The Paschal Song, Together with the Paschal Work

Whoever you are, guest, that seek the paschal feasts,

having deigned to recline at our tables,

lay aside your frown, if you know yourself a friend,

and seek not here the work of an artificer's book:

but content with a modest table, come to its solemnities,

and be pleased in mind rather than sated with food.

But if you are captivated by the sweetness of great things,

and love riches more delicately,

feed on the shining feasts of noble scholars, Here begins the preface of Sedulius the bishop, in prose, to the Paschal Song, addressed to the reader.

Whoever you are, guest, who partake of paschal feasts, not disdaining to recline upon our couches, lay down the raised height of your brow, if you come as a dear one and a friend, and do not require here the work of an artificer's book: but receiving gladly the humble solemnities of a small table, taking it up contentedly, be more willing to be satisfied in mind than in food; or if you are rather captivated by a great abundance of rich things, and, being delicate, look for especial riches, whose manifold wealth is not even to be counted.

There you will find whatever the sea nourishes for eating,

whatever the earth brings forth, whatever flies to the stars.

Waxen honeys grow golden in jeweled baskets,

and golden vessels gleam with their own honeycombs.

But we have gathered a small portion from a poor garden,

the herb which, set before you, a red earthen dish supplies.

you ought to be satisfied with the feasts of noble scholars, whose manifold preparations cannot be recounted. There indeed you will find whatever the wave of the sea nourishes for food, whatever the fertility of the earth supplies, whatever sustains its winged body poised in the clouds.

In those very dishes, too, with too costly a variety, gem-studded honeys grow golden with their own nectar-like wax, and a honeycomb of matching color, set in golden baskets, plays upon the metal. But we have plucked a cheap herb from the seeds of a poor garden, which in a red earthen dish we see served with devotion rather than splendor.

Since the pagan poets are eager to parade their fictions

in grandiloquent measures and tragic bombast,

or in the ridiculous manner of Getic verse, or by whatever art of singing

they renew the savage contagions of unspeakable things

and sing the monuments of crimes, and, with custom as their teacher,

hand down countless lies in Nilotic books:

why should I, accustomed to the odes of David,

to sound the ten strings, and reverently to stand

in the holy choir, and to sing heavenly things with peaceful words,

be silent about the bright miracles of Christ our Savior?

Since I can speak manifest things, and it delights me

to confess the thundering Lord with my senses and with my whole heart,

who gave the senses and the hearts, to whom alone it belongs

that his creature should serve him, to whom by perpetual right

in the ethereal citadels there is one power with the Father,

equal splendor, common summit, shared height,

equal honor, the same virtue, a reign without time,

an ever-abiding beginning, an unbroken scepter, a shared glory,

a like majesty: this indeed is the way of salvation,

this leads with firm steps to the paschal gifts.

This shall be my song: turn hither, all your minds.

Apply this remedy steadfastly to your wounded marrow,

you whom deadly sickness, whom the Attic learning of Cecropian poison,

given over to vain cares, creeps upon,

Since the studious custom of the pagan poets commends the fabulous trifles of their song with a pomp of noble words,

and, whether with the clamors of buskined tragedy, or with the comic foulness of the laughable Geta,

or in whatever measures of metrical discipline, the wicked deeds of ancient times,

and even certain shameful tales composed with the art of narration, with the pen plowing across the papyrus of the Nile’s flood—

let them hand over: why should I, who, exercising the songs of Davidic modulation upon the ten-stringed psaltery amid the choirs of blessed doctrine, reverently respond to spiritual utterances, keep silent with subdued voice the wondrous and healing powers of Christ, when I ought to take up the work of truth, and not keep silent the gifts of heavenly grace, the instruments of faithful speech? For to no one does the service of the human heart and mind more justly belong than to the almighty Lord, who established the senses, who founded the hearts, so that matter, ever devoted to its Creator, should not abandon its own author, to whom it is fitting that the fabric of his own right neither be withdrawn nor perish. To whom, in perpetual dominion in the ethereal citadels, there is one power with the Father, equal brightness of splendor, the undivided sublimity of a common summit, equal honor, the same virtue, a shared height, a kingdom infinite in time, a beginning ever abiding in unbroken eternity, a fellowship of scepter, a shared glory, and a like majesty likewise. This is the way that leads to the dwelling of salvation, this the path that opens with firm steps to the paschal gifts. Here we lay the foundations of our work. Hither, then, turn all your sick minds, apply this medicine to your deadly ailments, whom the vain intent of harmful disputation creeps upon, and the incurable discipline of Attic doctrine wounds with the poison of Cecropian teaching, so that when you draw in the vital breezes, fragrant with the breath of the divine law and pleasing sweetness, and following rather the breath of life-giving law,

leave behind the foul odor of the Athenian district.

Why, sons of Theseus, do you wander in the labyrinthine cave,

and haunt the blind thresholds of the Daedalian house?

Why do you still prefer the wild grape to the gentle vine,

and, neglecting roses, gather the wild nard of the field?

What good will it do to worship stones and bronze, what good the shrines to the profane,

and to condemn souls to mute metals?

Spare the squalid acres of the dusty plain,

and spare to dwell in barren tracts, where the dry

soil knows not how to bring forth fruit: nor from the bloodied

earth gather ye livid poisons with their death-bearing juices,

condemned to Tartarean feasts: but into the pleasant green groves

of ever-flowering woods, and the blessed abodes,

enter through holy waters, where the seeds of life

are quickened by divine waters, and by the heavenly fountain

the crop, made joyful, is cleansed of its thorns once removed,

Leave behind, henceforth, with a purer understanding, the filth of Athenian squalor. Why, O sons of Theseus, do you wander through the labyrinthine circuits and twisting turns of shadowy errors, and, with your tracks entangled toward a perishing outcome, do you traverse dark caverns by blind windings? Why do you still prefer the wild grape to the good vine? Why do you set the saliunca before the shining rose-gardens? What good will it do to trust in stone idols and bronze figures with empty worship, and to condemn souls to servitude by venerating profane shrines with their metal gods? Spare, I beg, now spare the squalid clods of sandy dust, and cease to enjoy the bare dryness of barren fields, where the ground, never heavy with fruitful wombs, never knows how to reward the toil of the sweating farmer with fruitful gain. Nor gather from the shoots of bloodied turf the poisons of deadly juice, which, ever friendly to Tartarean feasts, know how to serve not life but death. Rather enter the pleasant meadows of flowering growth and the delightful approaches of the blessed abode through the clear waters of the pure fountain, where—

That the harvest may belong to God, and, for the reward to come,

gather in the greatest fruit through the hundredfold granaries.

Almighty eternal God, the sole hope of the world,

who art the maker of heaven, who art the founder of the earth,

who dost forbid the wave-sounding storms of the sea, rising in surge,

to overwhelm the borders of the neighboring land,

who dost fill the sun with rays and the moon with horns,

and dost measure out to day and to night each its due light,

who dost number the stars, whose names thou alone,

their signs, powers, courses, places, and times, dost know,

who hast formed the new earth into diverse bodies,

and given living limbs to the torpid soil,

who dost restore fallen man—undone by the sweetness of the forbidden apple—

with better food, and by the drink of the sacred

Blood dost drive out the poison infused by the serpent,

who, when the human race (save those the ark had enclosed)

lay buried beneath the rushing mass of the foaming flood,

didst create it anew from one stock, that the mystic power

might show that what the sins of the flesh had killed

could be renewed through flowing waters, with this wood as guide;

for thou dost wash the whole world with one baptism:

the fecundity of the seeds of life, quickened by divine waters, nurtures the crop, growing after the harshness of thorns has been torn away, which, with abundant and manifold fruitfulness, may now be God's harvest, and, awaiting the hope of reward to come, may store up the greatest fruit in hundredfold heaps in the granaries.

Almighty God of undivided and eternal majesty, who dost sustain the whole world by thy sacred nod, who hast established the structure of heaven by the work of thy fingers, and founded the fabric of the world by thy mighty word, who dost forbid the rushing madness of the surging sea to overwhelm the boundary of the neighboring land, restraining it within fixed limits, who, bordering the radiant aspect of the sun and the horned face of the moon with day and night, dost dispense the alternations of both lights by the balance of sacred moderation, who alone gatherest, alone knowest, the number, powers, signs, offices, places, courses, and times of the stars; who hast animated the torpid limbs of the raw earth with living bodies through various motions, who, after condemning to death the man who ate the tree's fruit in forbidden presumption, dost raise him again by the sacrament of better food, and preserve him from the pleasurable deceit of the viper's bite by the drink of unblemished blood: who, when the name of the human race, save those whom the ark had guarded and protected, was utterly submerged and buried beneath the sudden inundation of the rising flood, didst restore it to multiply anew from one lineage, that

Open to me the saving path that leads by a narrow way

to the city of the few, and let the lamp of thy word

give light to my feet, that the path of life

may lead me to the sheepfolds of the countryside, where the good

Shepherd keeps his pleasant flock, where the Virgin's lamb,

white-fleeced, goes before, and the whole white flock

enters—with thee as guide, the way is not hard; all

nature is subject to thy commands, and, its order dissolved,

passes at thy ruling bidding into opposite forms.

If thou bid the crops ripen amid the midst of frost,

winter shall produce the reaper; if thou wilt have the new wine flow

under the vernal sun, the dirty vintner shall tread

the grape-clusters upon the flowering fields,

and all seasons shall obey thy divine decrees.

Ancient faith is proof of this, and the hoary

witness of our forefathers' origin, and never to be abolished

through the ages stand the signs of thy powers.

Of which, with bold account, to touch upon but a few,

I scarcely dare to entrust to my mind, and, entering

the open forest, I strive to reach some of its branches.

by the mystical demonstration of power, what the sins of the flesh had slain, hedged about by the faithful protection of the wood, thou mightest open, to be washed away, by the single baptism of the whole world: show to me now, gentle one, in my supplication, that way, that path, which directs the steps of the few by a narrow track to the walls of the saving city—that is, the Lord's city Jerusalem, bearing our Passover in Christ's passion—so that, through this shining hospitality of bodily grace, we may be found worthy to arrive at that fatherland of spiritual glory, and let thy word, O Lord, be a lamp to my feet, that the brightness of the right path may lead me to those meadows of flowering grass, where the good shepherd keeps the shining sheepfold, where the whole white-robed flock follows the Virgin's ewe-lamb in snowy purity. The way is not difficult, if thou wilt deign to offer thyself as guide. All things lie beneath thy power.

All nature submits to thy commands, and passes into opposite kinds and forms at thy ruling bidding. If thou wilt that the crops grow golden in icy seasons, sluggish winter brings forth the nimble reaper with his sickle. If, in the season of the vernal region, when the earth, covered with the first mantle of flowers, shines resplendent, thou bid the vine to bear heavy clusters for the must-making vintner, then, its rich grapes no longer refused, the sweet nectar shall press away with pleasing injury the trampling of the intoxicated foot. And the changing courses of all the seasons, with their altered fruits, shall not refuse to serve the Creator. For indeed hoary faith spreads forth the proof of divine wonders, and the ancient origin of the forefathers stands witness. Nor, though the ages grow old and pass away, are the immortal signs of heavenly powers to be abolished.

Of which, with the fear of a trembling mind, we scarcely permit ourselves, with bold account, to touch upon at least a few, that, entering a forest of great density, I might strive to touch some branches with but the very tips of my fingers. For even if a hundred mouths at once should serve a human body, and an iron voice should not cease to cry out with a hundred tongues' motions, who could unfold all things, whose numbers neither the thickest stars of heaven nor the thirsty sand of the sea can match? From which, out of confused matter—called chaos—the Word, as maker, raised up the clear form of things.

For though, moving a hundred mouths, an iron voice should cry out,

and the human breast should breathe forth a hundred sounds,

who shall unfold all things, which neither the bright

stars of heaven nor the thirsty sand can match in number?

From chaos onward, Enoch, first by living merit,

attained many ages through countless years,

nature losing its measure, which by the law

of creation the earth had borne: but death marvels

that he, though begotten, was taken away.

Now the wounded womb of aged Sarah was withering,

consumed by the decay of great age, and the cold blood,

dying in her time-worn body, denied her offspring:

when, her husband being old, the inward parts of her chill womb

swelled toward a new birth, and the trembling mother,

her cold bosom made heavy, brought forth the hope

of a rich people, and put the late-born child to her breasts.

And the father offered him, to be sacrificed to God,

but a sacred ram was slain at the altar in place of the boy's throat.

O holy mind of the just man! Setting aside natural affection,

possessing more of true piety, he scorned the wounding of his son,

embracing God's command, and by the aid of the typical blood

teaches things to come, that by the shedding of blood

Enoch, most pleasing to God and beloved, having attained a living glory, transgressing the measure of human nature through innumerable courses of years, fulfilled the debt of earth by being born, but stirred up a marvel for death, from which he was withdrawn.

