because he had uttered words to be borne

by the power of God alone. But Christ, seeing such hearts,

said: This word, the sayings of the Scribes reconsider.

How much lighter it was to have said this, the following

deed and word alike by their power will prove,

and they will see that it has been granted to me to forgive sins.

Therefore, young man, your bodily strength restored,

rise vigorous, and carry your bed back beneath your roof.

He rose, and now fits the bed to his strong shoulders,

and went vigorously through the midst of the wondering people.

Then fear, and praises of the Lord, celebrated together

throughout the hearts of the people, together with the joyful wonders, throng.

Going forth then thence to the tax office, he saw

Matthew sitting in the midst of the assembly: at once he bids him

cling to his disciples; he, refusing nothing,

obeys the command of Christ, and rejoices to have followed.

Then, going on his way, with similar speech he urges Philip,

and takes him as a companion to his friends.

He, when he had come to know the power and the way of Christ,

as soon as he ran to meet righteous Nathanael, said:

Behold, it has been granted to our age to see

him whom the voices of the ancients and the holy prophets sang.

Him Joseph, coming of David's line, begot.

Whose happy homeland is Nazareth, and whose name is Jesus.

He replies: If Nazareth begot anything, I marvel

that it could ever be worthy of such great virtues.

Then Philip says: You shall see, cease to doubt:

go forward and see; for it will be permitted to behold with your own eyes.

When Jesus saw him coming from afar, he said:

Here comes a righteous man, whose heart knows no falsehood,

keeping pure virtue, without malicious guile.

He replies: But where, or at what time, have you known me?

To whom the Lord utters these words from his divine breast:

When the shade of the spreading fig tree covered you,

even before the words of Philip called you,

the spirit, your author, saw you and chose you as a companion.

Astonished at such words, the voice of Nathanael follows:

Venerable offspring of God, renowned king of the nation,

you are the salvation of the people and of the earth, and the master of life.

Christ to this: An easy power persuaded you to believe,

because I saw you reclining beneath the shade of the tree.

But greater wonders of things remain hereafter.

You shall see the whole heaven split apart together,

and the swift ministers of God pierce the sky,

then bring down a bright crown to the Son of Man.

Meanwhile, festive marriage was being prepared in the bridal chambers

in the region of Cana, where the mother of the glorious Jesus

was celebrating the feast together with her son.

But meanwhile the wine was failing the guests.

Then the mother implores Christ with these words:

Do you see that the drink of joy has now failed?

Let there be, O son, gifts given by you for the good tables.

To her Christ, the glory of the earth, replied:

You are hasty, mother; not yet does such a thing compel me

to grant gifts for the sustenance of men.

Then the mother, made joyful, calls the servants of the tables,

and bids them obey the commands of her son.

There were there six vessels most beautifully hollowed out of stone,

whose bellies would hold three measures each.

These he bids the servants fill from the bosom of the spring.

The young men obey his commands, and crown the waters,

filling to the brim of the stones: then foam over the edges

rolls the mingled airs with the waves to the very top.

Then he bids them bear it to be tasted by the chief steward.

When he perceived the gift of the venerable savor,

Not knowing that into the pleasant liquid of wine

Had passed the waters lately drawn from pure fountains,

He rebukes the unwitting bridegroom, that keeping back the finer

He had given the worse wines first at the tables.

By these signs he confirmed with steadfast strength

The perpetual mind of his believing disciples, as was fitting:

Thence, when the solemn feast of Passover was at hand for the Jews,

He directed his way to Solyma, and entered the temple.

Here he found a crowd setting out many things for sale:

Some were selling sheep, some the great bodies of bullocks,

Some, gaping after coin, were busy counting their trade.

Here Christ binds together the lashes of a scourge with cords,

And drives such people forth from the holy house,

And overturning the tables, pours out the heaps of bronze,

And rebuking them further: "Carry these things far hence, ye profane,

That here my Father, not sordid gain, may be worshipped."

Then the Jewish people, murmuring, demanded a sign,

By which, trusting, they might lift their minds to such deeds.

Then Christ mingled these things to come in dark words:

"Destroy this venerable temple with polluted hands;

I will restore it when the third light of the sun

Shall begin to pour its ruddy light upon the earth."

They, discoursing among themselves with blind murmuring,

Say: "This temple, scarcely built in six and forty years

By the toil of the ancient kingdom—

Will you be able to renew it in the space of three days?"

This word, worthy men, after the due time,

Came to know: that Christ had spoken of the temple of God

As his own body: but seeing the signs

Many then took up faith, and followed the Holy One.

Under the dark of night, lifted up to lofty honor,

One of the first nobles of the Jewish name

Came, and to Christ in a lowered voice thus spoke:

"There is no doubt that God's generous will, O Holy One,

Has granted light to rise upon human affairs,

Nor would anyone attribute miracles to such signs,

Unless the accompanying power of God bade them shine forth."

Christ to this: "If you seek the summit of the righteous path,

No one shall be able to climb to the exalted kingdom,

Unless, given back, he enters again the beginnings of birth,

And takes up new life by divine gift."

But he, his heart astounded by such great sayings,

Said: "This is not for our mind to grasp.

Who could recall the beginnings of the life once begun?

Or shall an old man again creep into his mother's womb,

That he may come anew into the light, and resume life?"

He to this: "If anyone, reborn of the liquid fountain,

And by the holy breath, shall begin to stand firm

In his newborn limbs, he shall ascend free into the ethereal hall.

An earthly body is born of an earthly body.

Likewise the Spirit begets a breath like unto itself,

This Spirit is God, whom all things of the world obey.

He, where he wills, flies wherever, and casts his voice

Through the air, but you know not what are the beginnings of the voice,

Nor to what quarter its running breaths tend.

Whoever, then, seeks again the beginnings of righteous life,

It is certain that he, like unto it, revives by the holy breath."

And the Jew to this: "I can perceive none of these things."

Then Christ spoke thus: "Great master of Solyma,

Lofty glory of the race of Israel,

Do you also plunge your mind, snatched from the light of life,

Headlong, pitiable one, into dark shadows,

Nor are you able with your dull sense to grasp such things?

Behold, there is no faith at all—I have spoken only of earthly things.

What if my speech should begin to ascend

The powers of heaven, and to comprehend the higher forms of things?

Which of you will be able to unfold to me a hardened mind?

Receive, then, what the meaning is of these new matters.

No one shall be able to ascend the starry heaven,

Save only he who came sent from the hall of heaven,

He who, being the Son of Man, dwells in the seat of heaven.

As once the serpent, in the desert regions,

Was lifted up by the hands of Moses with the highest honor,

So it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up on high,

That whosoever fixes faith in the deep recesses of his mind

Upon his divinity, beneath the whirl of this age

Shall trample death underfoot, and rising beyond the stars,

Exalted, shall receive the inviolable gift of life.

For God so loved the world with such great love,

That his only offspring should descend to the earth,

Joining those who believe in the Lord to life everlasting.

Nor did God send this his Son by rigorous judgment

To weigh the earth in fierce judgment:

But that gentle gifts of life might come to the peoples.

For when sure faith has embraced salvation,

There will be no doubtful contest of judgment there.

But where the gifts of healing have been shut far away,

Already their own condemnation torments their mind.

For to these the only Son of the Lord was unknown.

The wretched proud fled the coming of the light,

And, embracing it the more, held fast to their blind hiding-places.

So whoever has stained his mind with evil deeds,

Flees fearfully to the shadows, lest in the clear light

The sordid contagions of his polluted mind be exposed.

But whoever has kept the footsteps of a pious life,

Hastens to the light, and rejoices that it shines forth clearly,

That the glory of his virtue may shine in bright deeds.

Thence the Savior Jesus returned to Galilee:

But passing by, he came by chance to Samaritan Sichem.

There was a field there, famed by the name of Jacob,

And a well sunk deep into a hidden cold spring.

Here the Savior, panting in the swift heat, had sat down:

And the disciples, buying food, scattered here and there

Throughout the walls of the city, left the Master alone.

A Samaritan woman came out from the walls,

To draw water from the hollow depths of the well.

To her Christ said: "Give me, woman, a drink of water."

The woman, answering, said: "You bid me a strange thing,

That I, a Samaritan woman, should give drink to you, a Jew,

Setting aside the ancient commands of the Samaritans."

Then the Savior said: If you knew the gift of the Lord,

And who it is that, thirsting, asks for the water of the well,

You rather would ask, and he would give you living water.

She thereupon: The well's basin curves deep down,

There is no bucket, nor have you a rope's binding.

Whence then will you be able to give me living water?

Will you be greater in power than our father?

For Jacob indeed drank from this well with his children,

And often led here his own flocks to drink.

To her Jesus, ruler of the world, replied:

From that water none shall be fully satisfied,

For again he will thirst: but the gifts of our stream

Shall shut out burning thirst for drinking unto eternal ages.

To whomever the sweet cups of our fountain shall come,

From thence a more abundant flow of living water shall stream.

But if desire for our water seizes you,

Let your husband, called forth, come with you soon from the city.

The woman denies that she is bound by marriage.

Then thus continues Jesus, discerner of the mind:

Woman, you speak true words about a husband.

For you have been joined already in the unions of five men,

Now you bear another's marriage bonds above you.

Then the woman: It is certain that you are a holy prophet.

But our fathers left to us of old the venerable command

On the peak of this mountain

that we should worship there.

But you say that one must worship in the region of Jerusalem.

To her speaking such things Jesus soon returns such words:

Behold, a time will come when, both from the summit of your mountain

And from all Jerusalem, worship will be far removed.

But now certain salvation arises from the lands of the Jews.

And now the course of the pressing time already urges,

When the true worshipers of the holy Father, error having been removed,

Armed with just laws, shall pray.

For these there will be the Spirit, and full faith, and the lofty Father

Seeks out such worshiping hearts on earth.

She then: We know that Christ, the messenger to the world

By his own coming will open the ages of life.

And then Jesus, generous pitier of sinners,

Confesses that he, Christ, the light, has come to the earth.

And now the returning disciples marveled at their master,

That he held converse in secret words with the woman.

But hastening, the woman left her jar in place of the well,

And led the people out from all the walls of the city.

For she recounted to herself all things by the prophet's speech,

Whatever she herself had done before, told in order.

Then quickly the poured-out crowds sought Christ.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him to take food.

He replied that for himself there remained enough of goodly food.

But then among the wondering disciples

There ran a secret talk in murmured words among themselves:

Perhaps someone earlier had given a meal to the master before,

So that, satisfied deservedly, he now rejects our food.

But he, perceiving the workings of their inward mind, said:

This is my food, this heart shall be satisfied,

If I do the commands of the great Father throughout the world.

Four months from now, you reckon,

Remain until the joyful beginning of the fruitful summer's harvest.

Lift up therefore your eyes, behold the whitening fields,

And all the countryside now demanding a ripe harvest;

Now whoever shall reap, by the wage of goodly labor,

Shall thereafter rejoice, overflowing with life-giving grain,

And the sower shall gladly receive the joys of the reapers.

I have now sent you to cut down a laden harvest,

Which was not sown by your own labor in the furrows.

Others' toils shall enrich you with the gift of good grain.

While with such words he filled the hearts of his companions,

Behold, the people of Samaria came asking,

And begged that he spend two suns there.

And now deep faith had been founded in many of the people,

Nor now did they trust so much only in the woman's words,

But manifest power itself taught them before their eyes,

That Jesus, the Savior of the age, had now come.

And now he had returned into the region of Galilee,

Where once he had changed the fountain waters into wine.

Here a certain royal youth, whose son a disease

With panting heat was scorching at the last edge of life,

When he learned that Christ had certainly returned by that road,

Flew to him, and pouring out prayers for his child's fate

Begged, seeking the gift of swift healing,

Lest his pious son be dragged to bitter death.

To this Christ said: Unless power persuade by signs in everything,

There will be no faith: but go, and with your son safe in life

Embrace your sweet child in your own home.

By these words fair faith, soon to reap the fruit

Of salvation, confirms the mind in a rejoicing heart.

And now, as he entered on his way, to the hastening servants coming to meet him

News came, and that into the regions of light the boy

Had suddenly returned to health from the threshold of death.

When he learned this, he perceived that the certain hour agreed

With the words of Christ the healer, and he gave himself

And his household, embracing the venerable gift of faith.

By chance one day had joined many together at a feast,

Men who, having taken on the public taxes for their own gain,

Under another's name seize their prey.

These Jesus received together with his disciples.

Behold, the Pharisees strove with hidden effort to blame him,

Because the teacher of the law entered into such feasts.

But he, seeing what fierce feelings held their hearts, said:

There is no need of physicians, where sound limbs

Are quickened by unspoiled health with the honor of vigor.

But medicine is rightly to be applied to the sick, with compassion.

Learn now at least what the words of the prophet command:

I seek not sacrifices so much as gentle hearts.

For I have not come to the just walking in straight paths,

But to call back the wicked steps of sinners from their threshold.

But behold, from among those marveling at Christ's gifts,

One of the disciples of John was asking

Why they themselves kept frequent fasts of the law,

And why under Christ the people bore no fasts at all.

To this Christ, with a calm countenance, replied thus:

Those who accompany the joyful vows of the bridegroom with dances,

Do not, while he is present, bear sad fasts.

And now the day shall come, when the bridegroom, by the whirlwind of the age,

Shall be snatched away from the midst of his companions: then they, with sorrowful hearts,

Weeping, shall take up faint fastings.

How foolish it is to stitch old patches

Onto new cloth,

So that the tear in the garment gapes worse?

Or to entrust warm new wine to worn-out wineskins,

Which, once burst, cause the whole wine to be lost?

But it is right to pour foaming new wine into new wineskins:

Thus strong vessels preserve the wine.

As he treated of such things, his breast smitten with grief,

Behold, the chief of the priests falls down worshipping,

And weeping implores for his own dead daughter, a pitiable funeral,

And begs that the sure salvation of Christ's gifts come

Even to the dead.

Without delay, Jesus the Savior rises and walks.

As he goes forward a woman follows, keeping to his footsteps,

Whom for twice six years, as they slipped by, a grievous weakness,

A flow of blood, endlessly tearing, consumed,

Her strength spent, and her whole body wearied.

She, believing, turned this over in the silent secret of her heart,

And held it already with sure faith to herself,

That at once the wasting disease would flee her weary body,

If she could but touch the hem of Christ's garment.

When, amid the crowd, with trembling hand she touched

The hanging threads of his outer robe, straightway he,

Perceiving both the causes of the illness and the believing heart,

Granted swift healing with such a word:

Receive the gift which the steadfastness of your faith has deserved,

And at once, the blood restrained, her veins grew strong.

After it was reached, where the funeral of the maiden

Was under way, amid the wailing of the mourning people, and the blare of trumpets

Celebrating the last rites of the funeral procession:

Let these mournful things, he said, depart from your dwellings.

For the girl lies sunk in peaceful slumber,

Whom the weeping crowd, not knowing, supposes dead.

The crowd left him speaking such things, laughing,

Because he said the girl, snatched away by death, was sleeping.

But Christ, conqueror of death, and finder of life,

Deigned to take with his own right hand her cold right hand,

And bade her at once rise, to the astonished joy of her father.

Then, as he returned, at once a cry presented itself,

Of two blind men, their steps faltering alike.

To these Christ said: If your hearts believe,

Now by my power your lost sight shall be restored.

They, with heart made firm, confess that they believe.

Then Christ speaks: Believing, behold the light,

And tell no one our name after this.

He spoke: but through such great joys of those who saw,

An unquenched ardor bore the report through all places.

Then a young man is brought to him, from whom

Had been snatched away the substance of his sonorous voice by the assault of a demon.

But when the demon, driven out, fled from his breast,

At once the gifts of a healthy tongue returned.

He is hedged about by the pressing tumult of the people marveling at such things:

But seeing so many thousands of men,

He groans, as a lord of the countryside, whose glad pastures

Countless flocks crop, lacking a shepherd.

Then to his disciples he brings forth such words:

How glad the crops spread over the back of the fields!

But the reaper is few, outmatched by the heap of grain.

It remains now to beg the lord of so great a harvest,

That he be willing to fill his fields with a number of workers.

Having said this, chosen apart from all the people,

He gathers together stout hearts into a company of twelve.

When he had chosen these, he fills them with such precepts:

Avoid the road which the perfidious nations,

And the Samaritans, tread in the footsteps of their deceit.

Go rather, where the guarding of the ancestral flock falters.

But as you go, take on a mind like mine,

That holy faith may subdue for you the powers of the dark demon,

And fit you for pious care of the sick.

These powers shall be given to you for no reward.

And you likewise shall bestow your gifts freely, without charge.

Let not possession of gold or silver master your mind,

Nor let wicked greed of money subdue you:

Nor let the servant of naked virtue desire to keep

Two garments, or two coverings for his feet.

Having entered the walls of a city, always seek out,

Into whose lodging it is fitting for the just to go.

And having entered, then call down peace upon the house:

If the household is peaceable, that peace shall remain.

But if it bristles with the unworthy ways of its inhabitants,

It will flee away, and your peace will follow your departure.

Whoever fiercely shuts you out from the threshold of his roof,

Or with hard ears spurns your life-giving words:

Shake off, as you leave, the dust of that house from your feet,

Lest any portion of that life cling unjustly to you.

A punishment worse than that of the Sodomites shall await them,

With torments, when the end shall come upon all the world.

Behold, you go forth as sheep, prey for savage wolves:

But be as wary in heart as serpents,

Yet in simplicity surpass gentle doves.

For often a sudden injury will befall you,

And your bodies will be arraigned before councils of men.

With scourges, and cruel bonds, and harsh tyrants

The gnashing violence of the age shall press upon you for my sake.

When they betray you, lay aside care for words:

The grace of speech, flowing freely, will be given to you.

The Spirit within you will speak worthy things on your behalf.

For the wicked madness of a brother shall betray his brother,

And children shall give over the bodies of their parents to death.

Hatred shall press upon you always for our name's sake,

But glory of life accompanies faith's end.

Flee from the roofs of the city which persecutes you:

Thence seek out another dwelling, and then again another.

For it must ever be that cities remain for you,

Which will yield up a people under the name of the Israelites.

A disciple never rises above the lofty heights of his master,

Nor let the servant try to surpass his Lord.

It is enough for the disciple to equal the powers of his master,

Or for the servant to attain a virtue like his lord's.

Let all fear ever be far from your hearts:

For all things hidden are brought forth stripped of their coverings.

Whatever is bidden you silently in the darkness,

Speak it out under the bright light of the shining sun.

And whatever I say whispering into your ears,

Let it be proclaimed to the peoples from the high roof-top.

Despise the rage of those who lay your bodies low

With the sword: they have no power over this

To cast down likewise the living mind into death:

But rather let them dread him who

Has power at once over both body and soul.

For sparrows a price, scarcely a small portion of a coin

Will be given; yet it is not fitting to believe that even one

Falls into your snares, save by the Lord's command.

Who, being wise, would doubt that in the Lord's breast

One man is trusted more than many thousands of winged creatures?

Whoever shall have confessed me before an earthly judge,

Him I likewise will confess before the Father.

So too before the Father I will deny him who denies.

I have not now come to send peace upon the earth,

But a sword, which shall part the son from the father's breast,

And part the sweet daughter from the mother's breast.

If anyone shall hold his father dearer than my love,

Or shall set my love below that of mother or offspring,

He shall feel a dreadful repulse from our dwelling.

Whoever shall despise his soul for our name's sake

Shall find it flourishing with the joyful fruit of salvation.

Whoever receives you, rejoices to have received me

With kindly service; he too will rejoice to have received me

For the supreme Father, in life everlasting.

When he had given such commands to the twelve disciples,

Righteous John, from the shadows of a dark prison,

Bids chosen men from among his followers

Carry these words to Christ, and bring back the truth:

Then, for pious souls, the rest which the kingdom of heaven

Has promised to the earth—do you now shine forth in our time?

Or is there yet another salvation to be hoped for hereafter?

To such words Christ sends back these commands.

The darkness of the blind is changed into the light of day,

And the limbs of the feeble grow strong with restored vigor.

The livid leprosy is shaken from the scaly body,

The sound of an airy voice pierces deaf ears.

Life is restored after death's funeral to the lost,

The soul's substance reclaiming the deposited body,

And the glory of our shining advent

Does not disdain to appear openly to its poor.

Blessed shall he be whom error has not deceived.

Such commands the disciples report to their master.

Upon this Christ speaks such words to the people:

Why did you wish of late to see in the desert

A reed of straw swayed by the trembling wind?

Why also did you wish to see one clothed in soft raiment?

They who wear soft raiment dwell in the houses of kings.

He alone is promised, by the testimony of ancient writing,

To surpass the power of the prophets.

For thus the reading of the venerable voice records him:

Behold, I send my minister to prepare the ways

Before your face: nor has woman borne any

Greater than our John in power.

But he who is lesser shall become higher in the court of heaven.

From his rising the kingdom of heaven feels violence,

And fierce violence plunders the kingdom of heaven.

All the Law took its sum from the time of the Baptist,

And the prophets likewise are concluded at the same point.

If you wish to know the dwelling place of the swift age,

The body of John, blessed, took as its habitation him

Whom Elijah once, when a shining whirlwind by command

Snatched away, in the likeness of a fiery four-horsed chariot.

Let him hear these things who opens his ears with living words.

Now I confess to you, Father, to whom the glory of shining heaven,

And of the fruit-bearing earth, does service,

You have now hidden these things from the proud wise,

And have granted the small hearts of infants strength to grasp them.

Now all things have been handed to me by the reigning Father,

Nor can anyone know the Son of the Lord,

Save the Father alone; and the Father the Son alone

Shall see in mind, or he to whom the Son shall reveal such things.

Let all come hither whom the burden of a vast weight

Oppresses; my power, by the Father's gift,

Shall be able to restore ancient strength with joyful rest.

Take up my yoke, my burden is light for the just,

For to the humble heart I will grant sweet salvation.

When he had spoken these words, he passed through the tilled

And weighted harvest, and the crowd of following disciples

Plucked the heavy grain of the ears in a row.

That day, by the ancient law, demanded rest,

For the Sabbath, by old commands, required leisure.

Behold, the Pharisees reproach Christ openly,

Because the disciples, reaping, trampled the commands

Of the holy law. But then Jesus, fulfiller of the laws,

Begins, unfolding for them the records of the ancient writing:

You have surely read that David once, singing in the temple

With his people, took the consecrated loaves,

And satisfied his own and his companions' hunger; but for others

It had been unlawful to touch those loaves,

Which by the law only the priest could take.

Of the same it is written, by the just measure of the law:

The prophets profane the Sabbath in the temple without guilt.

Nor is the gathering of your crowd here any less

Than the power of the temple. If your hearts could grasp

That God prefers not sacrifices but gentle hearts,

Your faction would not so often condemn holy men,

Who are guiltless. But now I, ruling of my own will,

Shall hold all Sabbaths under the law's authority.

Then, after such words, he enters their assemblies:

Soon he sees a young man before the threshold,

From whose shoulder hung a withered, useless weight of hand;

But then, testing with deceitful words,

Whether it is lawful to bring healing on the Sabbath to the sick,

They ask, so that the vengeance of the trampled law might stand.

Christ to this: If perchance your cattle

Should fall into a pit, surely you would cross the rest of the law,

And lift the poor beast from the broken depth.

How much greater, then, ought the care of men

To kindle our minds, lifting them to good deeds!

Come then, young man, stretch forth your healed right hand.

At the word he, healed, stretched forth both hands.

For these signs, which the wonder of the marveling people

Could scarcely honor with worthy reverence,

In fierce councils they cry out that he must be destroyed.

Foreseeing such schemes of the leaders, Christ,

Departing, applies to the various sicknesses of men

The healing granted to the peoples by his ancestral power.

And there was brought to him one whom the horrid power of a demon

Wished, deprived of tongue and sight, to live in punishment,

And to be food for his own torments.

When the blind faction of the Pharisee people

Recognized him healed, thriving in sight and voice,

They say that he did this by the help of the demon

Who alone, as prince of demons, held the powers of wickedness in his dominion.

But Christ covers such words, convincing their hearts

With truthful speech: If a kingdom, split into two parts, gapes open,

And a divided split fights against itself,

All things quickly collapse, their inward parts broken apart.

And if a horrid demon is driven out by a dark demon,

Split against itself, it fights with opposing power.

Who will be able to carry off the plunder from the houses of strong men,

unless first, having attacked, he binds the arms of the guards with knots,

so that easy plundering of the spoil may come to pass?

Whoever shall be set apart from my army, absent from my arms,

shall stand as an enemy on the opposing front of the battle.

Whoever wanders free, not being gathered into my flocks,

scatters the pastures of my flock through trackless ways.

But whatever error a man shall have committed above all things,

it can be forgiven: only let the Spirit never

be torn by words poured forth from a raving mind.

If anyone, raging, hurls insults against the Son of man,

even these sins can be forgiven.

But whoever shall violate the Holy Spirit with the profane

rage of words, with punishments that cannot be recalled,

shall be scorched now and forever by fire.

When shall the fierce offspring of the venom-bearing serpent

be able to grow mild by the sweet fruit of words?

For good things come forth sweet from just treasuries,

and evil poisons proceed from a death-bearing mouth.

By the merits of words life shall come under the judge,

by the merits of words punishment shall be given under the judge.

Whatever the Father shall do, the Son shall follow all of it.

For the same One reveals all things to the Son to be seen,

and thereafter shall grant greater miracles of things.

For as the Father restores dead bodies

to the bright light of life, so the Son shall lead all bodies,

whichever he wills, rising up to the heavens.

Nor does the Father seek anyone of you as judge himself,

but has given these rights of seeking through the world to the Son,

so that like glory may remain to the Son and to the Father.

For if the Son shall be repelled from your honor,

with equal wickedness you will despise the Father.

But the grace of his own speech establishes faith for us,

soon the gifts of the Father who sends me shall become manifest.

And present steadfastness shall give eternal life.

And there is no judgment for him, but he departs from black

death far off, and, thriving, presses toward the thresholds of light.

The time will come, when dead bodies shall receive

our voice, and shall hold life along with the voice.

For as the Father possesses life in himself,

so he has granted life to the Son, and bidden him to pronounce judgment

on earth, since he came from the body of man.

Nor let it seem wondrous to you, that all bodies

rise at the hearing of the voice from their own tombs,

and the souls of the just are bound to a revived body,

and by heavy judgment the wretched wicked rise up.

Nor does my own power alone grant me judgment;

since all things are commanded by the will of the Father,

who has bidden me to seek out justice on earth.

For if I should rise up as witness on my own behalf,

I would speak falsely; and likewise another is held as witness

on our behalf, rightly it is permitted me to disdain such things.

For by true signs of works, more manifest than all

light, the present testimony shines upon our deeds.