The failing limbs of Sarah were already languishing with old age, and the blood, extinguished by the aged condition, had condemned the veins of her time-worn body to the sterility of a hopeless offspring, when, made fruitful by union with an aged husband, she suddenly extended the womb of her chilled belly, and the trembling mother, her breast swelling with a new birth, held up to the nipples of milky nourishment the son brought forth in late felicity, as the hope of a people and nation to come—the son whom the father offered as a gift to God, whose promise had been given amid despair. The boy stood at the sacrificial knife, and a ram was made into the burnt offering. O undefiled mind of the holy High Priest! He rejected the human, and looked forward to the divine; while denying life to his son, he gained it. Abraham drew the sword to strike, and the Lord changed the sacrifice for himself, so that he should not strike the son. Truly a great mystery was being enacted in this matter—that the pious Lamb should die for the human race.

As Lot fled the chaos of Sodom, when his wife looked back,

changed into a statue of salt, she remained stupefied,

turned into her own punishment: because no one, looking back

while shunning the harmful perils of the despised world,

shall be saved; nor ought the ploughman,

performing a worthy task, turn his face back over his own furrow.

Burning once with harmless fires there appeared

a bush that seemed to burn without burning, nor did the material,

joined to the heat, give fuel to it, nor did the living

shrub, though scorched, feel any harm, but with the warmth of a friendly kindling

the flame licked the leafy boughs with caresses.

The gentle rod was animated into a fierce serpent,

coiled in curving folds, and with its forked tongues

mystery, that for the life of the human race Christ, the gentle Lamb, should of his own will offer himself as victim. Lot was fleeing from Sodom, doomed to perish; his wife, by the boldness of an incautious presumption, while she looked back at what she had escaped, was changed into a statue of salt and remained so, not as a mark of wisdom, but as punishment. For no one, who once has turned his back on the perils of the despised world and then turns again toward them with headlong desire, shall enjoy the joy of pleasant salvation. Nor indeed is that ploughman worthy to rejoice in the coming fruitfulness of the harvest who, by turning his face backward, confuses the straight course of the furrow he was forming with the plowshare, and disturbs the order of his former labor.

The bush, once wrapped in harmless fires, seemed to burn without burning; its wood neither supplied fuel to the flames nor, seized by the surrounding heat, was subject to the damage of a scorched trunk. So was the touch of that divine kindling tempered, that while the flame caressed the burning branches, splendor, not punishment, was seen in the leaves.

The gentle nature of the pliant rod was changed into a fierce and untractable serpent, which, with its viper-like motions, both in the sinuous coiling of its folds and in the exercise of its forked tongue,

its scaly neck swelling, swallowed with its mouth the hostile serpents,

and returned again into the shape proper to its stiffened rod.

The passable blue waters of the divided sea lay open,

rolled back into two walls on either side, and the stripped earth

was despoiled of its kindred waters, and the crowd on foot

entered into the sea of the now absent deep, and through the depths

the dry marble pavements marveled at the strange footprints upon them.

Nature changed its path, and the people, advancing

through the midst of the sea, bore already a rude baptism:

of which Christ was the guide; for Scripture cries, “The voice of the Lord

is upon many waters”; and indeed the voice is the Word,

the Word is Christ present, and, ruling the harmonious covenants of the twofold Law,

he laid open the ancient abyss,

so that the doctrine which followed might advance over level fields.

Why should I recount how innumerable throngs took heavenly bread,

angelic food, and were fed by the clouds of celestial

nectar, nourished by an airy sweetness upon the people,

having their feast in the rains, and their food in the showers?

Again the thirsty army, in the scorched fields,

where the ground had long been too dry, where the earth, denied of streams,—but let me apply, in the ways I have described, the doubled serpents of hostile deceit; and the rod resumed its own proper shape by a second transformation of its stiffened form.

Through the midst of the hidden depths of the sea, the waves rolled back on either side, and the watery structure suspended by divine power, the crowd on foot passed through; the sea stood on every side like a wall, and the earth, stripped of its covering waters, remained bare, until the people, walking through the sea in the sea’s absence, made their way with foreign footprints along a path of watery dryness. Nature changed her path, being bidden to relax her constancy for a little while, and the countless multitude, crossing the slippery fields of salt, unknowingly performed the rude mystery of baptism, as they passed through the wholesome straits of the waters, with Christ as their guide. Thus indeed the prophet sang, signifying this: “The voice of the Lord is upon many waters.” Who then doubts that the voice is called the Word? And who would deny that the Word is Christ? Who, as founder of the old and new Testament, laid open by his coming the vast abyss of the first Law, so that, by a newer teaching, with the deep and inward masses of the waters removed, the following age might walk securely, fearing no danger, along the path of level freedom.

Why should I recount the innumerable throngs of that same people, in the desolate expanses of the wilderness, condemned to want of all sustenance, who obtained angelic food and the bread of heavenly grace? When the nectarous cloud of ethereal majesty, raining upon the people, poured out feasts from the rains, and abundant food from the showers.

Again through the parched fields, burning with violent heat, the thirsty army fainted, where the earth, always denied its accustomed springs by the same fervor, lay languishing, where, hope of drinking and likewise of living failing them, the ailing land lay amid its waters, where hope of drinking

and of living was gone, when suddenly from the dry metal

they drank waters, and a stream ran from the barren rock,

and the parched marble poured forth a new drink.

Thus in these three things He gave sacred gifts:

Christ was the bread, Christ the rock, Christ in the waters.

The she-ass, terrified by angelic threats, spoke

to her rider in words, and with braying tongue

the beast of burden uttered human speech.

The sun stood still at Gibeon, and at the zenith of mid-heaven

it fixed the panting light, delaying the evening,

unaccustomed to check the day; nor did the moon run

sluggishly in its own course, until, with the armies ravaging,

the burning sword consumed the mighty enemy,

the heavens conspiring together: already then the stars,

made servants, foresaw the coming of Jesus, whose name had gone before them.

Once ravens served as ministers to Elijah,

offering food beyond custom, and the bird, given

to plunder, filling its greedy, hollow throat with its beak,

delivered the food untouched to the fasting man.

Now good to Elijah, he who before was faithless to Noah,

nature had withdrawn, when the torpor enclosed in the innards of the astonished rock overflowed suddenly into a foaming stream with billowing song, and the dry, parched veins of the marble poured forth manifold drink for all. By these three things, then, Christ, already announcing the great sacraments of his mystery, was in the sea, Christ in the bread, Christ in the rock.

A she-ass, a base and stupid beast, terrified at the sight of angelic power, addresses its rider with words, and the unformed clamor of a braying tongue is unfolded into the utterances of a human voice.

The sun, in the very summit of the sky, curbing the swift courses of its panting flame against Gabaon, through an unaccustomed delay of the day, held fast the light, the evening being postponed. Nor did the moon, moved by her own laws, quitting the threshold of her sluggish station, keep the order of her accustomed course, until the sword of the victor utterly cut off the hostile army by the conspiracy of heavenly aid. The very stars, at last, being obedient to that power, saw, through the sacrament of a similar name, that the Lord Jesus, his name going before, was to come.

Contrary to the ordinance of nature, ravens sustained Elias with daily banquets, and the bird, though subject by nature to the rapacity of its voracious beak, which readily supplies its hollow throat with easy prey, brought unharmed food to his fasting bites. Now the raven, once evil and faithless in the time of Noah, good and faithful to Elias, washes away on earth the fault it committed in the waters. It washes away on earth whatever it sinned in the flood.

But he, being full of God, after he had given many miracles to the earth, and it was fitting that a worthy heir to his own virtue should succeed to his merits, was borne up into the golden stars on fiery chariots, where the light wheel-track does not press out ethereal furrows; he penetrated the starry way, and, seeking the right-hand side in his gleaming chariot, led his triumph through a greater space, and did not touch the goal of human age.

How well does the shining path of the fiery sky suit Elias! Deservedly he who, shining also in name, was worthy of this honor: for if one letter of the Greek word be changed by accent, it becomes "sun" helios.

Pitying the last hours of the failing light, God once added fifteen years to the king, using his own right, and closing the opened gates of death, turned life back from its setting toward its rising.

Jonah, falling from the ship, swallowed by the devouring whale, did not feel the waters in the sea, having a living sepulcher, that he might not perish, and, safe in the beast's belly, was a deposit, not a prey, and through the vast sea he contracted by the flood. But he, being full of God, after he had shown many miracles to the earth, and worthy through the Spirit that his own virtue's gift should pass, as it were, by hereditary bounty, to a friend as his successor, was caught up by fiery horses and chariots through those departures of bright serenity, where the lighter path of the pure track preserves no furrows of the burning wheel sinking down upon the ethereal plain; he sought thus the right side of the greater space, so that, shining upon the axis of the heavenly triumph, relying on long-lasting vitality, he might scorn the goal of the human boundary. How fittingly, both by name and by merit, did the majesty of Elias's brightness, or of his shining name's path, smile upon him! For whom, if in the Greek tongue one letter could be changed by accent, he would seem specially to express "sun."

To Hezekiah, the most just king, set at the extreme boundary of life, the Lord in his mercy, or by right, added fifteen years unto salvation, and, closing the already opened gates of death, called back to its origin the life that was failing at its setting. Jonah, tossed by the anxious trembling of the ship amid the sea's waves, and hidden in the belly of the devouring whale, did not feel the waters, being placed in the deep—that is, having entered a living tomb, that he might not perish—and, safe under the most gentle custody within the devouring belly, seemed to be a deposit, not a prey, and, more safely preserved by hostile protection, came to land by vomiting, not by ship. In this event, by a contrary turn, the sailor showed savagery, while the beast provided passage.

He came to unknown lands with a hostile oarsman.

When, God inspiring them, three men with one mind refused the sacred rites of Babylon, and underwent the harsh destruction of the savage tyrant's law,

whose fury the Achaemenian rage had kindled hotter than his own furnace, they are thrust into the midst of the fires, the pyre daring nothing, and, burning with such great heat of heart, they conquer by the fire of the spirit the burnings of the image's punishment. O how great is the glory of believers! By the flame of burning faith the flame of the furnace was quenched.

But fitting vengeance soon struck the merciless king.

For because, bereft of sense, he had departed from human piety,

he became a companion of beasts among the wild grasses,

exchanging courtly banquets for grazed hay.

Bent down he drank from the river, and, passing through seven seasons,

shaggy, he wanders through all the woods and mountains.

Nor less did the commands of Darius the tyrant rage.

When, God breathing from heaven, the one intent of heart of the three youths utterly despised and refused the sacred rites of Babylon, and took upon themselves the harsh destruction of death by the atrocity of the tyrant's law—whose rage, kindled by the fire of Achaemenian fury, surpassed the raging heat of his own furnace—bound, they are handed over into the midst, the pyre not daring to touch the youths, who, burning only in heart, conquered the image of punishment that inflicted torment. O how great is the salvation of believers, when, glowing more with the glory of the flames of faith, the force of the furnace grew numb and was quenched!

The author, therefore, of so wicked a judgment did not escape a punishment worthy of his deeds. For he who, seized by senseless madness, had despised the laws of human piety, lived after the manner of beasts through the woods, and, pursuing the wild company of cattle, fed on hay instead of the delicacies of a courtly banquet, drank from the river.

Behold indeed, anger added crime to crime,

and Daniel, the glory of the Hebrews, innocent, is decreed

to be food for the fasting beasts;

but the beast, made gentle toward the just man,

lest it should harm his sacred limbs,

began to love hunger, its fury, softened,

laid down its rage, and anger grew quiet in its savage jaws,

and the fierce lions learned to guard their prey.

Say, where after such things are the laws of your nature?

Who so often took away your rights?

Who bade hell not know the translated man,

and made fruitful the barren old woman for her husband?

Who commanded the beast to come of its own will to the sacred altar,

who turned a woman's limbs

into a likeness of salt: made branches that had suffered fires

not burn: dissolved a rod into a serpent:

dried a path through the sea: rained wondrous manna

from the clouds, brought forth waters from the depths of a rock:

made a four-footed beast speak with plain speech:

delayed the swift hours by suspending the elements:

fed a man by means of birds and carried him

into heaven upon flashing horses: added three lustra

to a man already weighed down by death: in the mouth of a robber

established help amid shipwreck: in the burning furnace—

he changed him, whom under the appearance of this deformity they saw wandering shaggy through woods and mountains for seven seasons.

Nor less did Darius, the later ruler, while his fury imitated the past madness, shut up Daniel, the greatest glory of the Hebrews, together with beasts goaded by fasting, and his innocent body, of simple soul, was appointed to be more savagely devoured by their bites; yet the beast, made gentle and calm, lest it should tear the holy limbs with its mad tooth, being hungry, began instead to love the fast, and its terrible fury, softened, lowered its countenance, and its anger, growing gentler in its savage jaws, quieted, and the lions, forgetful of their native ferocity, then learned to guard their prey.

Say, where after such things are your laws, O stubborn nature, who so often took away your rights? Who bade the translated man not know the underworld, gave fruitful old age to a barren mother, compelled the beast to come of its own will to the altar, turned a woman's shape into a likeness of salt, showed that branches seething amid fires did not burn, dissolved a rod into a serpent, opened a pedestrian passage through the waves of the sea, poured forth nectar-sweet manna from raining clouds, drew forth waters from the dry innards of a rock, permitted the mouth of a dumb four-footed beast to speak human words, suspended the elements in long stasis with fixed courses, fed a man by the ministrations of birds, and preserved him in heaven upon the axle of a flashing chariot—

he preserved the pious under the dew: through pastures he fed a king, as though he were a shaggy beast, and bade the gaping jaws of lions, though goaded by hunger, know no rage?