Granting such things, the Father clings to me as witness,

who sent me to set down his commands on earth.

For you have never been able to grasp his voice,

nor has he granted you to see his own appearance.

Nor could his word ever settle within

your hearts, since there is no substance of believing.

Let the reading of the ancient writings be sought by you,

which you think brings everlasting life to all.

This reading also bears witness to our gift.

Yet you dare not stand nearer to us,

lest the grace of true life should befall you.

I do not seek the glory of earthly praise for myself.

For because I have come in the name of the highest Father,

I am rejected by you: but another of different color shall come,

supported by his own name, whom your people will follow.

The glory of alternating fame is sought by you,

and you flee to seek the sole praise of the One.

Nor shall I accuse you before the Father, but there

there will be an accuser, whom your hope now celebrates,

Moses, whom you keep with no honor of faith.

For if your error believed in his writings,

it would believe in us too, whom Moses' writings frequent.

Then such words of the scribes follow in reply:

Undoubted faith will accompany these words,

if power shall confirm miracles with sure signs.

He then said: A generation polluted by evils seeks

a sign for itself: but signs shall stand for future things,

for as much time as the prophet spent under the hollow breast of the whale,

so long shall the offspring of man remain sunk in the deep recesses of the earth.

The time will come, when the race of men, restored to life,

shall rise, given over to weeping for their own deeds.

This shall condemn that generation with deserved crime,

because, admonished by the voice of the prophet rising from the depth of the sea,

it turned, cast down into tears, the Lord being moved.

Here too greater things than Jonah's warnings are commanded,

and an impious people with savage minds despise the light.

And the queen shall rise into the shores of the known world.

Before her example the fierce people will be condemned,

because she came from the farthest bounds of Libya,

devoted to just precepts, to hear pious Solomon.

Now a power greater than Solomon is present,

and yet the hearts of the dull people are blinded.

Whenever the demon, driven out, flees from the breast,

whom the holy breath disturbs, the body being purged,

he roams over poisoned paths through the regions,

where no wave of a fountain's flood runs,

nor does he, burning, find rest of a peaceful seat for himself.

Then, thirsting, he seeks again the dwellings of the accustomed mind.

But if by chance he finds the heart liable to his own poisons,

and sees the thresholds smiling with a light adornment,

the hostile power to man gathers together seven similar furies as companions,

and the serpent penetrates into the inward parts.

So this race, when it degenerately strays from true sense,

shall bewail chains subjected to perpetual punishments.

And while he frequents these life-giving words among the peoples,

his mother stood there before the doors with his brothers,

and asks to mingle speech close at hand from outside.

Then he sends back such words to his mother's bidding: Here with me sit my mother, with me my sister,

these bodies. For whoever fulfills the paternal will—

he joins his own body with my blood,

and is held under the name of my mother and my kin.

Jesus, the light of the earth, proceeds from the temple,

and settled upon the farthest shore of the sea and land,

and innumerable throngs of the people flowed there.

But he, climbing up onto the lofty ship that was nearest,

brings forth such words to the people filling the shore:

Behold, the sower entrusts the seeds to his own field,

They fall on diverse soil, and bear the fortune of their places

According to its worth. For wherever the trodden ground of paths

Is packed hard beneath the feet into a solid track,

The bare seeds give prey to the birds of the air.

But where rocks are veiled with a very thin layer of dust,

The grain indeed puts forth the green rising of its sprout;

But because no substance lies beneath the dry clods,

The threads of the roots wither once heat has entered in.

And soon all the tips of the ears slip away into death,

And to other seeds rough ground befalls:

Here, more swiftly than the growth of wood,

There rises up the increase of briers and wild thorns,

Choking and killing the crop. But the seeds which are given

To rich clods, these bear a beautiful harvest,

Whose glad increase abundance visits

With a hundredfold yield of its own.

Let him hear this who bears open ears of mind.

The disciples, marveling at such sayings, ask

Why he should shut up everything for the people in tangled words;

But he, the crowd of believers having drawn near, declares:

To you, who have made steadfast your mind strong of heart

For grasping the inmost places of God,

It has been granted to stand deep within the innermost shrines of the kingdom.

For those others, according to their merit, the eyes of the mind are shut.

If anyone has, being worthy, he shall receive still more in overflow.

But whoever wanders devoid of the heavenly gift

Shall lose even whatever he keeps as his own.

Therefore, covered with obscure ambiguities,

The grace of our speech restrains that people,

So that the saying of Isaiah concerning the deserving folk might return true.

Behold, the minds of the people are veiled on every side with thick

Barriers, lest by sense they should touch the gifts of life.

They stand by with closed ears, and heavy eyes,

Lest, being turned, the guilty folk be healed unto good.

How blessed now are your ears, and your eyes!

For many of old, the just, and the holy prophets,

Prayed to behold the gifts which now shine clear for you.

Receive then in your minds what meaning the seed bears.

Whoever lets my word fall only upon the surface of his ears,

And does not receive its meaning with firm and steady vigor,

The demon snatches the whole of it away from his breast.

This one is like the field which, upon a hard path,

Exposes the sprouts as plunder without fruit to swift birds.

There are others, who receive our words with joyful breast,

But brief is for them the grace of the harvest received.

For if a hard pressure should press upon and constrain the mind,

Straightway, trembling, they betray to death what was entrusted to them.

For these, the rocky field grows green with a like fickleness.

But the thorny field answers to those weighed down with a mass of cares,

Whom the burdens of riches press.

Thus the seeds of our discourse, pressed down, are weighed upon,

Nor does fruit follow, killed by the horror of thorns.

Likewise the rich fields stand with equal strength.

For those who clearly grasp the precepts of salvation,

Which, being handled with tenacious understanding, penetrate the soul,

They bear fruit a hundredfold by the strength of their virtue.

This he then added, to the disciples and further to the people besides.

The lofty kingdom of the Thunderer is like a farmer.

He casts, entrusting good seeds to his own field:

But afterward, creeping in upon the sleep of men,

The fierce enemy comes, and scatters bitter tares.

But behold, when to fruit the bristling ear

Has come forth on the stalks, the harvest overflows stained with tares.

Then the servants, marveling at such things, speak to the Lord:

Did you not give good seed over your fields?

Whence then is your land burdened with foul tares?

But now, if you bid, we will purge the whole harvest,

And the wheaten brightness will stand out, the filth being sorted out.

Then the Lord answers again with gentle speech:

This is your trick, enemy, but let the grain

Grow together with the tares: for when the harvest's time is full

I will command the separated tares, bound in bundles,

To be burned with fires: but from our seed the reaper

Will thereafter fill our barns with the cleansed crop.

Not otherwise is it like, if you open the ears of your heart,

The heavenly kingdom to the very small seed of mustard,

Which a farmer, sowing it into his own little field, sets in place.

And it is believed to be, among all the seeds of green things,

The least: but when it has taken the increase of just growth,

It rises with lifted crest and surpasses all

The crops of the fields, so that the feathered throng

May sport in its branches, and may dwell within its green shades.

Equal to leavening yeast is the heavenly gift,

Which a woman hides beneath a great mass of meal.

That, then, mixed with a little warmth of leaven

Once brought together, grows into one body of dough.

Such things then, wrapped in perplexing words, he was

Uttering to the people, so that the sayings of the ancient prophet might

Concur with events commanded in the order of ages:

I shall deign to open my mouth, and, belching forth,

The image of varied speech shall unroll the hidden things of the world.

Thence he returns home late, and left the crowds behind.

The fiery sun had poured its rosy gleam upon the earth.

The disciples ask what the question of the tares meant,

And of the harvest: to whom bright Jesus sets forth these things:

He who entrusts the best seeds of grain to the clods

Is the Son of man: under the name of the field

Understand the world, and by pure seed, just men.

But the wretched tares are men covered

By the demon's art: the enemy shall be, a horrid force, the demon.

The extreme end of the world stands for the time of harvest.

The reapers, the father's own servants, will come through the fields,

Whom the Son of man shall bid gather out of his own

Kingdom's body the snares of error, and the stain,

And, once gathered together, burn them with swift flames.

There shall be always gnashing of teeth, and unending weeping:

And for the secret righteous the golden light of life shall come,

As the lights of the sun are shaken forth in the seats of heaven.

This he taught, and the Savior returns to his native city,

There unfolding for the peoples (wondrous to tell)

The laws of justice, and the wholesome commands of life,

Teaching at the same time and instilling ancestral virtues.

Then the people, moved by grievous envy of their own,

And turning over in mind the miracles of the Lord present,

And reckoning up in order the family of his known lineage,

Whisper these things among themselves in murmuring voice:

Is not this the carpenter's offspring, whose name is Joseph?

Is not Mary his mother? Is not the kin of his brothers known?

Whence therefore does the teacher of the law, and minister of such

great power, yield to him whom the ruin of his labors has overcome?

Thus the people of Nazareth spoke: to whom Jesus returns such words:

Miracles are always despised in their own homelands,

and prophets remain without honor in their native seat.

Indignant at such things, Christ withheld his gifts.

Meanwhile a report was flying to the proud king,

that his divine power was subduing all evils.

But Herod thinks that, released by the law of death,

he retained gifts of such great power, as.

For once, the demon, seeing with an envious heart

that just John was loosening the stain of error

by pure waters, then the most savage plague,

inflamed by the losses of the wicked, sought King Herod,

and, easily penetrating the dwelling of an unjust heart,

compels it to heap up impious crimes with savage deeds.

Herod had burned, kindled with unlawful love,

for his brother's marriage-bed, which learned John

forbade by holy law. But his savagery, ignorant of what is right,

cast the laws beneath its feet, and enjoys the unspeakable

union, and moreover, because he forbade wicked things,

plunged him himself into the darkness of prison, and burdened him with chains.

For at first, restrained by fear, his thirsting savagery

abstained from the blood of the just man, because great

reverence of the people looked up to John the prophet.

But it happened that on his birthday, when the tyrant

Herod was arranging joyful banquets in his lofty halls,

since pride, joined to luxury, rejoices,

in the midst of the young men the virgin daughter of the queen,

hastening the alternate movements of her sides with sinuous motion,

danced arranged dances to modulated song.

But he himself, above all, marveling at the maiden's art,

was struck with amazement: then, having sworn, he promises that all rewards

lie open, whatever the girl might ask.

But she, mindful of the impious crimes of her horrible mother,

urges that John's head be torn from his neck,

and demands that the gift be brought in on a platter, present before her.

Herod, sorrowful under the weight of the nobles present,

yet mindful of the oath he had sworn, orders, reluctantly,

that the head of the innocent man be brought in, and given to the girl.

She (o wickedness!) carries it to her wicked mother's joy.

But the disciples, weeping, bury in the earth the mangled trunk of the body,

without its head, and follow Christ.

When he learned of the pitiable death of the just man,

he leaves the land polluted with innocent blood,

and hides in the leafy shade of a secluded valley.

But the peoples follow the gifts of his immense power.

When he sees that the crowds of believers have gathered

in the remote valley, having driven away the wasting of diseases,

he, in pity, subjected their many bodies to healing.

And now, under the failing light of the departing day,

the disciples urge Christ to dismiss the crowds,

so that each might provide for himself, seeking food through the crossroads.

He orders that banquets be set for all right there.

The disciples show that there is no more food

except two fish and five fragments of grain.

This, he says, is enough. Then soon he ordered the people to recline,

and to arrange their limbs on grassy couches.

And then, looking up to heaven, having prayed to the Father,

he himself divides the two fish and the five loaves in order,

and loaded the tables with rich feasts.

And now—wondrous to say—the people lie there satisfied,

and then the servants gather the remains from the tables,

and fill twelve baskets full of fragments with their folds.

The number of those who had dined was then five thousand men,

besides, there was a crowd of mothers and children.

Then he orders the disciples to board the ship from there,

and to cross the strait, until he should dismiss all

the men, each to his own place. Then he sought the heights of the mountain,

and, secluded, adores the divine will of the Father from there.

And now all things grew numb in slumbering night,

when the boat was plowing through the waves in the middle of the sea,

tossed by the blast of a rising contrary wind.

But when now the fourth watch of the vigils was pressing

upon the course of the night, the morning star lifting its swift rising,

he was making his way, suspended, with dry footsteps

upon the liquid waves—wonderful to see!

And now he was drawing near to the ship, but the sailors, unaware,

astonished, their hearts trembled with quivering fear,

and together they raised a cry with confused voice.

Then Christ speaks to the frightened men: Let all fear be absent,

and let vigorous constancy of belief rule your mind.

Behold, it; recognize the teacher of your light.

Trusting him, Peter answers thus:

If your power truly deigns to visit us,

allow me likewise, at your command, over the waters,

to plant my steps, plunged into the liquid waves.

The Lord assents to this: soon Peter dares

to leave the ship, and, leaning, fixes his footsteps upon the sea.

But when the miracles of such great things terrify his mind,

and he perceives the threats of the wind growing more frequent,

gradually, melted by doubtful fear, the waters yield,

which had borne the strong strength of faith.

And now Simon, his body submerged to the middle, cries out:

Snatch me, Christ, perishing amid the horrible waves.

At once a right hand is extended to meet Peter,

and his wavering faith is soothed by bitter words,

and, once he has boarded the boat, the contrary blasts yield.

And all who, gathered by chance as companions in the ship, questioned him,

marveled at the present offspring of God.

At last the ship, plowing through the boiling straits, had crossed over,

and the heavy anchor had grasped the desired harbor.

Peoples gather along the shores with swift course,

carrying the sick, and they long to touch the very threads

of the edge of his garment, and, all believing in this wondrous gift,

report full health throughout their limbs.

Behold, the Pharisees and Scribes, deceitful on every side,

seeking to trap Christ, put forth deceitful words:

Why does your teaching allow your disciples to fail

in the precepts of the elders? Whom the care of washing their hands

passes by, and they take food together with uncleanness.

He then speaks in answer to this: It is more worthy

to ask this—that you all, having transgressed the precepts of God, betray them.

For God threatens death by a fixed law,

if a father should be wounded by anyone with a bitter word,

or a mother be struck by the harsh words of her child.

You make these things void by teaching perverse things.

How plain do the words of the prophet stand concerning you!

The people exalt me with the topmost lips in honor,

But the secrets of the heart wander far in a different direction.

Receive, therefore, all, and turn the ears of your heart:

Whatever things are brought upon a man, they will not

besmirch him with shameful filth, nor will they settle upon life or mind:

But the things that burst forth from the inner chambers of the mouth,

once uttered, will wretchedly stain the inward mind.

The disciples report to Christ that the words of the speaker

gnaw at the breasts of the Scribes with hidden resentment.

He then said: Every planting which my Father

has not himself sown in the soil of his field,

he will utterly cast away, torn up by the roots, far off.

If perchance a blind man, having found a blind guide, should wander,

Both together will fall into a pit, equally sunk.

Then Peter asked to be told what the question meant,

which he had just given to the Pharisees and scribes.

Then the sower of eternal life answered thus:

Do you too shut out all commands with a hard heart,

nor does the doubt of your mind admit the light?

For whatever things come to a man's mouth from outside

pass into the belly, and run unknown to the mind.

But the things which the mouths of men bring forth, conceived

from the inner breast, can pollute the mind with the stain

and defile a man with unclean guilt.

From the secret of the heart are brought forth the harmful

counsels of life, and murders, and wicked thefts of the marriage-bed,

and frauds, and men's deceitful error in bearing witness,

and the raving madness of a voice that assails heaven.

These are the things that stain a man, that fill him with filth.

But with unwashed hands he never pollutes himself

by taking earthly food at the body's discretion.

When he had spoken these words, he sought the most beautiful lands

of the Syrians, Sidon and Tyre: where a woman with loosened

hair, and with prayers, pleading for her daughter who lay ill,

rolls herself down, and, anxious, does not cease

to entreat the silent Christ, that he restore her mind,

vexed by a savage demon,

and that at last the wretched girl be allowed to come to herself.

Then, to the prayers of the disciples who followed him urging him,

he answered that he preferred to gather his Father's own sheep,

which vain error had scattered far and wide.

As she pressed more insistently, Jesus then spoke thus:

No one takes bread away from his own children,

and throws it to dogs. Then the woman spoke thus:

At least the crumbs, their portion of the table, fall to the dogs,

and the masters' supper is nothing lessened by it.

Then the Lord speaks: May there come to you rewards of salvation

worthy of the strength of so great a faith.

Having spoken thus in words and voice, the Savior

filled the maiden's mind, once the demon was cast down, with fruitful power,

embracing it with the gifts of salvation.

Then the Savior returns to the regions of Galilee,

and climbs afar up into the height of a lofty mountain.

Without delay, the peoples gather, and bring with them

some blind in their eyes, and the crowd feeble in their limbs,

and others without speech, and a thousand names of disease.

Yet he took away the bitter sicknesses from all,

and endows them with strong powers by his venerable gift.

Then the peoples together attend so great miracles,

and celebrate praises and thanks to the eternal Father.

Christ, gathering his disciples on the mountain's peak,

speaks to them privately: Great is my pity for the people;

for now the third light of the sun returns to the earth

since they have taken no nourishment of food for themselves.

I would not wish to send away so great a fasting people,

lest weariness afflict them as they journey the long way.

The disciples show Christ that they have seven loaves

and a few little fishes for the nearest nourishment.

Then he bade the people recline upon the ground,

and with his own hands he broke apart all that there was,

and took care to give it out to all the people, table by table.

The disciples set out the feast, and the people are filled

to satiety with the food: soon they gather up the fragments of bread

and bring back seven baskets heaped with weight.

There were then four thousand of all the people,

nor did anyone reckon in the count the mothers and children.

Thence he crosses by ship to the shores of Magedan.

Behold, the Pharisees and the deceitful Sadducees

press him, trying to demand heavenly signs.

But Christ, perceiving their deceitful hearts, says:

Whenever the moist night closes the vaulted sky,

if a red evening comes forth upon the starry heaven,

you say: Fair weather will come with the coming light.

And now, if beneath the reddening rise of the sun sad

clouds are mingled, confused with that color's light,

you say to farmers and sailors that a stormy

rage of winds and fury of tempests is coming.

Deceivers, you know how to discern the face of the sky,

but do you not know how to探 explore, by their own signs, the times of the ages?

But signs shall be given to you,

such as once came from the immense depth of the sea,

when the beast held the prophet imprisoned within its belly.

This he said, and quickly loosing the ship's moorings,

he strove with swift course to reach across the straits

the fields of Philippi, and spoke thus to his companions:

Carefully let harmful grain be avoided by you,

and turn away fierce leaven from your tables.

That the Pharisees and deceitful Sadducees

mix into food, and deceive under the name of bread.

Why does hesitation turn over your silent minds?

Ah, how small a faith grows weary, its sense grown dull!

You say, in objection, that it was not for lack of taking bread

on the ship that you were empty, and that I bid you beware

the snares of grain: yet I thought you would remember and know

that five loaves once filled five thousand of the people

with food, and that from such abundance the surplus fragments

were gathered up into baskets in a heap of food,

and again that four thousand at supper were easily filled

by seven loaves, and that you saw baskets brought back again

filled with the remains.

But I warn you to beware always the leaven of these men.

The disciples at last, following the living words,

Perceive the doctrine called by the name of leaven.

Then, when they had come, across the back of the flowing deep,

To the bright country which flourishes under the name of Philip,

He gathers an assembly of the following disciples,

And asks what the rumor of the peoples thought him to be.

They answer that the talk of the people was then many-sided:

That they had heard rather often, and many affirmed, that he was

John the Just, who washed the peoples in the river.

Some report words known to them from a flying rumor,

that Elijah had come again, whom once, on a swift chariot,

the fervid force of a rushing flame, feigning a whirlwind

of heavenly team-horses, set among the stars.

Others said Jeremiah, some, that he was a prophet.

Then Christ, smiling on all with gentle heart,

Inquires what the opinion of the disciples might be.

But steadfast Peter said: Thou art the Son of the Holy One,

The Christ, who fillest the earth with magnificent light.

Then the Lord answered such words to strong Peter:

Peter, thou shalt be blessed: for surely such things to reveal

Human blood, or body, a portion of earth,

Could never be able. Only the gifts of the Father

Can grant so strong a firmness of faith.

Thou dost guard the name of Peter with worthy virtue.

Upon this mass, and upon the strength of this rock, I will place

A house forever to remain with eternal walls.

This house shall have against the gates of hell

A barrier not to be overcome, fortified with everlasting strength:

And to thee it is my purpose to entrust the keys

Of the heavenly kingdom, and whatever on earth thou shalt leave

Bound by thy decision shall likewise remain bound in heaven;

And again whatever thy judgment shall loose on earth,

Not otherwise shall it come loosed under the seat of heaven.

But you, disciples, that I say I am the Christ to all

Refrain from telling, that only the worthy may know such things.

Now the day will come, pressing upon me with swift course,

When, within the walls of Solyma, rage bent low in fury

Shall satiate the excellent ones of the prophets with our blood.

But when the third sun shall bring back its light-bearing rising,

Life, crowned equally with the rays of salvation, shall rise again for me,

And shall give its gifts to all the earth.

Then Peter, his heart struck with great grief, said:

Far be it, Christ, from thy holy limbs, such sad

Portents; nor is it right to believe so great a thing,

Nor can so harsh a fate ever touch thee.

Christ to this said: Far from here, far away flee, demon,

No divine wisdom touches your mind at all,

But you savor earthly things, and tremble with soft fear.

But if any of you shall follow our footsteps,

Let him deny himself, refusing both body and soul,

And let him rejoice to add his own cross to our company,

For whom glory shall redeem the life he has lost.

For the possession of light preserved on earth perishes.

But what shall the mortal gains of the age profit,

If they bring loss of life and of everlasting light?

Or what worthy exchange can be set for the soul?

Hither the Son of man shall come under the name of the Father,

And heavenly ministers, with accompanying tumult,

Shall throng about him, and he shall render to men their due for life.

I speak truth: certain ones here, beneath the threshold of light

I shall find, when I take the shining kingdoms of heaven.

When he had spoken these words, he allowed twice three

Days' lights to pass over the earth through the vaulted sky,

Then he bids Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee,

To climb with him a steep mountain by pathless ways.

Then, when they had come to the summit of the secluded mountain,

At once Christ's face was changed with flashing brightness,

And his garment gleamed with the whiteness of snow.

The companions look on, and see Elijah and Moses

Standing in the midst of the holy ones. Then Peter said such words:

Consider whether it would be better for us to depart far away,

Or whether it is fitting here to behold the spectacle of so great a wonder:

Yet three tents here, if you should bid,

I will make, prepared from various foliage,

Each to receive you under its curtains by night.

While he was saying such things, a cloud shining from heaven,

Cast about, clothed the mountain with light before their eyes,

And a voice ran forth manifest from the midst of the light:

This is my only Son, my sole will;

Grasp his righteousness with a righteous heart.

The disciples pressed the earth with fearful bodies.

Nor did they dare to raise their faces from their prostrate fall

Until the holy right hand of Christ, with a touch,

Soothing them, had strengthened their hearts with gentle words:

Rise up, and bravely trample down cast-off fear,

Nor let this vision be disclosed to anyone,

Until first the beautiful offspring of man shall bring back here

Into the light, bearing trophies from the seat of death.

They rise, and see him alone, and ask with their voice

Why the faction of the ancient Scribes contends in their writings

That Elijah must first return from the seat of heaven

To earth, and that afterward the light of Christ should rise.

Christ to this said: Elijah the just will come at a fixed time,

Soon restoring all the debts to the age.

But if anyone believes he had already come before, being reborn,

Unknown, as one whom the blind rage of fury

Plunged into death; soon another, fiercer fate

Presses upon the Son of man with cruel lacerations.

This he says, and returns to the people, and leaves the mountain.

But behold, with bent knees, and dissolved in weeping,

An elder man, revering Christ with prayers, adores him:

Offspring of David, light and salvation of men,

I beg you, drive away the horrible sickness

From my son's body, and restore to an old man the comforts of life.

For the course of the moon, by the demon's art, torments

My son, and casts him thrown down into the flowing waves,

Or rolls the wretched one thrown into the midst of fire.

For your disciples, following your commands, often

Striving hard, have given me no gifts avail at all.

Then Christ, his heart moved with great grief:

O race of no faith, race ever wild,

Shall I suffer even this, that I be with you on earth?

So he says, and bids the boy be brought before his face

By his parent. Then with a heavy weight of voice

He bent over him, and, the heart purged, drove away

The poisons of the horrible demon that had convulsed the mind together.

The disciples ask why the cure of the same boy,

Though attempted so many times, had not succeeded for them.

The Lord replied: It slips because in your breast

Unsteady faith wavers, its steps sliding upon slippery ground.

For if a sure measure of believing were yours,

Such as could match the likeness of the smallest mustard seed,

From here you could uproot this mountain by a word,

And roll the whole mass over into other places.

For this kind of illness is kept off by unceasing prayers and faith,

And by many fastings of a sturdy breast.

Thence, going onward, he had come to the shores of Capernaum.

Those whose concern was the tribute gathered around Peter,

Demanding payment of the customary due for the name of Christ.

But he, turning to Peter, spoke thus:

Tell me, he said, do kings ordain that tribute be paid to them

By their own sons, or by strangers?

Peter answered: It is certain that strangers pay it.

Do you see, said Christ, that the king’s son does not pay?

But lest I offend anyone, take up this command of mine:

Behold the cliff that juts out into the deep amid the sounding waves,

Let its summit be climbed by you, Simon, and let a hook,

Joined to a woven line of bristles, be cast down into the depths.

And whatever fish first is caught upon the curved point,

Let the recesses of its cut-open belly be laid open.

There, dissolve the double tribute you shall find.

Afterward the disciples ask who would be greatest,

By what merits, in the lofty kingdom of heaven.

Then Christ bids a child stand in the midst of the gathering,

And the Teacher speaks forth with gentle words:

Whoever desires to ascend to the lofty seat of heaven,

Let him strive to fashion himself like this child:

It is certain that the snares of error will increase through the ages.

But wretched is he through whom error will be begotten.

But whoever shall have deceived one of these little ones,

If he is wise, let him bind a millstone to his neck,

And hurl himself headlong into the waves of the sea.

Nor let anyone in pride despise these little ones.

Their guardians behold, in the heavenly seat,

The face of the Father throned on high, above the stars.

But if some shepherd, to whom pastures are entrusted, where

A hundred bleating sheep graze, when by chance one apart

Unwitting error holds astray, the seeker leaves all the rest,

And traces the footprints of the one through all the woods;

If by great labor he is able to find her,

Then a greater joy arises over the found lamb,

Than over the number of all the rest that had not strayed:

So the Father does not allow any of these little ones

To be lost, and he rejoices that his kingdom grows.