Surely to the Creator (whose word is the fabric of all things, whether seen or hidden) every work of his own is subject, and follows the command of him who bids, whithersoever his will draws it by its nod.

Alas! Wretched men, who worship vain things, who with sinister heart

carve for themselves religious images, and flee

their own maker, and revere the things they have made.

What madness is this, what such great insanity mocks their minds?

That a full man, on bended knee, should adore

a flying creature, and a foul ox, and a twisted dragon,

and a half-man dog?

led, gave three lustra to a king already dying, gave a haven to a shipwrecked man in the belly of a fierce beast of prey, sprinkled with starry dew the limbs of the boys in the furnace, made a wandering king a companion at table with wild beasts and cattle amid thorny pastures, and taught lions to spare their prey and not to love rapine? Surely to the maker of all things, whose entire fabric, whether known or hidden, stands built by the workings of his word, the foundations of his own work lie subject, and the creature follows the command of him who bids it, in whatever direction the sentence of the divine nature has drawn it by its nod.

Alas! Wretched men, who, inclined to vain worship, expend the foolish office of a sinister heart upon images carved by themselves, and abandoning their own maker, venerate the effigies of their own hand—what madness is this, what such great insanity plays upon the mind, that a whole man in his limbs should adore a foul bird, a most obscene ox, a twisted dragon, and a half-man dog, and some, blinded in their clouded minds, worship the sun as the begetter of things—

But others, driven by blinded minds,

affirm the sun to be the father of all things, because it is duly seen

to pour clear light upon the serene earth,

and to illumine the whole heaven—though it is agreed that from these

motions this unstable fire, in its swift courses,

performs a function, and is not God; and which in a fixed order

now rises, now, sent down to the western shores,

shares its turns with night, nor is it ever everywhere,

nor was that abiding light present at the origin of the world,

when the new world had a double day without a sun.

So too they carry vows to the moon, which they see to wax

and to wane, and they offer sacrifice to the stars, which are put to flight by light.

This man worships water, that man his household hearth, but they do not dare

to join to their rites things hostile to each other, lest, by a nearby quarrel,

either the pyre stealthily dry up the scanty waters,

or the slender fires die by strong fountains.

Another sets up altars at the roots of trees,

and institutes feasts, and mournfully prays to the branches,

that they may govern his children, his dear home, his beloved fields,

the fidelity of marriage, his servants, and his wealth.

You ask of wood, made of wood; you seem to cry out to the deaf,

you seek answers from mute things, which govern the laws of homes

in this manner, if, cut down by axes, you approach

they wish that thing to be reckoned by this opinion, because, pouring over the tracts of the earth and its spaces the light of clear serenity, it does not cease to illumine with speed the regions of the sky and the flaming stars; whereas it is established that this wandering fire performs its function rather by its own unstable mobility than by swift courses, and that it is a servant rather than a lord. Indeed, keeping to a fixed order of dispensation, now it rises, now, inclined toward setting as the hours advance, it shares its turns with the night. Nor is it always fixed everywhere, and it saw no beginnings of the nascent world, except that, after a double day had passed without a sun, the provident creator had ordained it to shine from the beginning of the third light. Thus also very many pay superfluous vows to the moon, which they observe to wax and wane at fixed times of the months. Thus too they do not cease to sacrifice to the stars, which, driven off by the departure of night, are put to flight by the face of morning light. This man is a worshipper of waters, that one of flames. But they do not dare to make hostile to one another natures that are contrary to themselves, lest, by a closer discord, either a more burning fire dry up the weaker waters, or a pyre, unequal to great waves, be suddenly extinguished and die. Another, setting up altars at the roots of trees, laying out feasts, does not cease mournfully to pray to the branches and the oak-trunks, that they may guard his children, his home, his fields, his marriage, his servants, and his wealth. O wooden one, why do you beseech wood? You spend your effort crying out to the deaf, expecting to hear answers from the mute, who sustain the constancy of homes by this reasoning alone, if, cut off by axes,

they support the lofty summits of the hanging roof,

or, placed beneath hearths, serve for the cooking of food.

Some venerate the cabbage, and through soft gardens

water dry divinities, and by this art seem

truly to be the worshippers of transplanted gods.

It shames me to relate more, and in a holy song

long to condemn even the sin, lest I scorch the soft

lilies with brambles, nor let, through the violet-beds of the purple field,

the thistle and the sharp-thorned paliurus rise up.

Now we have laughed enough at these monstrous additions to human errors,

or rather have wept over such deeds.

Now it is pleasing to go on the journey begun, and through the lofty mountain

to strive to make firm our steps; let us hasten to the city,

the resource of freedom, where the royal hall gleams

radiant with golden domes, where worthy things are granted to him who asks,

sure hope remains for him who seeks, and, the bars removed,

they support the hanging roofs of the house, or, applied to hearths, serve, once kindled, for the taking of meals. Some, more foolishly still, become worshippers of vegetables, and, watering dry divinities in their gardens, teach themselves to be true worshippers of transplanted gods. But it shames me now to relate more of such things, lest, on the page of holy religion, while we chastise the many errors of folly, either the rough bramble scorch the lilies too soft in their excessive beauty, or, through the violet-beds of a flowering field, the purple thistle and the paliurus armed with thorny spikes rise up. Therefore it is now enough by way of rebuke, we who have derided the monstrosities worshipped by human errors, or rather have lamented such deeds with pity.

Now it is pleasing to proceed along the course of the path begun, and to climb the lofty mountain with firm step, and to arrive at the city, the author of our liberty, with the full effort of our strength. That city indeed is itself the tranquil house of peace, itself the safe dwelling of salvation, itself the perpetual service of liberty. For if, concerning the earthly city of a mortal dwelling, founded by a mortal builder, the poet of secular letters sang thus,

"And what was so great a reason for you to see Rome?"

"Liberty."

how much more shall we believe that in the city of the heavenly kingdoms, which God the Lord established as its builder, there are rights of perpetual liberty! Of which the prophet says spiritually—

The gates lie open to him who knocks with pervious heart.

This is that rejected stone, which the corner

bears at its summit, and which offers wonders to our eyes,

whose burden is light, whose yoke is sweet to bear.

Through the miracles of the old law, already set forth,

we have related, by the joined act of the Holy Spirit,

what the Father accomplished by the shared power of the Son.

Now also through the miracles of the new law we shall tell,

by the joined act of the Holy Spirit,

what the Son accomplished by the shared power of the Father,

so that the everlasting form of the Godhead, remaining ever one,

may triple what is simple, and make simple what is capable of being tripled.

Song of Songs, "The Lord building up Jerusalem," and no less in the following psalm he explained likewise: "Praise, Jerusalem, the Lord; praise thy God, O Sion, for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, he hath blessed thy children within thee, who hath placed peace as thy borders,". Let us hear also the very founder of all things in his Gospels, by whose most sacred discourse it is recorded that this city was named: "But I say to you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king." As if he were saying "mine," which he more openly declined to express, so that under the humility of the saying he might spread abroad the summit of his majesty. For thus, when he was teaching, he admonished, saying: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." This is the place where the royal hall gleams with golden domes, where he who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it is soon opened. This is that one, for he is the precious stone, which, rejected by the builders, shines set as the head of the corner. Whose burden is felt exceeding light, whose yoke is proved most sweet.

Therefore, through certain arranged miracles of the Old Testament, we have related what the Father accomplished together with the fellowship of the Son and the Holy Spirit set with him. Through certain arranged miracles of the New Testament likewise we shall relate what the Son accomplished together with the paternal fellowship and the Holy Spirit set with him, so that the one power of the Godhead, ever conspicuous in inseparable might, and like—

This is the true faith; this salvation unhappy Arius scorned to hold, who, striving through crooked byways to bend the straight path, fell headlong into a black pit, and, sunk, sought the depths of the foul abyss: as empty of sense as at the season of his just punishment, when his bowels were poured out, he remained empty likewise of belly.

Madman, who feigned, by the degrees of transient honors, the laws of the eternal Parent, which are not to be imitated!

For among men the law of the flesh holds that the one born is less than the begetter, since the father himself was formerly the son of a parent;

presently he who is now the son shall come to be a father;

thus through every line of descendants a new offspring goes forth, and grandsires are numbered among the grandsires of grandsires.

But the Lord, the Word, the Power, the Wisdom, Christ, and the whole common possession of the Father, light from light, alone from the alone, to whom nothing is less than to the Father, nor has he anything whereby he might increase, being begotten, not indeed created, he himself is the beginning:

for as he is held glorious abiding in the begetter, so the begetter also remains glorious in him, and God, one everywhere, is the head of all things.

Not because he who is the Father Most High, and this one is the Son, but because what the Father Most High is, this the Son also is.

manifold majesty may be threefold, and in threefold majesty may be simple. This is the true faith, and firm belief. This salvation unhappy Arius scorned to hold, who, while by devious windings of a crooked path he strove to turn aside from the straight way, having slipped into a foul pit, followed the shadowy darknesses of murky hell, as empty of sense and void as, at the time of his just punishment, he expired void of belly too, his bowels poured out. Mad man, who thought that the rights of the paternal divinity, to be equalled by the example of no likeness, could be reckoned by perishable degrees! For among men born by carnal law the son is less than the father, since the father himself, who now precedes the son, was a little before a son, and he who is a son is now beheld, though it is not doubtful that he can become a father. Thus through the whole line of descendants new offspring runs on, and the ancestors of grandsires are numbered by vast old age. The Lord, who is the Word, the Power, the Wisdom, and the whole common possession of the Father, is Christ, light sprung from light, alone born of the alone, who is neither in any way less than the Father, nor is there anything above which he might grow, since he, being begotten, not created, has for a name, in place of supremacy, Beginning: for thus, according to John, when the Jews inquired, he said of himself that he was the beginning. What then is the beginning, but the lofty summit, above which nothing at all is found, ever abiding in the Father, in whom the Father also ever abides, and, being the head of all things, is one God of undivided majesty—not because the Son is here believed to be him who is the Father, but because the Son is believed to be that which the Father is, just as he himself spoke through the gospel teaching. Thus he himself says, teaching: I am in the Father, and the Father

is in me.

Again: I and the Father are one.

Let Arius know that ONE

must be confessed, and let Sabellius know We are.

The one does not embrace the threefold faith, the other not the one.

Both equal in error, though following different paths;

just as those accustomed to produce various sects,

attack one another's sayings—men who display

bared arms from naked shoulders, learned to hand down nothing,

but only skilled at contending, whose wisdom

lies foolish, because the wisdom of the world is vain before God.

This one talks too much, that one is silent; this one walks, this one

stands;

one loves weeping, another to wrinkle up with laughter,

and in different ways alike is the madness of all.

Meanwhile as we duly lighten the way with talk,

and hope and faith accompany my steps toward the heights,

saying: I am in the Father, and the Father in me. Then he consistently added: I and the Father are one. Let Arius hear the word "one" spoken; let Sabellius recognize the word "We are" spoken: the one fleeing from the Trinity, the other dissenting from the unity: both equal in error, though holding different opinions. Just as the authors of the nations' doctrines try in turn to oppose one another's sayings, men who, displaying bared arms from naked shoulders, are prepared not to hand down teaching but only to contend in long disputation. Whose wisdom lies untended, because the frail discipline of worldly wisdom is vain before the Lord. This one talks more, that one is more silent. This one disputes while walking, that one pronounces while standing. One is ever in tears, another never ceases to laugh. In different ways, therefore, an equal madness seems to appear in all.

Meanwhile, as we lighten with talk the burden of the traveler's toil, and hope together with faith into the steep

More gently at last we arrive at the topmost citadel.

Behold, the standards consecrated with the sign of the cross gleam:

behold the loyal camp of the king flashes, the master's trumpet calls,

to the soldiers its gate stands open; let him who serves enter:

the eternal gate calls you, which gate is Christ.

You shall receive the golden rewards of everlasting life,

by which the arms of the Lord are borne with full might,

and glory is fixed upon the brow. Glory and arms I bear,

and of your soldiery, good King, I remain the least part.

Grant me here my own dwelling, within the walls of this city

a small house, that I may deserve, as your inhabitant, to dwell

in the holy places, and be enrolled as the last citizen

in the white roll of the blessed order forever.

Great things indeed I ask: but you know how to give great things.

He offends you more who grows lukewarm in hoping.

Christ, favor my prayers, who, wishing to bring to life the world

lying in death, once from heaven sought earthly things,

deigning to take on human form,

accompany my walking, more gently to the summit of the highest citadel, the difficulty laid aside, we arrive. Behold, the standards of the sacred cross now gleam, behold the most loyal camp of the great king shows a glittering light, and with a heavenly blast the trumpet of the Lord's station cries out. To the soldiers access to its gate stands open; let him who serves enter fearlessly. The gate of eternity invites you, which gate is Christ, namely the paternal voice. You shall rejoice in the golden reward of everlasting life, because you handle valiantly the heavenly arms of the Lord, and with glory fixed on your brow you display the sacraments of the faithful sign. Behold, I bear your glory and heavenly arms, the least part of your soldiery, good king, consecrated. Grant that I receive my own seat here, worthy of a small dwelling within the walls of this city. Always your inhabitant, and your servant, established in a small corner of the holy dwelling, among the citizens of the blessed order, may I deserve to be enrolled last, a townsman in the white roll of the page of life. Great things indeed I ask, but your greatness supplies you to give great things, whom he offends more who has conceived doubtful hope concerning so great a mercy.

Christ, grant my prayers, who, hastening to give life to the dying world, sought earthly things from heaven, deigning to take on human likeness. Matthew, taking this up first, dealt fully with man in general terms. Mark,

bearing thus what was alien, so that you could not leave behind what was your own.

This Matthew doing, fulfills man in general.

Mark, as the lofty voice of a lion roars through the wastes,

Luke holds the rights of the priesthood in the mouth of a calf.

Flying in the manner of an eagle, John seeks the stars with his word.

These four princes, singing you with one voice,

are scattered abroad into the wide world, like so many seasons.

So too the twelve-fold summit of apostolic honor

always shines forth in number, imitating the months and the hours,

that in all things the whole year may serve you as a soldier.

Hence therefore, recalling the beginnings of the old death,

I shall hasten to new life, and by sowing tears

I shall reap long joys: for we who weep in Adam,

sending forth seeds, shall soon all rejoice,

bearing our sheaves, when Christ comes.

like a wondrous lion, roared crying out through the wastes. Luke took up his likeness from the calf at the priestly beginning of religion. John, with the swoop of the flying eagle, pierced heaven with the majesty of the Word. These four princes, and heralds singing you with one voice, are scattered, like so many seasons, throughout the widest expanse of the whole world. So too the twelve-fold summit of apostolic honor, ever shining, imitates in its numbers the hours and the months, so that, all things being gathered together, the whole year may serve you as a soldier.

Therefore, recalling from this point the ancient beginnings of the old death, I delight to hasten toward new life, that we who sowed weeping in Adam may reap gladness in Christ, and may deserve to say the song of David: They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.

The most savage serpent had driven the first-born man from the flower-bearing seat, and with the enticements of a sweet-tasting savor had made the wretched man drink bitter death. Nor had the presumptuous transgressor alone felt the deserved wrath, lying under the law of death, but at once from him the whole human race together. Alas! Guilty wife,—are you the more guilty wife, or that faithless dragon? That faithless dragon, but you too a guilty wife. Alas the grief! There had been two who were eternal. After the origin began to grow, it perished, and took ruin from its own seed. What did it profit in that time to see with numerous days, to behold happily nine hundred years and more, and to look upon the tenth generation of the grandsons of old men, and now not to know one's own kin, when, overcome by the last courses, the irreparable lot of the final hour—though late—was yet to come, and, throughout a long age, a short life grieved that nothing was long, since it had an end? Nor did hope bring back any returning aid, and the tomb of the first earth-born man would swallow his descendants with blind maw.

That most wicked serpent had driven the first man by deceitful arts from the flower-bearing seat of paradise, and had caused the hidden death to be tasted soon as bitter, under the enticements of a sweet savor. Nor had the transgressor of the precept alone incurred the sentence of divine indignation by the loss of his own life, but the human offspring coming from him, far and wide, had fallen subject to the condition of death. Alas! Cruel and guilty wife! Or was that treacherous dragon rather the murderer? But you too, wife, were cruel and guilty. Alas the grief! Only two had been eternal. After the origin began to grow, then it perished, and, bringing forth ruin, took losses from its own seed. What did it profit in that age to have numerous and manifold days? What did it profit, amid the happy spans of life, to exceed nine hundred years, and, with the tenth generation of grandsons growing old, to see already foreign blood of one's own kind, when the lot of the human condition, the irreparable last hour, occupied by its final courses—though delayed—would nonetheless not turn aside from ruin, and life, existing as brief throughout the long extent of ages, was nothing lasting—the earth-born, with blind maw, was devouring its grandsons—

unless that kindly Sower, ready to forgive faults, slow to render punishment, lest his own creation should perish, and that image which, living, stood before God in his likeness, should become unlike him in death, in merciful pity should renew his gracious work, and should forbid the bitter fruits which the fathers chewed to make the teeth of their children shudder, and, ever appeased, should grant to his own that whence sin had given death, thence piety should give salvation.

And just as a soft rose rises from sharp thorns, having nothing that harms, and outshines its mother in honor: so, from the stock of Eve, sacred Mary coming, the new virgin should atone for the crime of the ancient virgin: so that, since the former nature lay corrupted under the dominion of death, at Christ's birth man might be reborn, and lay aside the stain of the old flesh.

After the aged prophets had spoken these things as to come, the angel sang them in haste to the untouched Mary, and faith accompanied the word, and the womb of the maiden

Which would be closed with an end, should groan? Nor would any hope promise that a remedy would come for this evil. But the tomb-deserving of the first earth-born would, with greedy maw everywhere, devour also all the nations of the last offspring, unless that kindly Creator and Founder of all things, whose own property it is to pour out pardon upon sins rather than let punishment hang over them, should deign, through that same Stone, to raise up again more firmly the fabric of his own work, weak from its very foundation. That the image, namely, which had been made living in the likeness of God, should not be held unlike him through death, and the gift of merciful pardon might be bestowed, and might keep away the fruits which the fathers ate bitterly, at which the teeth of the sons were set on edge, and, most gentle and appeased, might grant that whence sins had contracted death, thence piety might nourish immense life. And just as a sweet and most tender rose is born from a thorny bush, doing no harm to its mother, whom the grace of its charm outshines: so from the stock of guilty Eve, Mary coming with sacred light, a virgin following, should wash away the stain of the first virgin, so that what nature had first been defiled with vices and made subject to the condition of hard death, at Christ's birth through man, man too might be reborn through Christ, about to lay aside the foulness of the original stain by the renewal of the body's old age.

After the prophetic voice had foretold these things often, and the angel Gabriel had announced them to Mary now present, soon in the believing maiden's womb there remained the breathed conception of the faithful word, and the starry offspring, soon to be born under the starry burden, and the Creator of things

was under the law of birth; the unwed virgin marvels at her stretched womb, and rejoices that she is to bear her own Father. And now, nine months having slipped by, from the threshold of the tenth month the sacred day was shining, when, with the Virgin having given birth, the Word made flesh fulfilled the promised work, willing to dwell in us; then the greatest Infant, keeping the inviolate inward parts of his temple unharmed, emptied an unhurt path; the birth stands witness in favor of the virgin, entering closed doors and leaving them closed.

What was that brightness, when Christ came forth from Mary's womb with new splendor?

Like a bridegroom himself, exulting in his fair bridal chamber, lovely in beauty beyond the sons of men, in whose radiant form a sweeter grace was spread upon his fair lips.

O easy-going piety!

Lest the yoke of slavery, with sin ruling, should hold us fast, the Highest Lord took on servile limbs, and he who clothes all things being born from the beginning of the world with his own gifts, was himself wrapped in scanty coverings of humble rags:

and him whom the moving wave of the stormy deep,

not all the soil of the lands,

nor the spacious court of broad heaven could contain.

Soothed with its law, which grants all things to be born at its nod. The Virgin's womb swelled, and the untouched body marveled at the fruitfulness of its own inward parts. The mystery of a woman's childbearing without a man promised great help to the world, she who, unstained by any spot, was nourished with a distended belly, soon to be the mother of her own begetter.

Meanwhile the ninth month had flowed away, and the immortal light of the tenth was shining; there shone forth in the virgin birth the manifest promise of spiritual grace, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt in us, that is, dwelt in man, in whose flesh he deigned to be clothed. The infant small and yet greatest—small, that is, in limbs, exalted in Godhead—flowing forth through the pure chastity of the hospitable temple, did not harm the body in departing, he who had not harmed it in coming. Truly this is the secret of divine generation; the virgin birth is shown as witness, he who, guardian of maternal modesty, entering the closed inward parts, was both conceived and created. What brightness of new light then filled the borders of the whole world! What joy for heaven! What was that brilliance that shone forth, when Christ, with starry splendor, coming forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, came forth from Mary's womb! Whose divine beauty seemed so to excel, that the Davidic psalm itself thus proclaims of him: "Fair in form beyond the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips,". Well did it define him as fair beyond the sons of men, because, although he took on the likeness of human incarnation, and often called himself in the gospel preaching the Son of man, original sin had nevertheless not defiled him, which he did not have, he who cleansed it by the purity of his own birth. O clement and easy-going piety, ready for salvation! Lest the yoke of long-lasting servitude should press upon us because of the condition of sin, the Lord took on the limbs of a servant. Let us hear the voice of the Apostle Paul saying: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"—

heaven's court does not contain him; full in an infant's body he remained, and God rested quiet in a narrow manger.

Hail, holy Mother, blessed in childbirth, who bore a King who holds heaven and earth throughout the ages, whose divine power, embracing all things in its eternal circuit, remains a dominion without end; who, having in your blessed womb a mother's joys along with the honor of virginity, were not seen to have your like before, nor to have one after—alone, without example, you pleased Christ as a woman.

Then he, at first created and unknown to the shepherds, shone forth, because he was the Shepherd, and gleamed as the Lamb before the flocks, and the angelic host sang the miracles.

he took upon him, and he who clothes all things from the beginning of the world suffered his own newborn limbs to be wrapped in swaddling clothes. And he for whom heaven is a narrow bound, for whom earth fails, for whom the sea's wave does not suffice, remained full in an infant body, God reclining in a small manger. Hail, best of parents, consecrated by the childbearing of so great a king, who so continually rules over things above and below that his rule, power, and name has known neither beginning nor end, you who by the conspicuous honor of your blessed womb are proven to be at once mother and virgin. To whom absolutely no woman is found equal, who has likewise gone before your glory, or who follows it; pleasing to Christ alone in singular fashion, you are compared to no example.

Then, by the eloquence of angelic speech, the first shepherds, keeping watch over their flock in the night watches, recognized that the Lord was born, so that the shepherd of the world might shine forth even to shepherds, and the Lamb, once born, might appear among the flocks. Therefore, as the evangelical word testifies, thus proclaiming: And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. The faithful assertion of the Evangelist shows of whose kingdom this was being spoken, when the multitude of the heavenly host praises God in Christ, so that, although the creation was human by reason of the mother's condition, yet the one communion of deity shows the Father to be recognized in the Son. They said, therefore: Glory to God in the highest.

Assuredly the glory of God remained in the highest, whence Christ, in coming, did not depart.

And on earth peace to men of good will.

It is to be believed that "earth" here names men, from which we were formed, the Lord fashioning us, who, rebuking Adam, said:

Because you are earth, into earth you shall go.

Then did our earth deserve peace, after that deadly war by which it fell, when Christ took upon himself the earth of our flesh.

For if we should reckon "earth" in this place to mean fields and mountains, what peace, or what battles, can a changed and sluggish mass have?

Into men, therefore, that peace descended specially, whom it found capable of good will, so that wherever the searcher of hearts and things perceived the zeal of a sincere purpose to be, there he might delight to establish the dwelling of his abode.

For peace is this:

and it is the reasoning of the better judgment, not to favor the struggle against the spirit of the flesh, but, while each remains, to keep them continually in concordant purity under the dominion of the spirit.

Nor ought we to distrust so much on account of the weakness of the flesh that we seem to despair of heavenly aid.

For the almighty Lord Jesus Christ, who is proven to be the mediator of God and man, so that he might offer us an excuse for bodily frailty, seeking only the zeal of our will, reserved the perfection of the good work to his own majesty.

For apostolic teaching thus explains, saying:

To will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find.

Such signs are being wrought in the region of Bethlehem, when the Magi came from the East, and disturb the savage tyrant with anxious and weighty reports:

that, newly, from the axis of the Orient, a leader had shone forth for the Jewish peoples—this the stars declare from heaven, this a new star radiates.

The fierce ruler of the Hebrew court seethes, thinking that this one might soon succeed to himself, who had been first:

then, with serene brow but clouded mind, he secretly commands that he be sought everywhere, as one to be adored, whom he plots to destroy by treachery.

Why do you rage, Herod?

In word you confess Christ,

namely because it is ours to will the good, but God's to perfect it, who infuses His peace into men of good will. The divine discourse then proceeds, saying:

When therefore Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he who is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him. And when King Herod had heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ should be born. And they said to him: In Bethlehem of Judah. For so it is written by the prophet: And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a ruler that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, privately calling the wise men, learned of them diligently the time of the star that appeared to them. And sending them to Bethlehem, he said: Go, and diligently inquire concerning the child. And when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him. Fittingly agreeing with the sanction of the Scriptures, the nativity of Christ shone forth from the East, who fulfills what the prayer of Zachary designates: The Orient from on high hath visited us. For the Davidic psalm also contains a similar word: In the sun hath he set his tabernacle. Now by "sun" is signified the East, from which region the day always rises. What then, Herod, more keenly do you rage? Why do you madly rave? For with your tongue you profess Christ, in your heart you persecute him, and you conceal your foul mind, condemned by the darkness of a cloudy gloom, under the serenity of a pleasant countenance. For you order Christ to be sought, not to be adored with the religion you feign, but to be slain by the frauds you contrive. You err greatly, and are deceived. Believing that he succeeds you who reigns first upon the royal throne—he who neither succeeds at all nor departs, but eternally possesses the throne of his majesty—you make and yet disregard the law, you who threaten your kingdom against the King of kings. This fault lacks excuse in words, this perfidy lacks any defense: for you strive to extinguish him whom you had promised to adore. Perhaps you would offend less if you sought nothing concerning Christ, so that, merely as a murderer persecuting an unknown man, you would not also appear a sacrilegious offender against God. Had you not read him thus admonishing in the Davidic song: Touch not my Christs, and do my prophets no harm? Why then is it necessary to obey the divine precept, that neither his Christs nor his prophets should suffer any malicious wrong? Because, evidently, it is a grave crime that those consecrated with spiritual unction should be treated with contumely. What name shall this crime bear, that you should scheme with your tricks to slay the very Lord Christ, from whom Christians are named, and the very prophet from whom true prophecy descends?