If you see your own brother stained with wrongdoing,

Go at once alone and rebuke him with private words.

If he, patient of your words, accepts your correction,

You shall have won your brother’s wavering mind.

But if, spurning your words alone, he departs,

Then let another counselor likewise pursue the same devoted command.

But if he shakes off the reins of two teachers,

Then let the charges be brought before the whole assembly,

That, overcome at least by the weight of the people’s judgment, he may be healed.

But if, grown savage, he scorns even the voice of many,

Let him be reckoned to you under the name of a divided people.

For our presence will ever come into the assembly,

And it is necessary that I stand in the midst of two,

Or of three gathered together under our name.

Then Peter asks how many wrongs he should forgive a brother,

Or whether it were permitted to bear seven lapses of men.

Christ continues: Not seven offenses only,

But wounds tenfold that number shall be granted to a brother.

For the kingdom of heaven of the Lord’s most rich court

Is like a man who ordered an account of money to be rendered to him,

And commanded a servant, owing many talents,

To be seized along with wife and offspring

And all his goods, and to be sold under that name.

Then the servant, prostrate, worships his lord,

And promises, if any space of time were granted him,

To pay his lord the whole sum of money.

The lord was moved by the weeping servant’s piteous plea,

And forgave the servant all the debt beyond what was owed.

But he, going out, met a fellow servant at the very threshold

And seized him by the throat: then, more forceful, he pressed

For the debt to be paid, and cruelly drove away all pleading,

And plunged him into the darkness of prison, and oppressed him with punishment.

When afterward the lord came to know these things

By the words of his servants, he brought the servant before him

And spoke most just words in sorrow, and stirred up wrath,

And by stern command thrust the cruel man into torments, reckoning up all

The debts, that he might pay through chains with fitting punishments.

So will the Father do to you, who possesses the heights of heaven,

If with merciless hearts you should be unwilling

To forgive harshly the sins of praying brothers.

Having spoken these words, he left the fields of Galilee,

And sought Judaea, where silently through pleasant fields

The lovely stream of Jordan cuts its green course.

No less did he continue to grant health to the sick lying in their beds,

And to bestow the gifts of the exalted Father.

Behold, the Pharisees, testing him, proceed to ask,

Whether it is lawful to sever the marriage bond by rejection,

Whatever it may be, that touches the heart of the wronged husband.

When he had heard this, Christ set forth such words:

In the beginning God on earth established a pair of unlike sex,

And commanded that they be joined into one body,

And that both their souls should grow together with their united limbs.

What God, then, commands to grow together by his own word,

It is unlawful for men to sunder by shameful license.

Moses commanded, seeing how hard were their hearts,

That a bill of divorce be written, whereby stony hearts might be bound

Through their own letters under the judgment of the flame.

For whoever rashly dissolves the laws of a chaste marriage-bed,

And another wife is joined in that man’s marriage chamber,

Shall bear the charge of adultery before the witness of the people.

The disciples reply: This law presses hard upon men,

And weighs upon their part of servitude with unequal burden,

So that it would be better to have done without hateful marriage beds.

The Lord replied: Not all shall submit their shoulders to so great

a weight: such gifts of virtue

are chosen. Bodies are cut off in threefold fashion,

which rejoice in no law of the marriage bed's begetting.

For we find that some are born such into the shores of light:

many men an iron force strips of their sex;

but others, it is agreed, of their own accord remove

for the sake of the kingdoms of heaven the inclination of love from their breast.

Whoever shall be capable, let him seize by lofty virtue

that gift which God wills to disclose to few, to the chosen.

This he said, and the children, whom the parents' joyful care

was bringing eagerly from this side and that with glad prayers,

he receives, and rebukes the crowd who would forbid those who followed,

and declares that such as these deserve the kingdoms

of the heavenly hall. On these in order he lays

holy palms, and gives them back to their parents' shoulders to carry.

But behold, from the people a young man, to whom fields, and a house,

and treasure stood as a shining possession of wealth,

approaches, and openly, humbly, adores Christ:

O good teacher, tell now what deeds we should follow,

that I may be allowed to grasp eternal life?

To him then Jesus, the author of life, returns such words:

Only now do you ask what things are held by the old law?

You shall not take the life of a man, you shall not invade

the thefts of the marriage bed, nor shall a mind bent on harmful gain

of others' goods, or your right hand, seize it, you shall not speak false witness.

Let your father and your mother stand exalted in your honor,

and let your neighbor yield to you for your sake with pure love.

He then: All these things I think have ever been observed

by me with perpetual care, but lest by chance something

be lacking, left undone, let me be advised now by your present voice.

Then Christ speaks: Now if you seek to grasp

the perfect summits of life by exalted merits,

distribute all things which you alone hold under your own dominion,

and confidently bestow them upon the wretched, the needy.

Then a treasure shall be laid up for you in heaven's citadel,

and holding fast to virtue's footsteps you shall follow us.

When these words of Christ come through the young man's ears,

he cast down his countenance, and sorrowful fled to his home.

Then thus the sole Hope of life speaks to his disciples:

It is hard for those fastened to earth by rich treasure

to be torn away, and to come light into the kingdoms of heaven.

For more quickly through the narrow eye of a needle could pass

the misshapen, huge limbs of a camel,

than a rich man could see the heavenly kingdoms.

At such words his companions were astonished, and stood silent, stunned,

pondering what such great virtue could be in a human

breast, that could grasp such a life.

The Glory of eternal life for the just looks upon them,

and says: These things may perhaps seem harsh to man,

but God lays open before his elect an easy path into heaven,

and a possible way, which lofty virtue may seize.

Then Peter, fortified by the walls of faith, begins:

We have all cast away and left behind everything of ours,

and our sole hope remains to follow your commands.

What remains for our souls? Tell us, Christ, we pray.

With such words Jesus answered Peter:

You, whoever you are, who believing keep my way

in the deep recesses of your mind, when the Son of man

shall have sat on high, whom Majesty shall gird

with lofty honor, there most beautiful virtue

shall establish for you twelve seats on the exalted summit,

and it shall be granted to you likewise to handle the judgment of men.

Whoever here shall leave behind his kin, and house,

treasures, and all affections for our name's sake,

shall thereupon receive a hundredfold, and life everlasting;

the merit of the first shall be surpassed by the last,

the first, having passed by, shall scarcely receive the last rewards.

As a diligent lord of the countryside, whose sweet vineyards

crown far and wide a fertile field in rich plains,

he, when he had gone forth at the first light of the sun,

hired the strongest vigor of young men, having bargained

for a day's labor at a fixed wage,

and then bade them tend his vineyards with cultivation.

But he himself, going out when the third hour had come,

found, behold, others, and bade them join the work,

promising fitting rewards for their labors' merits;

they, no less gladly, follow his commands.

But when the sixth hour of the day had then flowed by,

in like manner he goes on to hire other young men.

And when the ninth hour, then, had passed with the sun's course,

then he bade others, likewise hired, come as well.

The last portion of the fading day remained:

going out he sees young men, and asks the reasons

why they were idling in slow leisure with lazy hands.

They say that the hirer had given

no commands to them. The lord soon bade these too set to work

in the field. But as soon as evening had arisen,

he ordered that all should receive the honor of wages,

and that all should carry off rewards at an equal coin.

Then that band of men who from the first light had borne

the labor, and had endured the whole day equally by their deeds,

indignant, spoke thus among themselves with a murmur:

It is unjust that these, whom the last hour had hired

so late for the work, should seek an equal coin as we.

Then the lord of the field speaks with a calmed heart:

The full portion of your wage, unimpaired,

is given back to you, and the terms of the faithful bargain are kept.

Let it be permitted for me to grant so much of my own

to these, whom the last portion of the day's work gathered for the field.

For holy favor has called many men,

from among whom it is fitting to set apart but the smallest part.

He said this, and returns again to Solyma, and addresses his companions

apart: We go again knowingly into the regions of Solyma,

and approach its savage walls.

Here the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the last extremity of death,

bearing in his limbs the mockeries of scribes and elders,

and fastened to the cross he shall rise after the third light.

Then the humble wife of Zebedee was asking,

that her fortunate sons might sit at Christ's side,

on the right and on the left, in the lofty citadel of heaven.

Then Christ asks whether they could take

the cup,

Whom by his precepts he was urging to take on his own behalf,

His Father's. They answer that they can do so together. Then Christ spoke thus:

It is right that you drink our cup, but to sit together with me

In equal honor on the lofty seats,

This our power will give to no man as a gift.

These lofty gifts the Father reserves for certain ones.

Thereupon, all the disciples being troubled

By such words, he soothes them with such gracious speech:

Over the unbelieving nations power with lofty dominion

Sets whoever rules over them,

And they vent their fierce wrath upon subject cities.

But you are far from this: a calmer sea of life

Gentle moderation spreads out in concordant peace:

And the great minister grows greater through lofty acts of service.

Nor can anyone be first, unless he alone

Serves all. Thus the Son of Man, minister of your

Own obedience alone, bears his holy gifts,

And for many lays down his life with precious blood.

But you wish to rise up from the smallest resources,

And thus, fallen from the highest, you fall into the lowest.

If anyone invites you, setting forth a banquet of a feast,

Let each, who is wise, avoid placing his limbs

Upon the highest couches. Perhaps some nobler man will come,

Who will shamefully be forced to yield the place of honor,

Which the swelling of an inflated heart had set at the top.

But if he shall be content to take a middling place at the feast,

And afterward, if a lesser guest should soon arrive,

He will modestly move on to better spread couches.

Then he ascends the nearest heights of the mount of Jerusalem,

Which gleam with rows of the grey-leaved olive.

From here Christ bade chosen ones among his disciples follow him,

Showing them the dwellings of a village nearby,

And likewise ordered them to lead forth a she-ass found there

Together with her foal: or if anyone should wish to ask the reason,

Why their beasts of burden were being led away so suddenly from anywhere,

To say that the Lord wished to make use of them.

The disciples fulfill the commands with swift readiness.

They bring them, and over the placid colt they spread

A soft covering of cloth, and offer it for sitting.

Hence once flowed the prophetic voice of an ancient seer:

Behold, a gentle king comes to you, whom, sitting upon the back

Of a she-ass, you send before, and of her following foal.

Then all the people spread their garments along the road,

And wherever Christ's path lies, they crown it with woven boughs.

Then others strip the nearby palm-groves of their greenery,

And all cry out together: To him sprung from the line of David,

Let Hosanna in the highest be joyful glory, triumphant trophy!

Thus indeed Christ enters the walls of Jerusalem.

As he entered, at the very threshold of the temple there met him

A feeble crowd, competing in their lameness of limb and eye.

When the whole faction of priests, marveling,

Recognized these people, now vigorous of step and sight so suddenly,

And the children filling the roofs of the temple with song:

Hosanna to him born of the noble stock of David,

They all question him as to what cause

Raises the young crowd to such great joys of song.

Christ answers to this: Do you believe, he says, that you hold

The written words of the Law, which say that praise comes forth

From the mouth of infants, and that the praise of the Just One arises from the tongues of babes.

Having said this, leaving the ungrateful city with its citizens,

He seeks Bethany, and returning, he sees at the edge

Of the road a fig tree, spreading out its shade.

There, by chance, a desire for food testing his heart,

He touches the branches of the tree: but no abundance

Of fruit had grown beneath the barren shade of leaves.

Therefore Christ says: Never may there be for you

Abundance of fruit to bring forth. Then at once the tree withered.

The disciples marvel at the swift death in the tree.

But Christ, standing by the astonished ones, speaks thus:

Now you have marveled at this wood on account of our honor,

But with true words again and again I will warn you:

For if sure faith shall stand firm in the citadel of the mind,

And shall not lie trembling, swaying with doubtful faults,

The substance of this tree will yield to you.

And not only of this tree, but the lofty heights of a mountain

Will be able, at the word of believers, to be uprooted, and be hidden away

In the waves of the deep, together with forests, and rocks, and wild beasts.

And whatever faith with a strong heart shall demand

Of believers, it shall always hold with worthy power.

When he had spoken these words, he betakes himself into the walls of the temple.

At once the leaders of the people, gathering, inquire

About the wonders of these things, what power so great had granted them.

To them Christ says: For you who ask all things

It would now be easy to tell, if you in turn

Would first resolve in a few words the matter I ask of you.

Recently John, who washed in pure water

The stains of the sinning people—was his power divine,

Or did it rather seem to you the deception of a man?

He said this, closing with the doubtful weight of words

The mind of the grasping leaders: for a great veneration

Of the people looked up to John as a prophet,

And they could not call his life deceitful.

Again, if they had said he was a lofty prophet,

The confession would draw guilt for having killed him.

Yet the deceitful faction answered that they did not know.

Then Christ said: It is not unjust to close my mouth,

Since the proud answers of the leaders are closed to me.

For the father of two sons, to the ears of the elder

Spoke thus: A greater portion of my vine

Lies half-pruned. But go, and with strong effort,

Now with the mattock, now with the pruning-hook, trim the vineyards.

Then the young man declares that he does not wish to endure

Such base bonds of labor. Afterward he carries out

All his father's commands, and condemning his own answer, restrains it.

Afterward he bade a second son by similar words

To devote himself to the labor of the vineyard as commanded.

This one assents in word, but does not weigh his deeds against his words.

Tell me, which of the two rather followed the father's commands?

They praise the answer of the latter.

Christ continues: Now attend to true words.

It is now more certain that these will lay hold of the seat of heaven,

Those who seek base gain from the vices of the flesh,

Than any of you. For to you John came before,

The just one: but it was not your part to believe.

For indeed the breasts of harlots have drawn in

a surer

faith, and have laid aside the shameful filth of their soul.

But you never repent at all of such great crimes.

Thus a certain rich man, around whose many acres

of a flourishing vineyard a dense hedge encloses,

built in the middle a tower, and a wine-press, and

storage-jars,

and gave it to tenants, and let out the fruits to be had,

establishing an imposed law of paying rent.

Then he sought distant lands, but at the appointed time of the fruits

he sends servants as his agents, to whom a portion should be given,

the tenants' fixed rent for the land being kept safe.

Behold, the fury of the farmers drives these off with savage lashes,

and others they drive away everywhere with volleys of stones.

At last they lay many low with a deadly wound.

Then the lord of the land orders more servants to go

and again demands the covenants of rent.

But a greater insolence rises against the greater number.

At last it is the master's final resolve to send his son,

since it was fitting that a worthy force of shame

should make the offspring, a part of himself, revered in the tenants' hearts.

But on the contrary, their mind, already stained with blood,

believing that once the master's offspring was destroyed, the dominion

would fall to themselves after his rule, transfix him

with a cruel wound and cast the slaughtered corpse

outside beyond the hedges.

After this the lord will now come, and will demand punishment

for such great crimes. But the seat of the shining kingdom,

once given over to you, will be reported transferred

to a nation which can render worthy fruits.

As a king, who, binding the bonds of marriage-chambers for his son,

commanded that the nobles frequent the joyful banquets,

summoned by servants, to celebrate together the honor

of the royal vow: but all refuse to approach

the royal marriage-chambers, the cups of the royal table.

Afterward he sends others, saying that he has prepared

all things most abundantly, magnificent feasts, joyful banquets.

They, disregarding the feasts, sought other things.

One his own house, another the buildings of a neighboring farm,

but another rather returns to his wares and profits.

Many besides seize the innocent servants who were sent

to call them to the joys, and torment their bodies with iron

to death. Then the king, when he learned of the deeds,

with thousands of armed men overthrows the citizens together with

their very walls, avenger of the shed blood of his servants.

Then he says to his servants: Now the festive marriage feast

which I have prepared for them with most lavish means,

the nobles have scorned to touch at my tables.

Go therefore quickly through the public enclosures of the roads,

and whomever chance has gathered there, all of them

summon here, calling them to the joyful marriage-chambers of my son.

The servants, going forth through all the crossroads of the streets,

led together those they found. Now at last all

the tables are filled with a mixed crowd of no name.

Here the just and the unjust reclined together, having been called.

But the king, entering, revisits the joyful banquet.

Here he sees one clothed in a garment of polluted dress,

which was far discordant with the joy of the marriage-chamber.

And when he is bidden, by the weight of the royal speech,

to render reasons for the stains and blemish of his garment,

he, oppressed, kept silence with a mouth of an impure heart.

And then, turning to his servants, the king orders that this man,

his hands and feet and whole body bound,

be seized and cast headlong at once into the deep darkness.

There shall be the gnashing of vast and unending grief,

and weeping always.

For though many are called, the blessed selection of few men weeps.

As he spoke such things, at once the gnashing faction

undertakes to tempt him with malicious and deceitful words:

It is certain that you have now come as a truthful teacher.

And fearing no one, you keep the paths of the Lord.

Tell us then, whether it is lawful for our people to dissolve

the tribute always urged under the law of Caesar?

But he, looking into the inmost parts of their cruel heart,

says, Why do you now attempt to entrap me with words,

you deceivers? The deceit of the mind betrays its fruit.

Behold now the coin, and the bronze of the stamped

coinage.

It is easy to discern there the imprinted face of Caesar.

Pay to him now, under his own law, the tribute,

and keep for God the honor proper to his own law.

Afterward the Sadducees encircled him with such barking:

Moses, who set forth the precepts of the laws, ordered

that if anyone should leave a marriage by hastened death,

with pledges in between not yet grown from seed,

that this man's brother should again be bound to the same

union,

lest the portion of the fallen family perish.

In our borders there were seven brothers' bodies:

but the eldest first took the bonds of a bride,

fell soon under the swift edge of death.

Then another brother, without the same fruits of the marriage-chamber,

fell, and all the brothers lay in order.

And all the husbands' wives groaned in weeping for one man:

afterward the harshness of chill death seized her too.

If then all shall come into the light of life,

to whose marriage shall the woman be restored, rising again?

To them Christ says: A mind liable to depraved error,

and hard, resists the laws and commands of the Lord.

For the restoration of joyful life to be followed henceforth

knows no marriage-chambers, no vain joys of earth:

but the sublime power of the kingdom will appoint them

in its court, like unto the light-bearing ministers of the Father,

nor does God wish to set himself as their lord,

those who, prone, have merited to take death on earth,

but rather those who can grasp the light of life.

Behold others ask what are the firmest things of the law.

He, untiring, denied answer to no one:

That the devotion of the heart should love the sublime Lord

of heaven; this is that firmest virtue of the law.

Like unto this is: Let the inmost parts of a just mind

be held to the right of brotherhood with great love:

for upon these two commands all things depend.

But whose offspring does Christ seem to you

to be about to be, whom all the prophets promise for the ages!

They answer, that he is born of the stock of David.

Christ pursues the matter: Why is it written by divine

utterance that David calls him Lord and God,

when it is not fitting for a father to call his own

son thus?

Such the Savior said: all fell silent in astonishment.

But he, having summoned the believing people, speaks:

Behold the scribes, proud in their lofty seat.

Whatever they teach, it is right to grasp

with obedience of heart, but despise the stains of their own life.

For they impose harsh burdens on your shoulders,

which they themselves are unwilling even to touch with a finger.

They are exalted by the first place at table, by proud arrogance,

and by the vain honor of those who greet them,

and they wish to bear the lofty name of

master,

but I would not have you strive after the tower

of a lofty name: for you there is one

power of mastership set by the eternal law of heaven,

the same love has joined you together as brothers.

Likewise there is one Father, who reigns on the height of heaven.

If any among you shall raise his lofty neck,

he shall fall, and be sunk to the depths of the abyss's mire.

But the humble, set free, shall climb to the bright heavens.

Ever to be wept for are the scribes, and lamentable is the age's

blind deceit of the Pharisaic people towards all.

For since the way is rightly closed and denied to you,

you do not allow anyone to pass through to the heights of light,

and you drag all into fellowship with the cruel flame.

I shall call you like tombs splendid in their outward roofs,

whose face is bright, but whose inward is foul with the dead.

Thus the voice is veiled under the image of a just life,

while foul hearts are hidden in the recesses of the mind.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who have often slain with the sword

the prophets sent to give you life without end,

how greatly did I wish to protect your people and nation,

as a bird is wont beneath her soft body

to gather her chicks about, sheltering them with a screen of feathers!

But to you the heavenly gifts are always worthless.

Now this house is left desolate, laid waste in ruins,

nor is it any longer lawful for you to see our face.

He goes forth from the temple, and, as the disciples remarked upon its

lofty walls, he taught them with such words:

Do these marvels of works seem worthy to you

of a wondering gaze? But learn by true words,

that soon all these things shall lie scattered everywhere upon the ground.

Saying this, he had come to the height of Olivet.

When the disciples saw him alone, they asked

that he distinguish for them the time of the age to come,

by which they might grasp the end of his promises,

and when his coming would consume the world of earth.

To the words of those asking, Christ answered thus:

Watch for deceit, lest credulity, caught by a false name,

be cast headlong into the snares of those who err.

The fires of wars shall run through all lands.

But stand firm in the strong steadfastness of heart,

lest your mind lie troubled at the tumults begun.

For the first battles will not soon bring an end;

nation against nation, and kings against kings shall

bring signs to meet each other, nor then will diseases

cease to corrupt the tract of air, or plagues cease to lay bodies low.

Even the earth, fixed with solid weight through the void,

shall tremble in diverse places, shaken by quaking motion.

These shall remain as small trials in the beginning.

Many of you shall be betrayed, and given over to death,

and for my name's sake it is necessary that nations

press upon you with torments, and fierce punishments, and hatreds.

For malice shall be on the earth, all things full of errors,

and false prophets shall arise amid the ruin of peoples.

Amid these things, if anyone can keep his breast

protected from wound to the end, crowned with the eternal

garlands of life, he shall go to the lofty heights of light.

The celebration of the kingdom of heaven shall fly through

all the bounds of the earth; every nation shall have

a witness in the light-bearing word of holy salvation:

and then shall be the end, dissolving the running ages.

Then shall come the sad failing of the earth,

which the most true commands of Daniel

proclaim in his voice.

Only the worthy reader will be able to understand this.

Let those in Judea flee far off, and take to the mountains,

nor let anyone turn back to gather from his house

whatever might accompany his flight, be it garment or any movable thing.

Woe now to mothers with the burden of the womb,

and to those who shall nourish their poor infants with sweet milk.

Pray now that your flight come not in the cold frost of winter,

nor on the festal sabbaths,

lest uncertain trepidation disturb your headlong course.

For the most fierce burdens shall come upon all the earth.

Such an evil neither past ages nor those to come have known.

And unless the lofty Father, willing in mercy to

cut short the time, and shorten the number of days,

no flesh of trembling life would thereafter survive.

But for the sake of the chosen just, mercy shall come.

Deceivers in Christ's name, and false prophets

shall rise upon the earth, and shall fashion powerful wonders,

which miracles may perhaps ensnare even the chosen just.

Behold, the coming ages foretold lie open to you.

If anyone shall say that Christ travels through deserted places,

or is hidden far off in secret chambers,

let the most vain credulity be far from you.

For as lightning runs across the open sky,

and is easily seen by all, from the shores of the east

even to the western verge of the bending heaven,

so shall the lights of Christ shine forth in swift coming.

The sun shall hide its ruddy rays in dark shadows,

the moon's grace of light shall lose its course,

and the fire-tressed stars shall fall, and leave the sky.

Likewise all the power of the supernal heaven, being moved,

shall give signs, by which the Son of man may shine forth

at the summit of the sky: and the mourning of all nations

alike shall press upon them; then shall come, in fire-colored clouds,

the Son of man, mighty in majesty, through the stars.

Then a trumpet, shrieking with terrifying blast,

shall gather the summoned just from the four quarters of the world.

For the present generation of the age shall not pass away,

until the following end shuts up all things owed to it.

This earth, and the heaven above, shall be dissolved into fire,

but my words shall never be dissolved from their order.

What that day shall be, it is right that all remain ignorant,

save only the Lord of all things, who turns the stars.

As once the raging waves overwhelmed the lands,

And the sudden violence of the flood swept away all,

While they were each engaged in their different tasks,

So our coming shall descend suddenly from the heavens,

Rolling flames: nor shall it press all alike under one

Condition. For then, where the twin plowmen

Shall cleave the joyful fields with lowered plowshare in furrows,

One plowman shall be taken up, his body caught away,

While the other, unaware, shall be left in the vast field.

Nay, even those reclining on one same bed

Shall undergo a differing judgment by unequal lot.

For one, left behind, shall seek his companion along the beds.

Therefore let the servants keep watch, since to them, unknowing,

The coming of the Lord shall descend in sudden hours.

If each keeper of a house knew the certain hour of the thief's coming,

He would keep watch, and bring weapons to meet him from afar,

Lest anyone should break in and enter the broken house.

But do you stand ready always with attentive minds.

For sudden and unforeseen the Son of man

Shall return here, keeping his rewards for the just.

That servant shall be faithful, to whom the master of the house himself,

Setting out on a long journey, wished to entrust all

His house and servants: wise indeed, and greatly blessed,

Whom the Lord, coming, shall find keeping his commands.

Him shall he redeem, his servant, with greater honor.

But that one is unhappy, who, wallowing in filthy excess,

Despises his delaying master, and wearies the servants

With blows, and, indulging sluggish drunkenness,

Would join the feasts of the luxurious.

The master shall come, and shall thrust the raging servant headlong,

Unaware, down into fitting ruins of punishment.

Him shall unending weeping and gnashing await.

The kingdom of heaven may be likened to ten maidens,

Of whom one part is the wiser,

The other part most foolish in benumbed heart.

All these went forth to meet the bridal vows,

Girded in adornment with flame-crested torches.

But that wise part took care also to carry oil with them,

So that they might catch the light of the flame for themselves.

But such foresight was not found in the foolish.

And when the bridegroom delayed, then their limbs were

Loosed in sleep, all of them, along the broad crossroads.

Now in the middle of the night a great cry began to swell

And arise, and thereafter urged them to go forth with joyful desire,

And to adorn the roads with flashing torches:

That the virgins hasten to rise, and furnish their torches

With light, and arrange the flames with rich oil.

Then the foolish ones begged that a share of oil be given them,

Since they saw the prudent ones then carrying it with them.

But since the wise band feared, lest equally for all

The rich nourishment of the bright flame should fail,

If from their small store an equal portion were given to all:

Then the foolish ones went off, and bought liquid oil.

While they were going, the whole joyful procession passed by,

And only the prudent company accompanied the bridegroom.

The foolish, slow ones arrive late, after the time,

And knock in vain, again and again, at the bridegroom's doors

And closed threshold, and press with unwelcome entreaties,

That they, poor souls, might be allowed to enter the joyful threshold.

None of the bridegroom's companions would acknowledge them,

Nor would the bridegroom himself. Watch, therefore, in fear,

Since for you the hour of his coming is not certain.