Behold, David——and you desire to slay him in mind, and reading the law

you disregard it, and threaten your kingdom against the King of kings.

Yet lest your name lack a mad deed to match,

what you are contriving, another Herod shall accomplish—under the honor of the cross, but with the crime of a Gentile nation.

Therefore the wise men, eagerly keeping their eyes fixed

upon the highest heaven, and following the gleaming royal star,—should have followed you, serving the commands of the Lord, who, when Saul had entered the cave where he lay hidden, and was thus compelled to destroy him, answered thus: Far be it from me altogether, may this not happen to me from the Lord, that I should do this thing to my lord, the christ of my Lord, that I should lay my hand upon him, for he is the christ of the Lord. And he indeed spared his enemy, who wished to slay him. But you lay snares for the Lord, who was born for the salvation of the world. And if you were touched by none of the ancient examples, as one forgetful of them, at least on this account you ought to have laid down your parricidal endeavor, lest you cast down the power of the scepter you bore, you who are known as anointed, yet persecute the author of anointing. Yet lest the bloody perfidy of your name depart short of the fullness of so great a crime, under the honor of the heavenly cross, but with the crime of your own Jewish nation below, what you now vainly rage to accomplish, another Herod shall afterward see done.

The Gospel passage then continues thus: Who when they had heard the king, departed. And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was: and seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy; and entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down, they adored him; and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What is the meaning of this, that the star which they had seen went before them, except that, gazing upon the guidance of a small star, they might find the substance of the full light? And they adored, because they had truly come to adore—which Herod, lying, did not deserve to obtain the power to do. For unless one comes as a true worshiper, it is not granted to adore the Lord; just as our Lord himself spoke to the Samaritan woman, saying: You adore what you know not; we adore what we know, because salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeks such to adore him. Although therefore the words of the Lord's teaching are plain and clear, that none but truth adores the Lord, we ought nevertheless to examine more diligently the force of the saying: The hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. I think, therefore, according to the sense which God grants to my smallness, that by the signification of the present time, in which he showed himself openly to the world, he said that the Father is adored in himself. For thus he made it plain in the following words, saying: All judgment he hath given to the Son, that all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father. Magnificently indeed, after he said "in spirit," he added "and in truth," since truth follows those who bear the Spirit of God, but deceit accompanies the alien. A mystery is also declared in this person of the wise men. For through them our Lord Jesus Christ showed the grace of the future law entering to himself the Gentiles and strangers, because he has now prepared entrance for all the Gentiles coming to him. For thus he is known to have spoken both through his prophets and through himself. Through the prophets indeed, though he had often foretold this, yet he explained it thus by the Davidic testimony:

The Lord said to those who held to the desired way, which the future law

led the adoring nations to the sacred cradle:

and treasures likewise unloosed for religion,

that they themselves might display the very kinds of Christ,

they poured out golden gifts for the newborn king,

gave frankincense to God, offered myrrh for the tomb.

Why three gifts, though? Because hope of life is greatest:

this number confessed by faith; and He who, seeing all present, past,

and future times, the highest God, is always present, and always was,

and always will remain, in the threefold power of Himself. Then, warned by heaven

in a dream to despise the tyrant's commands,

they, changing their route through hidden paths, returned to their own country.

So we too, if we desire at last to reach the holy fatherland, after—

Me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee; ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance. He called it an inheritance, because through the grace of the new Testament it was being prepared to be acquired for the Lord. Through himself in the Gospel, as the good shepherd, he thus promised: And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; and them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Nor should we believe that the devotion of the gifts was without divine intent. For through those kinds offered, rightly of varied signification, the power of Christ was manifestly declared. For gold, if we inquire more diligently what its attribution declares, without doubt such splendid material, and gleaming with the wealth of metallic splendor, is recorded as offered to a king. But in this king we confess there is a twofold substance. For Christ both reigns specially in the heavens, and was born carnally as king to the Jews. The gift of frankincense, because it was formerly used for religious offering, is given to Christ as to God. Myrrh, however, which is fitting for the burial of bodies, is given by the law of burial to him who was to die in human flesh. That threefold offering also, by its very number, proclaimed the worship of catholic doctrine. For indeed God almighty, who beholds things past and future, and always remains, has remained continually, and will remain, in the threefold power of one deity, laid the foundation of all things throughout the course of those times, although all present things always stand before his eyes, he who takes on neither the decline of old age nor the increase of youth. But what always is, does not cease to be the same. For when Moses sought anxiously to know his lofty name of power, that he might announce it to the people of Israel, he uttered this from the flame of the burning bush: I am who am. And he said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, He who is hath sent me to you. In the Gospel likewise, to the Jews who set Abraham before him by antiquity, he says thus: Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM. See the distance between the two substances, distinguishing God and man: of Abraham he said "before he was made"; of himself he did not say "I was," but "I am," since it belongs to divinity to be, not to have been—which way always subsisting in eternity, neither arises from beginnings nor is resolved by endings. For time is from God, not God from time. The text of the reading thus continues: And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their own country. We ought therefore also to imitate the faithful deeds of the wise men, and, as they believed a dream, let us now believe with the most evident sight, so that we, who have deserved to find and adore Christ shining forth under the sign of the Cross, and to offer him gifts of threefold praise from the treasures of our heart, may no longer return to the prince of this world, who had before deceived us, the deceiver. But leaving the former path, let us proceed by the secret ways of him who by confession directs our steps to the heavenly fatherland. Thereafter, in order, such events are related:

Then Herod, seeing that he was mocked by the wise men—

We have come to Christ; let us no longer seek out the wicked one.

So when he found himself deceived, the impious king

opens his wrath, if that king can rightly be called a king

who lacks piety, who does not rule his own wrath;

and mourning the deed snatched from him, like a lion gnashing,

from whose mouth a tender lamb suddenly slips away,

he moves arms against the whole flock, and bites and drags

the soft cattle, and the trembling mothers call their offspring

in vain, and fill the empty air with bleating.

Not otherwise Herod, goaded by the loss of Christ,

does not cease, fierce, to lay low the crushed

throngs of little ones in undeserved slaughter. For what crime does the innocent

crowd perish? Why have those who scarcely could be created

already deserved to die? It is madness in the bloody king,

not reason; and slaying the first cries, and daring

to perpetrate boundless wickedness, he slaughters infant

he was greatly enraged, and sending, he killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem, and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the Magi. Therefore, mocked by the Magi whom he had believed he would mock, the impious king made public the anger he had hitherto concealed with headlong wrath. If it be fitting to call him a king, who neither kept piety nor restrained his own passions in ruling. But like a most savage and bloody lion, from whom, if perchance a tender lamb could be snatched away, wreaks its beastly assault upon the whole little flock of blood, and gnaws, tears, rends, and destroys the softest cattle; the wretched mother-ewes stand at a distance, calling in vain for their already lost offspring, and with repeated bleatings stir the empty air. So Herod, goaded by the loss of Christ, did not cease to crush the throngs of little ones with bloody tyranny. By what crime, I ask, does that innocent crowd succumb to death? Why are those who are scarcely just born already deemed worthy of punishment? It is madness in the bloody king, not reason, who, an enemy to the very first wailings, and setting about to commit an innumerable crime, slaughtered thousands of childish age, and in one single mourning bereaved so many mothers at once. This wretched multitude let down their disheveled hair over their faces, and gave one common lamentation to so many mothers.

This one tore her torn locks, her head bared,

That one gashed her cheeks, another struck her bared

breast with blows, and the unhappy mother (no longer now a mother)

bereft, presses in vain her breasts upon her chilled child.

What feeling then was yours, O butcher, as you beheld such things?

What roars did you utter, when you saw far and wide

the wounds seething, looking down from the high citadel, and beheld

the vast sea mingled before your eyes with such great lamentations?

And yet, though absent from the slaughtered infants,

Christ was present, who always

takes upon Himself holy perils, and feels punishments in another's body.

But when He had reached twelve years of age,

drawing this span from the flesh, and having borne, according to His human part,

the course of that age, He seemed to the elders

older in heart, and among the teachers of the law

sat as by right a master among masters, though only lately come of age.

tearing, wounded her bared head with the foulness of her torn hair. That one furrowed her cheeks, wet with tearful showers, with the violence of her nails. Another, an unhappy mother, beat her bloodied breast with harsh blows, no longer now a mother, and collapsing over the chilled corpse of her only son now dead, poured forth, from the torn veins of her breasts, an abundance of milk mingled with blood. No one can unfold the images of that calamity, so varied and so manifold as they were. Where there were diverse kinds of lamentation, the grief present was not diverse. What feeling was yours, or what was the intent of your mind, no longer tyrant, but butcher? What roars did you belch forth, inflamed, when, looking down from the high citadel upon the wounds of the innocent little ones, you beheld a vast sea of tears gathered in flood? Yet among the slain infants, who certainly died but did not perish, though Christ washed them not, He could not be absent, who, ever involved in the perils of His saints, feels in Himself, by pious impulse, the punishments inflicted upon others' bodies for His sake.

When now, advancing in age, He bore twelve years, the number whose quantity He had drawn from the flesh, that is, running through temporal life according to human reckoning, He showed Himself older in wisdom than the elders, a master in doctrine to the masters, so that, as the manifest interpreter of His own law, He might demonstrate how great He was within.

Nor after long delay of time (for what delay

can there be in times, which, flying by in swift course,

have not yet come, and already withdraw, as the evangelist

signifies?) Having attained a greater youth,

bearing as it were six lustra, He came to the placid wave of Jordan

to receive that which He Himself had come to give.

When John the mighty Baptist saw Him from the river,

whom, while yet hidden in his mother's womb, and not yet born,

he had perceived, the prophet then already, though his speech was still blocked,

flowing as it were from a mute father, to whom the gifts of tongue,

after the long silent breathings of the ninth month,

were restored once the child was born, soon he proclaims: Behold the Lamb

of God, who comes to take away the sin of the world.

When he says "take away," what He does not have, this He takes from me:

not that He Himself might bear evils, but that He Himself might destroy them.

Just as when brilliant light is poured into the midst of darkness,

and, unclouded by its own serenity,

can there be delay in times which, fleeting in swift course, have not yet come and already recede, as the evangelist signifies?) Jesus Himself was about thirty years old, as He was supposed to be the son of Joseph; both words (namely "about" and "was supposed") very excellently preserve His divinity. For just as He seemed to be about thirty years old, though He is eternal, so He was supposed to be Joseph's son, though He was begotten of a virgin. Then He approached the streams of Jordan to be baptized, seeking to give what He had come to bestow, He who was coming to wash, Himself to be washed. John the Baptist, beholding Him, whom he had perceived in his mother's womb while yet hidden, already conscious of the Christ who was to come, exercising the office of prophecy, though he could not yet speak, descending as it were from the temporal silence of a mute father, began to proclaim and to say: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. When he says "takes away," he shows that He who takes away what indeed He took upon Himself, does not have it—not that He Himself should bear it, but that He Himself should destroy it. Just as we see the darkness of nocturnal blindness suddenly flooded with the sudden radiance of the risen day, and yet the light, by the very touch of the gloom it shakes off, loses nothing of the grace of its splendor, so the Lord Jesus Christ, taking upon Himself the sins of the human race, did not retain them, but put them to flight. For as fire clarifies metals by consuming their dross,

shaking off the banished shadows with unmarred countenance,

so the Saviour, by bearing our sins, put them to flight,

wiped them away, and bade them vanish far off at His touch.

Then, entering the simple waters of the flowing streams,

He washed in Himself all the contagion of our life,

Himself having nothing which He might lose, and with His holy

body He cleansed the flowing waters, and blessed the streams

of the flood, and consecrated the rivers with His own limbs.

The elements perceived God: the sea fled, and Jordan itself

turned back the course of its receding waves.

For the prophet, singing, says: What ails you, sea, that you flee,

and you, Jordan, that you draw back your stream?

clarifies them, so the good Craftsman cleansed us from original contagion by His flame. Then, immaculate, entering the waters, He washed in Himself our filth, having nothing of His own to wash away. Purifying, finally, the very waters themselves by the majesty of His holy body, He blessed the flood's stream, which attained the honor of the Lord's baptism. The waters perceived the awesome presence of the Godhead. The sea withdrew from the shore, the river flowed back to its source. Of which the prophet, singing, marks this: The sea saw, and fled; Jordan was turned back. What ailed you, sea, that you fled, and you, Jordan, that you were turned back? The text of the Gospel reading, therefore, proceeds thus: And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming upon Him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Let us consider more attentively how great a mystery is revealed also in this place. For after the Lord, baptized, ascended from the water, immediately the heavens were opened. How were they immediately opened to Christ, for whom, since His house is above the stars, heaven never seems closed? But I think, insofar as His loving-kindness deigns to inspire my understanding, that the heavens were then opened, when the Lord ascended baptized from the water, in order that He might teach by His own merciful example that for man, whose likeness He had taken, the kingdoms of heaven are then thrown open, when he has merited to be bathed by the consecration of spiritual water. And that the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove, rested upon Him,

So then, when, after the mystic gifts of the flowing bath,

the Lord, coming forth, trod the dry sands,

straightway the heavens lay open, and the holy Spirit,

in the form of a dove, clothed Christ with honor,

and teaches that He is gentle, and goes forth exceedingly meek,

through the bird which lacks gall; and, the Son being called

by the Father's voice, God is proved by threefold reckoning,

that there is Father, and Son, and there is the Holy Spirit,

whereby remains unworthy he who does not count them one.

Thence, for forty nights and days now,

fasting from food, yet full of the sacred breath

descended, is shown how great is his goodness, gentleness, simplicity, through the bird that has no bitterness of gall. And lest God should go unrecognized when seen in bodily form, it is affirmed by the voice of the Father saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This illustrious expression of love contains the full strength of catholic doctrine, and proclaims the power of the Father and the Son to be one. For the charity which resides in God does not depart from the spirit of likeness and equality. For he who said, by the law of his own commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, taught that there ought to be no distance between the one who loves and the one who is loved. For in the following word also, which he added, in whom I am well pleased, is understood the explanation of the common power of one deity.

For it is more to have said "I am well pleased" (complacui) than "I am pleased" (placui), because complacui is a word of agreement, and is seen to belong to two persons joined together. For this reason the heavenly voice expressed it thus, that both the Father might be seen well pleased in the Son, and the Son well pleased in the Father. For with the very fellowship gathered together, of the paternal voice as much as of the Son's baptism, or of the Spirit flying down upon him, the Trinity shone forth from one God, of which he who has numbered the Trinity does not deserve to be worthy. Then Jesus was led into the desert by the spirit, that he might be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry. And the tempter, coming to him, said: If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. He was therefore tempted by the devil, the perpetual enemy of faith.

For no one questions a thing manifest to himself, except one who, full of deceitful cunning, does not believe a truth once ascertained—as the devil himself, who, after he recognized Jesus to be the Son of God by the brightness of the Father's word, was terrified at his singular power in eating nothing for forty days and forty nights. Although Moses likewise, and Elijah, endured a fast of the same number of days and nights. But he knew that they had done this sustained by another's help, though by their own merit; whereas he perceived that Jesus was working by his own power. He seized at once upon the vainest hope of a foolish temptation, because the Lord was hungry. Nor did he dare to assail the divinity, unless mixed with vi-

The tempter approaches with snares, and, skilled in the art

of offering deceitful feasts, says: If thou art seen

to be the Son of God, command that this stone suddenly

be turned into the substance of bread. As though he who

gives life to the stony bowels of the earth and makes them fruitful

with grain-bearing ears did not always work

these same miracles, and create bread from a rock. Repulsed then by this

word first, that man does not live by bread alone,

but by every word of God, the shattered and mad one,

renewing another assault with viperous poisons,

seeks the mountain heights with the Lord, and shows him through the world

all the wealth of kingdoms: All these things, he says,

you shall receive from my gift, if, prostrate, you worship me.

As perverse as he was, so perverse were his words.

That he should seek the honors of a fragile kingdom—

he who prepares eternal ones for the peoples—and that he,

bowed down, should worship a wicked monster, whose throne is above the heavens,

whose footstool is the earth, whom no one beholds, and whom

every power praises on high with lowered voice.

Christ to this: Scripture has commanded only the Lord and God

to be worshipped, and only to him to be served.

should deceive the man. Soon, contriving the old snares of food, the wicked one stirred up his accustomed deceitful tricks. And pointing to the stones rather than his own feast, the serpent said: If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread—as if he who, continually carrying out such a work, could not do this, who produces from the stony bowels of the earth a crop teeming with humble food, and who, with the packed density of the ears of grain, bestows from the fecundity of stones the rich nourishment of bread as the crag grows into nourishment. But his singular wisdom preferred to despise the glory of a marvelous deed, lest he admit the request of the tempter. For God receives believers, and shuts out those who tempt. For it is recorded that the people of Israel offended God most greatly on this account, because, forgetful of his benefits, they dared to tempt him, so that they asked in desperation to be fed. Of their unbelief Moses did not keep silent in his books. And David, briefly recalling it, explained thus: And they tempted God in their hearts, that they might ask food for their souls. And they spoke evil of God, and said: Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? For what can be difficult for him who, on account of the immense possibility of all things, is called omnipotent? But the Lord, answering Satan, said thus: It is written: Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. A most fitting and appropriate answer was given to the enemy. For to one questioning whether he was the Son of God, he answered as a man, so that he might be conquered rather through the very nature by which he seemed to be attacked. Hearing this, broken and weakened, he yet did not lay down the weapons of his boldness. And the devil took him, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him: To thee will I give this whole power, and their glory, because it has been delivered to me, and to whom I will, I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship before me, all things shall be thine. What wonder if the wretch spoke perversely, he who, that he might not walk the straight paths, took on the form of the twisted serpent, thinking Christ could be touched by desire for a fragile and perishable kingdom, he who had come rather to bestow a strong and eternal one upon his own? Or that he should deign to acquire worldly riches, he who had come to teach that they should perish. And that he should worship the monster cast down from heaven, whose throne is heaven, the earth his footstool, all the world his service, whom no one dares to look upon, and all the powers above the stars praise with lowered voices. But again the Lord confounded him with such a reply, being further overcome even in these contests, the wicked one dares,

raising himself three times, to stand firm in proud spirit,

and, rolled three times upon the ground, to trust in a fragile war.

Then the wicked one took him up into the holy city,

and, setting him upon the pinnacle of the lofty temple,

said: If thou dost claim thyself born of God the Father,

glide swiftly down, sent from the height of the roof.

For Scripture teaches that the Thunderer has commanded concerning thee

that thou be carried, borne up more safely by angelic arms,

lest perchance thou strike thy foot against a stone.

O how blind a heart does the mind bear beneath its dark breast,

darkened by its own shadows! This one believed that the lofty

summits of the temple, and the heights of the raised pinnacle, however great,

would make him shudder headlong, though he it was who bent

the vast limbs of the highest pole, and, borne

through all the heavens, descended to the lowliest parts of the farthest earth,

seeking the lower places, yet not abandoning the heights.

He had spoken, and, pierced through by the point of the mighty word,

because he could not tempt his own Lord and God,

saying: It is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve, he is still seen to answer from the human person. He disdained, of course, to subdue by greater strength one weak and rebellious. Although even at this word that viperous envy, cast down by the encounter, had not yet laid aside its temerity of spirit, but trusting in the triple-tongued flickering of its speech, raises for the third time its wounded head against the victorious hand of the Trinity. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, that he hath given his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone. O how much blindness and darkness ever rules in that black breast, and how the mind, obscured by the shadows of its own malice, knows not how to keep its deceit undetected! Behold, in saying: If thou be the Son of God, he shows that he does not know this. When again he asks, saying: He hath given his angels charge concerning thee, he confesses that this is he whom he beholds; but, found to be both simulator and dissimulator by the double-edged variety of his speech, he is proved a liar by his own arts. Nor is the malignant heart the home of deceit alone, but also of folly. For what could be found more foolish than that he should believe that one to dread, with a headlong leap, the lofty heights of the temple and the summit of the exalted pinnacle, who—though he seemed to walk on level ground—had come down from the highest citadel of the heavens? Of whom David cries out and says: And he came down, and bowed the heavens, at once embracing the lowliest things and not forsaking the highest. Therefore the divine voice, thus speaking, struck down the audacity of the failing one: It is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. There, already disclosing himself to be Lord and God, he forbids the tempter to undertake further such attempts, admonishing us by his own example, the pious Teacher, that the spirit, the artificer of ancient malice, there without doubt lies subject to human virtues, where God has been infused into the simplicity of a pure heart. For the instruction of the reading says: Then the devil left him, and behold, groaning, he fled from the face of the Victor. Then, the enemy having been repelled,

The princes of heaven stand by, and the shining companies

Of angelic ministers duly serve Christ.

Straightway therefore he bids men fit, taken from fishermen,

To fish for human souls, which, pursuing the slippery

Joys of the world, like wandering waves of the sea,

Swim blindly headlong through the uncertain deep,

To be his disciples, and reconciles such to the life

Above, whom no windy glory of speaking,

Nor blood proud of vain nobility, nourishes,

But silent fame, and a shining brightness of humble mind

Makes neighbors of heaven out of the common people.

For God the powerful has chosen the foolish things, and the lowest of the world,

Confounding the strong, and destroying wisdom.

Nay more, desiring to bring swift salvation,

He gave precepts for prayer, and the kind judge

they came near, and ministered to him. It seems to me, in this departure of the fleeing devil, and in the consequent ministry of angels, that a certain image of paschal glory is declared by these preceding signs. For just as, the temptations having been overcome and the devil driven away, angels rendered ministry to the Savior, so too, the insults of the Jews and the punishments of the blessed passion of the cross having been despised, and the fraud of the devil itself and death having been trampled underfoot, he rose from the dead, was carried up to the stars, and, with the accustomed rule of majesty, Christ is worshiped by the angels in heaven.

Then he associated with himself certain disciples chosen from fishermen, henceforth to fish for human souls, which, pursuing the slippery joy of the world, like those swimming the uncertain paths of the fluctuating sea, wandered with roving courses through pleasurable slips, and reconciled to eternal life such men as neither the origin of noble lineage of earthly nobility would puff up, nor the brightness of learned eloquence would exalt with the glory of vain talkativeness, but whom the holy institution of a simple life, conspicuous with humility more exalted than pride, would already make close neighbors to heaven.

For Almighty God chose rather the foolish things of the world, and the weak, refusing those things which seem to be wisdom and strength, because, as Paul the apostle, that excellent teacher, says: What is foolish of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And immediately again he said: The foolish things of this world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise, and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong, and the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, as though they were not, that he might destroy the things that are.

Nay more, the merciful Savior, desiring to bring swift salvation, also established the manner and the words of prayer. The most pious Judge wishes to be asked briefly, that he may the more quickly grant to the suppliant. Thus he taught that the Father should be prayed to—his Father by nature, indeed, but ours by grace—bestowing his own honor upon men, so that what he alone possesses as his distinction he might grant to all as a shared gift. Our Father, who art in heaven. We who dare to call the eternal ruler of the heavens by the name of Father must first observe that this is not a gift granted separately to individuals, but jointly and commonly to all, this household of so great a gift is bestowed. For, as though set apart from the rest, and dwelling hiddenly in more secret places, let each one implore the Lord with the words of this prayer, not saying, My Father, but Our Father, since this word is owed to Christ alone, whose Father God is properly. For although this is found written in all the Gospels, yet in that one the Lord Jesus clearly taught, in a chapter concerning his own right, a singular power distinct from the common mingling, where he consoled his disciples, saying: I go to my Father, and your Father. In saying "my," he fittingly claimed this glory as special to himself; in saying "your," he made known that this grace was common to all generally. Let us make here some comparison, that from human things we may grasp the divine. Let us suppose, then, some noble man, who has an only Son, and some servants. Can it be, because he is called the father of the household, that the condition of love toward the servants and toward the son can be equal with him, when the Son himself is proved to be Lord of all? We, therefore, use this prayer, not Christ, since by the entreaty of this supplication we also beseech him, who with the Father is one co-eternal Lord.

Therefore, in saying Our Father, we confess that we all exist as brothers in him. We ought not to despise the affection of this name by the expulsion of mutual charity, nor pursue the monuments of that original hatred whereby Cain, the shedder of his brother's blood, became the originator of the parricidal stain. But, fervent with the fire of a gentle spirit, let us lay aside the wickedness of the carnal old man, and rejoice, clothed in the new man. Lest, when earthly works begin to degenerate from heavenly ones, we seem unworthy of so great a Father, who, with Christ as our leader, received us as sons by sacred adoption. Hallowed be thy name. What sanctification can be reckoned by which the Lord may be sanctified, who sanctifies all things, except that we prepare a pious, mild, peaceful, chaste heart for his entrance? So that, delighted by such a dwelling, he may work in us an increase of his sanctification; just as our Lord Jesus Christ himself recalled that he was glorified in his disciples, he who ever shone with the clear light of divinity. For in the Gospel according to John, while he entreats the Father on behalf of his disciples, among the various words he pursued, he says thus: And I am glorified in them, that is, I have found my own glory in them. Where, then, he has found the signs of his sanctification, to sanctify himself—

That we may deserve to sanctify him by worshiping,

May he himself first grant, just as he himself

Bids that he be blessed by us, by whom we are all blessed.

May thy kingdom come now, yea now, that kingdom

Free from death, and without end, to which through the ages no

Times succeed, since the unbroken day

Knows no night: where, with Christ as prince,

The noble head embracing the perpetual crown,

The victorious soldier, bearing rich rewards, shall rejoice.

This let us pray with constant vows, this by night and day,

That his will may be done in heaven and on earth,

Who nowhere wills there to be sin, and who drives out the harmful foe

From the earth as from heaven, lest our bodies,

says in the same place.