For as it happened to one who went on a long journey

Into distant lands, entrusting to his servants talents to be managed;

To one he gave five, another received and held two,

The third undertook the care of a single talent,

Since abilities merit different portions.

But those to whom the greater share of money was entrusted

Vied in doubling it with increase.

But he to whom the care of one talent was entrusted,

Burying it in the earth, hid the money without any fruit.

And now the master was present: then the first and the second

Show that they had doubled equally what was entrusted to them.

The master praises them, and promises to entrust greater things

To such faithfulness. But that third one digs up again

And returns the talent to his master with such words:

Because I knew that I served a stern master,

Who would reap crops grown from another's seed,

I feared, and preferred to entrust your silver to the earth,

Which I might always be able to return to you safe.

Then the Lord, answering his servant, begins thus:

If you dared to say you did not know my ways,

I might grant pardon for so great a fault.

This, therefore, you ought rather to have known and shown,

That the money entrusted might bear fruit for us.

Wherefore let his portion of what is ours be taken away,

And let a greater possession then be given to the prudent one,

Whom I have found to have doubled my five talents with gain:

For it is certain that they deserve more,

To whom a more abundant store of increased fortune belongs.

But from him whose sluggish heart holds only small substance,

Even that little shall justly be taken from him.

But let the wicked servant, plunged into the deepest darkness,

Continually fill with weeping and gnashing of punishment.

Behold, the Son of man shall come, and, attended

By the Father's ministers, shall sit as judge on a lofty throne.

Then all the nations from the different parts of the world

Shall assemble, and he shall separate all the just

From the taint of the wicked, and gladly set them on the right side:

But he shall leave the wicked, despised, on the left side;

As a shepherd separates the pastures of the mixed flock,

Granting the soft meadow on the right to the wool-bearing sheep,

But letting the rough goats graze the thickets on the left.

But the king, turning to those on the right, shall say such things:

Let the holy ones come here, let them now receive the long-owed

Gifts of the Father, which are as old as the shining world,

And were prepared for the just from the very first origin.

For once, when I was weary with hunger, this welcome people refreshed me,

And often removed my thirst with drink,

And the house lay open to me often when I was called as a guest,

And when naked I received the most pleasing covering of clothing,

And in the punishments of prison I received their comfort.

Then the blessed answer the Lord with such words:

No one of us remembers seeing you naked,

Nor noticed you oppressed under the hard rule of hunger,

Nor remembers having seen you bound in the punishments of prison.

Answering them, the judge shall then say such things:

To my brothers, whoever did humble works of mercy for them,

It is certain, laid up for me a sweet fruit.

But you, unjust ones, go into the just flames,

And forever scorch your malignant mind with punishments,

Which the Father has prepared, through the horrible pools of the deep abyss,

For the horrible demon and his companions.

For when once I suffered thirst, no cups were given me,

Nor in the punishment of hunger was any pity for bread shown me,

Nor was any stranger's shelter, or even a little clothing, given me.

Coverings were given from your great abundance for a slender share.

Ever the enclosures of a prison or its bolted bars, or you lying in sickness,

never did the solace of your visits come to these.

Then the condemned company answers with these words:

Truly none of us remembers seeing you

either afflicted by thirst, or driven by the cruel toil of hunger,

or wandering as a stranger through towns in want of means,

or plunged in the penalties of prison, or weighed down by sickness,

that just pity might have been shown to you in your distress.

To these things the Lord will say: When in your proud

hearts, amid narrow circumstances, savagery swelled within,

and you trampled the humble and the least, you scorned me in them.

When he has spoken these words, he will render to each their due reward.

The wretched unjust shall be tormented in eternal punishment,

and eternal salvation shall remain granted to the just.

While he speaks such things, tearing her hair, torn with grief,

the anxious sister, moved by just cares for her brother's illness,

urges the young man to hasten forward with swift step,

that Christ might save his friend from such great peril.

For the woman had been received for her kindly merits,

whose brother and worthy household, through her devotion,

Christ embraced and held in full love.

A messenger arriving reports that the young man beloved of Christ

lies at the last extremity through the sad course of his sickness,

holding the utmost boundary between death and life.

This man had the name Lazarus; but Christ, struck

by the bitter words, said: This violence of sickness,

if you believe it, does not lead to death:

but so that God may be honored with due glory among the just,

and the offspring of man may shine with holy virtue.

Then to his disciples he said, Lazarus now sleeps,

but I shall make the dear young man rise again.

The disciples say: If full sleep should follow,

health will be able to return; nor do they understand in mind

that Christ spoke of death under the name of sleep.

Their error he removed with such words:

Lazarus has fallen into death, but joy comes to my mind

from this, and it more strongly arms your faith in me,

since you see that though absent, I saw all things from afar.

But let us hasten, he says. Then Didymus speaks thus:

Let us go, and let us all together be forced to fall

to death, as the Jewish nation has so often threatened.

So he says, and all follow, with Christ going before.

And now Christ was at hand, but it happened that the fourth day

since his burial had passed, and grief and tearful houses held

the sisters plunged in dark shadows of death.

There the leading men of the Jewish nation and dear kinsmen

had gathered, offering due consolation.

But Martha, hearing that Christ had come, ran

to meet him, leaving the house and her sorrowful sister.

And from afar: Oh, if only your power had been present with us,

it would have snatched our brother from bitter death.

For whatever you ask, it is certain it can come to you.

The Lord consoles her as she weeps with these words:

Take up again a strong mind, woman, with courage.

Lazarus shall rise again into the light of life, restored.

And the woman says: Surely all mortals shall rise

into the gift of life, when the end comes for the world.

Christ again brings forth a word from his holy breast:

Behold, I am for you the restoration of glorious life.

Whoever believes in me will be able to lay aside the death he has taken on,

and to grasp life in unending age.

But whoever takes up faith in his living heart

shall never come to the dread threshold of death.

Do you believe these things, Martha, with a pure heart?

Then she says: This one faith shall hold my heart,

that the sublime and venerable offspring of God has come in you,

the heavenly one, under the exalted name of Christ.

Having said this, meaning to move her sister Mary by her going,

she goes within, and reminds her, weighed down alike with grief,

that the holy Master has come, and calls her sister,

signifying all this with a silent nod.

She springs forth outside, having heard the name of Christ.

And at the same time the crowd of Jerusalem follows her in grief,

the believers bringing their weeping to the tomb, the sisters too.

When she had seen the life-bringing Jesus,

she fell before his feet, and broke forth this word from her heart:

If you had been able to see my brother alive,

Lazarus could not have succumbed to hard death.

Christ, joining sorrow from his heart to these tears,

asks for the place of the tomb, where the body,

stripped of the warmth of the fleeting soul, had lately been laid.

Without delay, they show to him, weeping and sorrowful, the tomb

beneath a hewn rock, closed with the weight of a stone.

When the Holy One saw it, he soon ordered it to be moved

with a great lever: but this voice strikes Martha's ears:

Behold, four days, and as many nights in order,

have passed, in which the limbs laid in the ground have rested.

I would believe that the body, with the warmth of life having fled,

gives back a wretched stench from its dissolving limbs.

To these words Christ answers thus in reply:

It has already been said so often, that in great matters

the faith of believers stands firm by its virtue: but the glory of the highest

Father is at hand, if you have the strength of faith.

When he had spoken these words, the huge stone, its bars torn away,

lay open; soon his conscious power looked up to heaven,

and prayed to the Father with such words:

Extraordinary thanks, holy Father, we give to you.

You always hear me graciously with venerable ears.

But let the people present learn to believe that I was sent.

When he had spoken these words, standing at the very threshold of the tomb,

he filled the hollow rock with a resounding voice, facing it:

Lazarus, take up again your limbs, now returning from sleep—

Behold, thy soul, and thou thyself come forth from the tomb.

Without delay, his hands and feet bound together, at once

he comes forth from the tomb, his face wrapped in linen,

and a slender band binds his whole body.

Then he bade him be loosed, and sent him joyful back to his home.

After the Jews behold this venerable deed,

who had followed Mary and Martha in such great numbers,

part follow believing, in honor of the holy power;

but others return to the city, and to the proud princes

relate to the Pharisees all the miracles of the matter.

Therefore to the council are summoned the Scribes, and a still

graver number of the people, where the beautiful halls of Caiaphas,

chief of the prophets, gleam on high with his lofty seat.

There it pleased them to lay Christ low in death;

but to avoid the days of the Passover, lest amid the crowding people

discordant factions should carry their fury into strife.

He was in the house of Simon, whom a livid leprosy

had fled by his own power. Behold, to him as he reclined

a woman draws near, and breaking an alabaster jar,

in which were precious ointments of fragrant oil in abundance,

she poured them from the crown of his head over Christ.

The disciples rebuke her, saying that the bodies of the needy poor

could have been aided by the price of the ointment.

The Lord forbids these words, and approved the deed:

Cease to forbid the just maiden her act of devotion.

Time will always be given to succor the poor,

but it will not always be granted you to see me.

This she ministers, much to be praised, for my burial's service,

and such deeds shall fill the world.

Then one of the disciples, out of his mind, withdraws himself,

Judas, who ran to the elders with such a word:

What price may I hope for, if I deliver to you,

and can point out the long-sought master?

They straightway appoint thirty weights of silver;

for these Judas gave himself over to deep crime.

And now the day of the Passover had come with its first dawn:

the disciples ask where he wished to take the Passover supper;

but he bade that a certain man without name be sought for himself,

who should receive the last commands of the Lord.

Soon, at the first evening, with the twelve reclining together,

the disciples, the Master foretells with such a voice:

Behold, the time presses when one of you, with wicked heart,

turns over in his mind to deliver Christ unto death.

Immediately all ask who with such daring

had conceived so great a poison in his mad heart.

Then he: He now eats of the feast with me, he says.

But the Son of man shall undergo for a time

the punishments long since foretold. Wretched forever

is he who betrayed the Just One: how much happier would he be,

if he had never touched the threshold of life on earth!

And Judas then, his conscience-stricken breast heavily weighed down,

said: Does such a suspicion touch Judas?

The Lord answered: I see that you say such things.

When he had spoken these words, he broke bread with his hands,

and having divided it, then gave it, and having prayed the holy prayer,

taught the disciples that it was his own body given to them.

Then the Lord takes the cup, and filled with wine

he sanctifies it with words of thanks, and gives the drink,

and taught that he had divided his own blood.

And he said: This blood has redeemed the sins of the people;

drink this as mine. For believe my true words,

never after this shall I taste the liquor of the vine,

until the kingdoms of the Father, by the gift of a better life,

grant that I rise again into new wine.

Then, a hymn having been sung with holy harmonies,

they all ascend the heights of the Mount of Olives.

Then Christ brought forth such words from his heart:

All of you, in the time of this present night, terror

will scatter far and wide in misery, your leader deserted.

For thus it is written: At the shepherd's fall all

the sheep will take flight in various directions through the fields.

Afterward, when life restores to me the new honors of heaven,

I will go before you, and, flying joyfully through the fields of Galilee,

I will teach your bands in your native lands.

Peter answered: All, if it is right to believe,

may fail and deny your commands as they falter,

but no misfortune shall ever change my heart.

Then he: This night, which will bring bright stars

to the earth, and now presses down the light lying upon the waves,

shall hear how, fearful, in three false words

you will say, and deny Christ, bravest Peter.

and before the roofs of the houses resound with the birds' cry.

But Peter said: I would rather take upon myself a hard death

than that this voice should deny its own master.

All persist in promising these strengths of heart.

The fields are called, in the Hebrew name, Gethsemane.

Thither goes forward the finder of life and of light,

whom soon the disciples, Judas having fled, follow.

And there he bade the rest of his servants remain seated.

But he, taking Peter with him, goes far apart,

together with the sons of Zebedee, through byways.

Then, sorrowful with heavy anguish, thus he speaks:

Sadness, revolving in my mind, troubles my heart

even unto death; but now do you shut out sluggish sleep,

and together, keeping watch, pass the anxious night.

This he said, and going forward a little, he presses

his body to the ground, and, thrown down, prays with such words:

If it is possible, Father, let the violence of this cup,

pressing upon me with strong force, pass from me.

Yet let it come rather, than that our will

should prevail, which decree is fixed by you for such great things.

Then he returns to the disciples, but sleep

had loosened all their limbs, prostrate on the ground, gasping.

Then he said to Peter: Have I not the power

to set apart for me one wakeful hour amid such great trials?

But watch, I beg, lest, seized by temptation,

dreadful, it plunge you down the slippery paths of cruel death.

This spirit is strong, but the weak flesh falters.

He withdrew again to the height of the secret mountain,

and prayed to the Father: Most gentle ruler of all things,

since it is not possible for this cup to pass by,

let now your will proceed instead of our own lot.

Again he finds the disciples weighed down beneath the burden of sleep,

and again, the Father having been prayed to, he

addresses them, bound in the languor of weary rest:

Now you may sleep, and visit again your companions.

For behold, he comes who will deliver up my whole

body,

which the defiled faction will lay upon my limbs.

With this word, Judas, with a crowding number of a troop,

arrives at the command of the elders, and of the fierce people.

Part with drawn swords, part trusting in the weight of a closed

The signs foretold followed of raging Judas.

For he had bargained to touch Christ with kisses,

By which the wretched crowd might easily seize the unknown one.

When, dissembling, he greets him with flattering voice,

And touches with his lips the venerable face of the just one,

Straightway Christ said: You may complete it wholly,

Whatever cause has brought you here in readiness.

The crowds laid hands upon him, and seized Christ.