For that goodness, mild beyond measure, declares that whatever it causes to bear fruit for its servants is conferred upon itself.

And so a similar sense is shown, in that it bids itself to be blessed, when it is rather itself that blesses all things.

For the general hymn of the three boys singing in the furnace calls upon every creature in order to bless the Lord.

Thy kingdom come.

We ask that the kingdom of the Ruler come, who does not cease to reign, so that he may punish the deceitful prince of this world for his presumed tyranny, and that he alone, who alone exists, may show forth his own dominion, neither bound by death nor to be consumed by times.

For that day of light knows no time, continuous without night, where the bravest soldier, having adored Christ, having become the victor in battle after the various perils of the world, shall rejoice, ennobled with an everlasting crown adorning the hair of his blessed head.

Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

The sense of this continence too seems to be understood here, that we ought to beseech with continual prayers, day and night, that his will may fulfill both heaven and earth—he who wills wickedness to be nowhere, so that the diabolus, cast down from heaven, may not, as a vile ground, the savage serpent claim for himself;

But he who cherishes all things, overflowing with full loving-kindness, Almighty, may equally preserve souls and bodies:

For we are one part of heaven, the other of earth.

We hope for the sustenance of faith with our daily bread, Lest our mind should ever feel hunger for doctrine.

Fast from your own Christ, who with body and with mouth satisfies us, himself remaining at once the Word and the food.

For the sweet words of the Lord cling to our jaws, and surpass honeycombs, and all honey.

We who ask that all our debts be forgiven us, let the earth suffer that the hostile serpent should not, savage, invade the earthly substance of our body—as though formed of mud—as food for its voracity, nor, having entangled us by its worst persuasions, embrace and encircle us with its scaly coils, until, intoxicating us with lethal venoms by its licking, it consumes our wretched life.

Therefore let us continually beseech the Lord to guard in us both soul and flesh alike;

for we are one part of heaven, the other we consider seed of earth.

Give us this day our daily bread.

To those who ask for the sustenance of daily bread a threefold sense of understanding is opened, although it is fitting that all the divine Scriptures be regarded in this way.

Therefore according to the letter we seem specifically to ask, for the sake of eating, for the bread of grain-seed;

and morally, as servants, we beseech the Lord, that we may deserve to obtain our daily allowance, while we know that the form of both interpretations proceeds from spiritual discipline.

For this reason we are commanded to ask daily for our victual meals, lest, by reserving anything for the morrow, we be seen to doubt the divine goodness.

Yet this proves so laborious and arduous that such a rule can be kept by few men, and very rare ones.

For the Lord himself, faithful in all things, who governed the children of Israel, led out of Egypt, through very many years in the barrenness of the desert with daily food, sparing them only on the sabbath, has promised by his evangelical words that he will give this also to us, if faith does not fail, addressing his disciples thus among the other things he taught:

Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow.

For tomorrow will be solicitous for itself.

But if we wish to recognize more fully the spiritual meaning of the words of which we speak, we shall perceive that this bread is the divine word, from whose substantial teaching, if the mind, being empty, should fast even a little, it will endure the great penury of hunger.

For there is no small difference between spiritual and bodily food.

We are commanded to eat the latter more sparingly, but never to refuse the former.

Here abstinence is wholesome;

there eagerness becomes life-giving.

Thus David, exercising meditation on the law of the Lord day and night, proclaims himself to cling to blessedness in these words:

Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence, but his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.

This meditation truly satisfies and delights, like the thick sweetness of honey, which, although it quickly fills the belly of the one eating, is never found by its nectarous sweetness to become distasteful.

Let us hear here also what the same prophet says:

How sweet are thy words to my jaws, O Lord, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth!

He has perfectly defined the words of the law as to be understood, when he says they are sweet to the jaws, not to the ears, and that they are ministered above honey and the honeycomb to the mouth, not to the hearing.

For even the deaf, to whom hearing avails nothing, are likewise filled with the heavenly precepts by reading them through the office of the mouth, and the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, used—Let us too relax;

for the caution of our own word binds those who make it manifest, and, more heavily bound if released, we are tied fast, if we refuse to loose the bonds of another:

And the merciful Lord, forgiving ten thousand talents, will begin, if he perceives that we afflict any fellow servant on account of a hundred denarii, to hand us over at once to the torturers, and, bound in fierce prison, we shall not be permitted to depart, until we repay everything down to the last farthing.

Not because the Lord, the way of light, the path of peace,

in the epistle, he made manifest that spiritual banquets are doctrine, saying:

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat.

For you were not yet able.

Who could doubt, or alone be uncertain, that all these things are figured spiritually?

For that they were infants, or that they took nourishments of milk from the Apostle, not even a fool could think.

But it is fitting to know that those beginning to draw in the words of the law, and being gradually imbued with divine institutions, drink up as infants the milky beginnings, because just as good doctrine is wholesome food, so is malignant teaching harmful.

Therefore the Lord warned his disciples to beware spiritually of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees:

knowing that men of sour doctrine corrupt with a small touch the abundance of all sweetness, since, as the same Apostle Paul says, A little leaven corrupts the whole lump:

for even though we believe this bread to be rather the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is nonetheless known by no means to depart from a spiritual meaning, especially because such a feast, or such a prayer, is granted divinely to none of the Gentiles, none of the Jews, but only to Christians.

And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

If we weigh more carefully the vows of our petition, it is discerned by our own examples whether indulgence is to be granted to us or denied.

For we are bidden to hope from the Lord that which we are seen to have granted to our fellow servant.

Indeed those whom the same law of condition binds equally, so that as we do not wish to be debtors, so neither may we desire to have them.

For in the persons of others we are either absolved or bound.

But if it is thought uncertain concerning what debtors this passage treats, a feeble excuse must be set forth as material;

and whether perhaps in fault, or in money, or in whatsoever matter your brother has become indebted to you, release this.

For it is shown that not so much the frequent presumption of offenses, as the dishonest handling of monetary amount, entangles very many before the Lord in bonds.

For whoever, according as the measure of his strength allows, has been inhuman to the needy, denies to God what is His own, and forswears Him, whose infinite pity so watches over the straits of the wretched, that whatever kindly bestowal is given to the poor man, He attests to have been gained for Himself.

In vows also, which we promise, having obtained divine benefits we remain debtors, until we pay them with faithful mind.

These things, then, which have been said of monetary debts, it is fitting that we should understand also of the other various kinds of sins, by which we are held bound under eternal judgment:

knowing that for this reason the likeness of a treasury has been compared to crimes, since the root of all evils is avarice, without whose vicious seed almost no crimes are begotten in evil.

There one perpetrates homicide, that he may snatch away from an innocent man what he coveted.

Another, solicited by a received reward, becomes the swearer of false testimony.

Some are driven by foul bribery into the pandering of adulterous intercourse.

Others defile themselves with theft, others deny a deposit.

There are many other things like these, with which the friendly hunger for gold always serves as fellow soldier.

Yet no crime is easily committed to which the ministry of money does not in the least lend support.

Therefore, having obtained the gift of divine mercy, having gained impunity of heavenly indulgence, let us not in turn deny what we have received, lest, absolved of greater debts, when we do not release the small ones, we again become entangled in the greatest bonds.

And soon that merciful Lord, the giver, not the exactor of debt, who released to us ten thousand talents, if He perceives that on account of a hundred denarii we choke our fellow servant, will command all to be exacted, delivered to cruel torturers;

and thrust into prison custody we shall not be allowed to go out at all, until we pay all that was lost, down to the measure of the last farthing.

And lead us not into temptation.

Not that the Lord drives us into the snares of the tempter, but when He deserts our evils, He allows us to go:

for whoever, following the delightful nets of the world, loves luxury and the joys of flattering perdition, God, the lover of virtue, leaves him, and he enters where temptation leads him.

From this, then, let us turn back our foot, and with the heart seek the narrow path, where the slender track shows the way through the strait gate to the kingdoms of heaven.

If we desire to avoid evil, we must approach and follow the good;

for this frees, that slaughters:

this nourishes, that kills;

for as much as the stars are from the earth, fire from waters, light from darkness, concord from wars, life from tombs, so much farther are good things separated, disjoined from evils.

Whoever walks must needs go either the right or the left way.

But the right path of the good calls the conspicuous just into their joys, and into your bosom, Patriarch:

but the left works the punishments of the wicked, and sends them to impious Tartarus.

who is the way of light and the path of peace, leads anyone into the snares of temptation, but, abhorring those not obeying the divine warnings, when He deserts them, permits them to enter.

For all who, following the slippery contagions of the world, enclosed in delightful nets, aim at the luxury of flattering perdition, are abandoned by the Lord, who is a lover of pure virtue, and proceed to enter wherever voluptuous temptation has drawn them.

From this, then, let us strive to withdraw our foot, treading rather the narrow path, which by its slender track, unknown to many, ascends secretly by an arduous way to the gate of the heavenly kingdoms.

But deliver us from evil.

When we beg to be delivered from evil, we confess that He whom we ask to deliver us is good.

Nor undeservedly is He to be followed who delivers, and He to be fled who slaughters.

For in the one, through good fruits, the trees of life act;

in the other, through evil fruits, the root of ancient transgression acts.

For indeed the Gospel reading declared that fruits are to be understood, where the Lord, laying open the diverse minds of various people, bade each to be known from his own fruits, that is, from works, saying:

By their fruits you shall know them.

Since indeed as great as the distance by which heaven is separated from earth, fire from water, light from darkness, peace from wars, and no less life from tombs, so much farther, by the withdrawal of great separation, are good things discerned from evil.

For a twofold choice always attends the judgment of our deliberation, whereby we hold either the right track or the left;

not ignorant, nor doubtful, that the right path is that of the just rejoicing in the bosom of Abraham the Patriarch:

but the left is assigned to the deep punishments of the wicked.

Whence no one is able to cross over to the other, through so great a chasm, and the immense peril of the sundered mass.

This, then, is the sole will and good liberty of God for lambs and sheep, to escape the grim jaws of the bloody wolf, and to enjoy life through the pastures of Christ.

for us liberty is desirable,

that we, the sheep and lambs of the highest Shepherd, if we shall be deemed worthy, may merit to escape the grim bites of the wolf,

and through the most sweet pastures of Christ, with the most pleasing charm of abundant bloom, may now securely reap life.

The Lord, deigning first to be present at the marriage chamber,

gave the first proofs of His virtue, and, present as guest,

came, wondrous! Not to be fed, but to feed, He turned

poured-out water into wine; the streams rejoice

to lose their pallor, the joyful wave changed

its own taste, bestowing wine, and through all the tables

sweet cups reddened with must that had not been born.

Christ therefore filled six vessels with this nectar;

for indeed He was the fruitful vine, fruitful in cultivating power,

under whose gentle covering

The Lord, deigning first to be present at a wedding, disclosed the proofs of His virtue, when, as the chief guest, unfolding His divine power, He was seen not to have been fed, but to have fed. For wines had been lacking at the solemn feast, and among the heaped-up dishes gathered for the banquet, the emptied cups alone lay dull with pure dryness. The earthly drink had withdrawn, so that, namely, the heavenly might enter. Christ therefore then turned the waters, passing over into the appearance of wine. The waters lost what they were born as, being in need of water for drink, and the wave, made nobler than that from which it was begotten, changed at once its color and its name. At last sweet must reddened in the cups of all, and through the delightful sweetness of all the tables the guests, caught by it, were made drunk by draughts of the flowing nectar.

The servants of the well were astonished that the six jars, which they had filled with water, were darkened with overflowing wine, and that the whole vintage had suddenly boiled up from Christ, since indeed He was present as the vine, cultivating in virtue, born fruitful under the shade of ethereal foliage, nourishing the clusters of the spiritual vine-shoot, ever to live on in loveliness.

The gentle vine-shoot nourishes grapes that never fade.

Afterward a certain ruler, his son at the point of death,

was tearfully and suppliantly begging the Lord that He would visit

the sick boy laboring under fever, and forbid the trembling

soul to slip from its seat; then that ample power,

which denies nothing to the believer, nor delays its gifts,

attending swift faith, granted healing with a word

granting it readily: "Your son," He said, "already lives.

Go." How great is the power that the command of Christ carries!

He did not say, "He will live," but, "Now, because he lives"—

in the manner of God, who, seeing all things before they are born,

beholds as past whatever He wills to be future.

Thence, going forward with health-bringing steps, through cities,

towns, countryside, cottages, villages, strongholds, passing through all,

He healed all bodies, driving out their diseases.

But behold, crying out from the midst of the crowd's throng,

a leper begged for help, more wretched in his various limbs

with whiteness: "If you will, Lord," he said, "from these

stains you are able to cleanse me. I will," said Christ,

and at once his skin was restored as one, and with its own beauty

Then a certain ruler was tearfully beseeching the Lord that He would relieve the sick affliction of his dying son, and prevent the failing soul of the anguished one from slipping from its bodily seat. Then the humanity of divine power, which denies nothing to the believer, nor suspends its gift by delay, since it does not withdraw from the company of faith, granted full health to the boy by voice, conceded it by word. For thus He answered: Go, your son lives. How commanding is the Lord's power, and how magnificent! He did not promise that he would live, but declared that he already lived. For this is the singular property of divinity, that it beholds as already past whatever it had decreed would come to be. Thence through various cities and crossroads, and through the countryside, and villages, and camps, applying His health-bringing steps, He healed all limbs, the vices of their diseases being driven out.