Then one of the disciples with flashing sword

Ran at the priest's servant, roused to wrath,

And in that moment struck off his ear with the force of the blow.

To him Christ said: Put up your sword, my friend:

For whoever fierce trusts in the avenging steel,

On him a like vengeance of just steel shall wait.

Or could I not summon the heavenly hosts,

And lead the Father's countless troops into battle?

But Scripture owed must be fulfilled in my case.

But you who rush upon me with drawn sword,

With clubs and swords to seize me, behold, I

have met you, who always sat in the midst of the temple's citadel,

Teaching with you, nor did anyone dare

Such things against me on the ground, with so many barking round about.

The disciples scattered, fleeing and abandoning Christ.

And now the Savior had stood in Caiaphas' hall:

All the Scribes and the summoned elders assembled.

But Peter alone, keeping his steps at a distance,

Sat sorrowful and hidden among the serving folk,

Awaiting the final outcome amid so great a tempest.

Behold, the priests strove to seek out false witnesses

They press on, and wish to weave together feigned charges,

By which they might lay death upon innocent Christ.

But none seemed sufficient for so great a fury.

At last witnesses spring forward, who claimed to have heard Christ

Say that he alone could destroy the temple,

And once destroyed, restore it again in three days.

The chief of priests himself pressed hard on him who kept silence,

Insisting fervent with fury, and spoke thus:

Why do you now dare answer nothing to such great charges,

Convicted by true witnesses of the elders?

Yet I will adjure you by the kingdom of the highest Thunderer,

That you confess openly, if it is lawful to believe you the Christ.

He then addresses the proud man with such a voice:

These words alone proceed from your heart

Truly: yet there shall come, to be seen by you through the skies,

The majesty of the Son of Man, when at the right hand of holy

Power he sits beneath fire-colored clouds.

Having heard these things, the priest tears his garment from his breast,

Exults in fury, blind of heart, and

Says: You have heard the foul words of one warring

Against God, the profane man: let religion, defiled by evils,

Rise up in wrath, and let all now reveal your mind.

All cry out together, and strive to condemn him to death.

Then shameless spittle fills the holy face of Christ,

And blows with hands, and repeated buffets upon his head

Mock him, and all strive to jeer with words.

Christ, you shall prophesy whose palm-blow rang upon you.

But a woman who had seen Peter sad within,

Says: Were you too, young man, added as a companion

To this one, whom the elders' mocking sentence condemns?

He denies it, and hidden tries to make his way out.

But behold, another, seeing him gone out in the first light,

Betrayed him with a like voice to the servants.

Again he swore, denying that he knew him.

Then many of those questioning came up following,

And said they recognized him by the sound of his voice,

Since all his words rang with Galilean speech.

And Peter, swearing with devoted words in all things,

Affirms he does not know, denying whoever that man was.

This voice, the bird, flapping beneath the roof's height,

Follows with its song, and around Simon's mind

There stand the sad true forewarnings of Christ;

Then, going out, bitter weeping possessed him.

Now the stars yield to daylight, and the swift sun

Advances, filling the trembling lands with its rays.

And now from the council they dragged Christ, bound behind his back,

With a great clamor to the governor's presence.

Meanwhile the Lord, standing before the lofty tribunal,

Received such words of Pilate: Do you stand here

As king of the Jewish nation, as it is said?

Christ answered: I hear this from your words.

Thereupon a terrible accusation against the just one arises

And rages, and eloquence of crimes presses upon the holy one.

Jesus deigns to answer nothing to the fierce men.

Pilate asks what then is the cause of his silence.

He, persisting still more, keeps his wondrous silence.

But it happened that on the solemn day the laws

Bade, by custom, to release one condemned man.

And there was in chains a robber of notorious name,

Whom the people, hostile to Christ, burned to release to life:

But Pilate's wife, terrified by fierce visions in sleep,

Anxious, begged with commands and prayers

That her husband withdraw from the punishment of the just man.

Then the judge again tries to search out the mind of the elders,

And whom in the pressing punishment they wished to release,

He sends to be asked according to law, at the people's will.

But the elders, spreading ambition, begged the people

To demand the robber for the law, and to kill Christ.

But after the elders' verdict inflamed the crowd,

And it demanded rather that the robber's life be spared for it,

The governor consulted the people, what they wished done with Jesus.

The people, inflamed by evil, stirred up savage tumults,

And demanded again and again the punishment of the cross

For him who desired the name of king, who confessed himself

The enemy of Caesar, condemning himself by his own mouth.

At last, overcome by force, and detesting the bloody

Office, he protests, that his hands are free of this blood,

And before them washes his palms of the crime,

So that only that stain might remain upon the people.

At this they cry out the more: Let that blood be upon

Us, upon us, and let this crime redound upon our race, and the guilt too.

Pilate grants Barabbas to the people and the law,

And delivers Jesus, bound, to the punishment of the cross.

But the traitor Judas, after he perceives such things,

Having received the price of his crime, that he had sealed the raging deed,

Unhappy, condemning his own deeds with rural complaints,

Then cast down the silver in the temple, detesting it.

And having begun to take his own punishments by the noose,

He seized a shapeless death from the top of a fig tree.

Then the priests, saying that it was not lawful

To store the price of blood now within the temple's shrine,

Believing that it was lawful then to give it, while the blood-money should be dispersed,

Having bought a field in the true name

Of blood, they mark their impious crimes with a horrible deed.

Since the true voice of the prophet, singing these things once concealed,

Has now disclosed the outcome of events in the order of the age:

The profane ones laid down thirty pieces of silver,

Establishing this as the price of the precious body,

Which is soon transferred back to the field of the potter.

The just man was handed over to fierce men, and to the ministers of crime,

The soldiers: he bears in his body the mockeries of crimes,

And they put upon him a purple tunic and a reddening cloak,

And bound his head with bloody thorns,

And in place of a scepter a reed accompanies his right hand.

Then, bending the knee, they hail him as king and lord

Of the Jewish nation: they washed his face with spittle,

And on his holy head they made sport with wicked blows.

When the mad soldier had finished these mockeries,

They led him, clothed in the covering of his own garment,

And dragged the holy and just one to the punishment of the cross;

But behold, going out, they seized a certain Simon,

Born of Cyrene, and ordered him to carry the wood;

By which the unchangeable order of the age, pressing with fierce commands,

Urged that the Lord of light be fastened.

And after they came to the place of the countryside called Golgotha,

They gave to Christ cups of wine mixed with gall.

But he, having tasted it at the top, refuses what was offered;

So that by such things the ancient sayings might be fulfilled,

And yet the insulting fury of men could not accomplish everything.

And now the body, fixed to the cross, hung upon the tree,

And the possession of the untouched tunic, preserved by lot,

Was kept by one soldier's ownership of the weave.

And they set up a written title of the charge and the merit,

That he had been king of the Jewish people and nation.

It happened that two robbers, on this side and that,

Bore alike the fellowship of the punishment: but the blind madness

Of the raging people insults Christ, fixed there:

This is he who alone could destroy the temple,

This is he who could restore it in a threefold course of light.

But now let the venerable offspring of the Thunderer descend,

And release both body and soul from the punishment of the cross.

These words the leaders of the senseless crowd follow;

And the Pharisees and Scribes, and the mad faction

Mock him, shaking their heads, and with insane speeches

Shake their tongues toward the bonds of eternal punishment.

Did he not once use to save others from the fierce

Bonds of diseases? Alas! He is not able

To free himself from punishment. Behold, we ought to have believed

Him our king and of our nation: let him loose his body

From the strength of the wood, then we shall be able worthily

To believe the holy signs.

He trusts in God his father: why does not the venerable power

Wish to release its own offspring from punishment?

No less do the groaning robbers, fixed to the crosses

On the right and on the left, according to the lot of their crimes, rebuke him.

Now the course of light had climbed to the middle of its orb,

When suddenly it fled from sight, and was clothed

In dark shadows, and the sun hid the trembling day in night.

But when, disturbed, it had climbed to the ninth hour,

The dismayed lights returned to their own world.

And Christ called upon the Father with a great voice

In the manner of the Hebrew tongue: but the ignorant crowd

Thinks he is calling Elijah. Then one, roused,

Was forcing, with a foul sponge bound to a reed,

An impressed sour taste to be drunk upon his lips.

The rest of the raging crowd laughs with such a saying.

Let us look together, lest by chance, sent down from heaven,

Elijah come, who rests in his lofty seat,

And free the wretched king fastened to the stake.

Then the cry of the Lord, sent forth with great effort,

Mingled his companion soul with the airs of heaven,

At the same time the veils of the holy temple were rent,

And the fabrics, torn, gaped apart into two parts,

And the trembling earth was shaken with all its weight,

And the rocks, burst, split apart from their own body.

Then the monuments of ancient men lay open, their bars

Thrust back, and the just souls, having returned through their bodies,

And, having been seen, were borne throughout the walls of the city

And wandered: thus all things terrify the world.

The hearts of the first soldiers are shaken with fear,

Those who kept watch over the bodies given to cruel punishment,

And they called him the offspring of God, and confess him Christ.

From lookouts the mothers behold such great miracles,

All those who used to render service to Christ.

Now evening had begun to succeed the setting sun,

And then alone, the more just of the leaders dares

To demand the body for the last office owed to Christ.

This man bore the name Joseph, from Arimathea,

Who once used to lend his ears to the words of Jesus.

He then asks Pilate that the limbs be yielded to him,

From which the horrid force of punishment had lately taken life.

The governor granted it, and shining linen

Woven cloths cover the body, and it is laid in a new cave of rock.

Huge rolled masses of stone close up the threshold.

From their lookouts the mothers keep watch, and observe all things.

And now the day was filling the earth with ruddy light,

The day which the ancient law always bade be one of rest:

But no rest does the merciless fury of the leaders keep.

They come together, and thus burden the judge's ears together:

The most just punishment has loosed the snares of error.

Now it is fitting to remember, since that deceiver

Was always accustomed to boast and promise to the common people

That he would return alike from the shadows of death to the light of life

With a threefold return of the sun.

But we ask that a soldier guard as watchman the new grave,

Lest the fierce daring of his disciples to steal the body

Should arise, and fresh madness disturb the people.

And Pilate said to this: "A soldier is granted," he said:

"Guard, as you wish, the body buried in the earth."

They come together, and roll the huge weights of stone,

And guard the threshold with seals, and the stone with a soldier.

The stars of night were now beginning to give way

to the sun about to come, when the mothers rushed

to visit the enclosure of the tomb: but a tremor at once

shakes all the earth, and, fallen from the open sky,

a messenger descends, and rolls the stone from the threshold of the tomb:

his countenance shines, like the fire of lightning,

and the covering of his garment gleams like snow.

Terror had shut off every sense of the soldiers,

and they lay together, like corpses poured out in death.

But he addresses the mothers with such a voice:

Let no fear now shake and weary your hearts,

for it is manifest and sure that you seek the holy body,

which wicked madness fixed on the wood of the cross.

Christ has risen, and has received again the eternal

light of life with his holy body, death being conquered.

Now it is permitted you to see that in the seat of the sepulchre

no limbs lie there, which had been laid there.

Moreover, tell, with swift and hastening return,

the disciples, that Christ has returned into the regions of light,

and joyfully goes before them into the land of Galilee.

At these words, and at this sight, burning joy had suffused

their astonished minds, mingled with stupor and wavering fear.

At length, hastening their joy with headlong course,

they report such things to the disciples, and leave the tomb.

Behold, in the midst of the way Jesus shows himself in splendor,

and bids the faithful mothers hail gently.

They run to meet him, and, clasping his knees and feet,

fearfully venerate Jesus, the conqueror of death.

Then he strengthens their hearts with such precepts:

Let all fear depart from your minds of faith, and these things

report quickly as commands to our brothers.

If you have care to see me, go willingly,

and hasten quickly into the land of Galilee.

Meanwhile the terrified guards of the tomb send

a part of their number, to report to the Jews

such great miracles: but the frenzied band,

already once wholly devoted to insane fury,

eagerly pays great rewards to the soldiers,

and buys back their reputation with silver, claiming that, the threshold broken,

they had secretly carried off the body, protected by darkness,

the boldness of the disciples secretly seizing it.

And now the anxious crowd of his followers, running

at the commands of Christ, had climbed the Galilean mountains:

behold, the venerable offspring of the Thunderer is seen by his own.

Falling down, the whole holy company adores him,

yet not in all alike did virtue remain founded

in their breasts: for a part of them doubted.

Then thus Jesus, in splendor, addresses the disciples:

In heaven and on earth the Father has subjected all things to me,

the Father has deigned to send me to you as light.

Not otherwise now have I resolved to send you

to all the nations: it is yours to join all nations to me:

go, and wash men, cleansed with purifying waters,

under the holy name of the Father and the Son.

Likewise let the breathings of the life-giving Spirit run.

Then to those washed teach and instill our

precepts, that they may be able to lead life everlasting.

Nor shall my presence ever be lacking to you,

until the consuming end dissolves the ages.

Such strength of faith, and of holy fear, has my mind

taken up, and so greatly has the grace of Christ shone upon me,

that in my verses the glory of the divine law

should gladly take on the earthly ornaments of language.

This peace of Christ has granted me, this peace of the age also,

which the indulgent ruler of the open earth, Constantine,

fosters, to whom worthy grace is present as he deserves,

who alone of kings shrinks from having the weight of the sacred

name imposed upon him, so that, more worthy by his just deeds,

he may receive eternal life in the divine ages,

through the Lord Christ of light, who reigns forever.