When suddenly from the midst of the assembly of the pressing crowd a leper, suffused with varied misfortune, and made more wretched by an unnatural whiteness, addressed the Lord, saying: Lord, if you will, you are able to cleanse me. Not small was this suppliant's faith in his word, who believed that the effect of his cleansing was established solely in the divine will. For, as the Lord touched him with His sacred hand, saying, I will, be cleansed, at once the two-colored sickness departed, and the body, laying aside the horror of spotted skin, was free of its foreign disfigurement. He was seen by the people, changed by sudden aid, and his sound

limbs joyfully exchanged their alien form,

and he was scarcely recognized, now more truly, in his own color.

By chance Peter's mother-in-law was scorched by the burning heat of a strong lamp of fever,

the panting sickness, and, hanging in doubtful death,

her wounded life burned beneath icy perils,

and immense heat cooked her with deadly chill.

But after the Lord's hand touched her weary limbs,

the fiery burning departed, and, quenched throughout all her marrow,

the violence of the flame fell before a hidden spring of water.

Nay, He also drove away the raging fury of black spirits!

lest their savage breath should tear men apart with wicked

plague, and defile the honor of God's work,

which it knew was not of God; and everywhere countless

throngs, as the merciful one, He restored to health, sickness driven off,

and relieved peoples from various calamity.

Thence seeking the sea, he pressed with his steps

the dry seaweed, and, mounting the timbers of a small boat,

entered the waters of the sea; and the disciples, following the Lord,

balanced their sails upon the calm deep.

now showing forth their true appearance, and, more truly in outward form as well, he seemed less recognizable in his color.

Peter's mother-in-law, violently afflicted, her vitals seized by fire, was oppressed by a panting fever, and the flame of a strong burning heat had settled in her fiercely seething marrow. The lot of her trembling soul hung uncertain between death and life, and the approach of icy death was overly cooked by the flame in her limbs. But when the Lord, with a health-bringing touch, visited her, entangled in perils, the deadly fire at once fled, quenched by a life-giving spring, and the woman, rising restored, became, in dutiful service, the attendant of her own healer—she who but now had been ailing.

Moreover, He often drove out from men's limbs, in His mercy, the madness of diabolical severity's assault, lest a spirit not divine, thrust into the work of divinity, should rage there; and everywhere He restored to innumerable throngs the use of their bodies, the sicknesses fleeing, and drew the peoples away from various calamity, the peril of their sickness failing.

Then, walking along the sandy paths of the shore, He mounted the planks of a small skiff, and, His disciples accompanying, began to cross over. And when the ship, driven by the swelling of the bellying sail, was carried already far from shore, a fierce and rough winter storm arose, stirring the whole sea from its depths with tempests, and lifting the stern, submerged as the wave withdrew, again upon the swelling waters. Despairing safety had troubled the sorrowful disciples, and no remedy lay any longer in their own skill. Already far from the land had been the raft, and, driven by the winds,

the ship was cutting securely through the midst of the deep,

when suddenly a fierce winter storm arises, and the sea

is churned by tempests, and the salt waters shake the trembling

keel.

Terror had struck their minds, and they thought themselves

already stretching shipwrecked arms toward the shore's rocks.

He himself, however, was enjoying a peaceful sleep in his heart,

watchful in majesty, because He who rules Israel

does not slumber forever, nor will He ever sleep at all.

Therefore, when their rest was disturbed, all crying out together

with one voice, "Have mercy, quickly, have mercy, we perish,

bring your holy aid"—delaying not their prayers at all,

the Lord, rising, commands the strong winds to grow gentle,

and, quicker than word, calms the swelling seas.

That was no defiant boldness of a savage sea,

that would force the swollen waves to rise against the Lord,

nor did fearsome blasts stir savage forces;

but the sea, leaping joyfully at Christ, compelled

the deep to seethe in obedience, and with swift flight

the joys of the winds moved their eager wings.

Meanwhile, carried across the calm expanse, the ship

even the sailors were forced to admit; all indeed now believed they were perishing, and, whether clinging to the drift of planks, or tossed about by the labor of their arms, believed themselves shipwrecked men about to be dashed upon the rocky shores. But Christ, the true and provident pilot, propped on a small pillow, lay sleeping quietly in the stern amid the surging waves, at rest in body, watchful in majesty—he who, according to the prophecy of David: He shall not slumber, nor shall he sleep, who keepeth Israel. And when the disciples cried out together with one voice, Lord, save us, we perish, he arose, roused up, and commanded the winds to be still, and bade the sea to be silent, and suddenly there came a calm alike upon the sea and, unexpectedly, upon the air, betraying the presence of divinity. What then ought we to think of that tempest? Did the sea indeed raise its savage storms against the Lord, or did the seditious blasts strive to wage warfare against their own Creator? Far be it that the elements should have attempted this, which would have offered injury to his majesty. But rather let us judge that all things were subjected in humble devotion to the powers of Christ, and that the whole sea is believed to have been most joyful at the Lord’s voyage, coming in obedience, and rushing up from the lowest depths of the waves, glowing with a whiter foam. So too the swift nature of the light winds had, as it were, encircled like a royal camp of a general, with a serving throng, the ship on which Christ sat, spreading their wings in winged delight. For nothing to which the license of violent power lends its support can easily be compelled to obey an imperious Lord, just as the seas and the winds, bowed down by the divine commands of Christ, suddenly laid aside, in their headlong rushing course, their swift agitation in languid stillness.

Meanwhile, moreover, the Lord of the deep, borne across with gentleness, having left the ship, walked along the shore of the neighboring coast, and traversed the fields on foot in the midst of them;

When from afar, from the tombs, with a twofold shrieking, rushing men leapt forth, whom not a small evil demon,

But a savage legion tormented, and in a bloody knot

They bore cruel chains upon their fettered arms.

A double punishment also afflicted them. Alas! Dire is the condition

Of madness; he who suffers violence is the more bound.

Then, trembling at the Lord’s commands, bidding him depart,

The wretched spirit dares not approach the man,

Seeking again the form which it sees Christ to bear.

But the herd, rejoicing in unclean filth, ever fond

Of foulness, and accustomed to live in stinking mire,

They sought according to their deserts, and the gloomy ranks

Held to the swinish herd: black, bristling, shuddering—

Indeed, such a guest was worthy to have such a house.

he was going, when suddenly two most savage men, possessed by a crowd, and a legion of demons, leapt forth from the sepulchral monuments with a terrible howling. And on this account they were bound fast with iron chains and fetters. Alas, how grievous is the condition of madness! He who endures the violence of tearing insanity must also lie subject to penal bonds. Fittingly, however, that most wicked spirit dwelt rather among the tombs and ashes, to whom nothing is common with life. Then, terrified at the coming of the Lord, and shut out from the seat of the purified mind, fearing to ask permission to enter again into the human form which it saw Christ bearing, it obtained, according to its deserts, to go into the unclean herd, most joyful in the foulness of filth, and ever wrapped in friendship with stinking mire.

Indeed, black, shaggy, and bristling, it was eager to choose a dwelling like to its own deformity, and forthwith the gloomy ranks invaded, drove, and destroyed, headlong, the swinish herd in the waters of the sea. Nor without merit is the devil universally called the enemy, since he is harmful to all, so that he both attacks those he hates, and destroys those he loves.

From here the Lord, borne across the sea to other shores,

Entered his native soil, in which body he wished

Himself to be born, and the Father himself dedicated a homeland to him.

Behold, there came men bearing, now a living, now already a corpse,

Four by neck, and a man scarcely alive, lying on a bed,

For whom life remaining without the use of the body

Was the image of death, and his loosened limbs lay

Deserted of their functions, and along his flowing joints

Languid sinews hung down, released from their bonds.

When the Lord saw him lacking the strength of his powers,

He first cleansed him by taking away his sins,

Which generate increase to evils: and to the wretched one lying there,

He said, Rise, and take up your own pallet upon your shoulders,

And go down into your house. Without delay at the command,

He to whom salvation had been granted, leaving behind

Foreign footsteps at last, rejoices to walk on his own feet,

And carried back his bearer with a grateful reward.

Meanwhile, in the beginning, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue,

Having completed her closed day, dying, had lost the upper air.

But the father, whose consuming grief for hope of his grown child

From here the Lord, again borne along by the serving ship, entered the borders of his native soil, where the Creator of all things wished to be born, and named the town of that region his homeland. Then four men, bearing a bed upon their shoulders, brought to him a certain sick man, scarcely still a man, already a corpse. Whose life, lacking movement of the body, prefigured the image of death. Thus his limbs lay, with the bonds of the sinews loosened, and let down through his flowing joints, wounded and wasted by the decay of disease, unable to perform their proper functions. When the Lord, of supernal power, saw him in need of the restoration of strength, he first cared to absolve him from his sins, which are the roots of all evils, so that, the filth of uncleanness being driven out, salvation, as though prepared for him, might enter into the cleansed man as into a house. He says therefore then to the wretched man lying there, but one soon to be happy, Rise, take up your pallet, and go into your house. And he, without delay in obeying the command, rises up, strong from being weak, confident from being despairing, about to live from dying, and, taking up the little bed on which he had lain immovable, and made harder than the very dryness of the wood itself, at last rejoices to walk with his own feet, glad to have been rid of others’ footsteps, and by a mutual repayment of gratitude, presently carried back his own bearer with serving shoulders.

While the Lord was thus performing these miracles, the ruler’s

He had raised up, and the holy men of the Lord, weeping and groaning

He fell before his feet, scarcely able to utter words of prayer

For the shaking of his sobs, saying, Have mercy on a parent

Bereaved, have mercy on an old man; just now my daughter,

My only one, not yet mature under virgin years,

Has died, and has taken from wretched me the name of father.

Bring help, and pour the fallen soul back through her limbs,

You who are able to grant all things. He said this: and the author

Of light went forth to the funeral of the extinguished one, scarcely moving

His step for the crowding people; and mingled with the throngs

There walked a woman who had suffered a flowing of blood,

Who had wasted great wealth, that she might be healed,

And, her house exhausted, with no remedy availing,

Had lost her own strength together with her blood.

But when in her believing heart there began to be present

A rich faith, plunged in the midst of the crowds,

She strove to touch even the hem of Christ as he turned away:

And hidden behind him, stealing sudden health,

She snatched it from the very edge of his garment, and with her flowing dried up

Her bold confidence condemned her open veins.

God perceived this, from whose fount it had run,

That a hidden power had given it, and the faithful theft

the daughter of the synagogue, seized within the bounds of life, had lost the breath of the upper light and lay with body motionless, now owed only to the tomb. Then the father, wounded by the calamity of his wretched pledge—he for whom this final end had taken away the hope of his already flourishing offspring—weeping and groaning, was rolling at the feet of the Lord. Scarcely could he steady his beseeching words as sobs shook him, saying: Have mercy on a bereaved father, have mercy on a destitute old man. I have—or rather, I had—an only daughter, who now, failing while still not established in mature years, seems to have taken from me even the title of a father's name. Bring aid, and help, and restore the departed soul to limbs already growing cold, to him for whom all power is at hand, to whom all power meets no obstacle. Scarcely had he finished such prayers when the Lord, thronged about by disciples and crowds, was already walking toward the funeral of the girl who was to be raised.

Meanwhile, mixed among the crowds, there went a woman wounded for twelve years by an excessive flow of blood, who, having given much to physicians and profiting nothing, came forth emptied alike of resources and of blood. But when, in the trustful secrecy of her now sound heart, faithful presumption began to abound, she thrust herself vehemently into the midst of the throngs, desiring only to touch the smallest edge of the Lord's garment, and hiding behind him, from the outermost hanging border of the hem she suddenly snatched a stolen healing. O how much more is it worth, in obtaining difficult things, to trust than to ask! For confidence comes from the heart, while prayers are often poured out from the tongue without the heart; confidence is not born without the heart. Behold now the woman, despairing after the torment of long suffering, comes to the physician—not beseeching, not groaning, not lamenting—but silently carried off what she sought. Silence stood upon her mute mouth, and her soul cried out to the Lord. Soon a greater flood of faith dried up the streams of surging blood, and, all unaware of the woman's grace, she does not praise Christ, but attributes her vows to a splendid theft.

They had come to the mournful heights of the sorrowing roof,

and to the weeping house, where the dying maiden lay,

having drawn her final day, and a trembling tumult

filled everything with bitter wailing lamentations,

and the flute-players groaned funereal strains with tearful song,

and frequent mourning had thrown the house into confusion.

Lay aside the griefs conceived in your anxious mind,

this is sleep, says the Savior, and believe not that death

is present, nor mourn the girl as laid in sleep.

He had spoken, and the Spirit with its fire warmed

the corpse bound by chill death, and by his word

raised the motionless body, and granted her, once born, to live twice.

The parents were struck dumb in mind, and by the unhoped-for answer to their prayers

the gift of his own bounty lay hidden, from whose source flowed forth that which the hope of the trusting woman had fulfilled, and the theft, once made public, so faithful, was rewarded with the force of its rapine by saving gifts.

Meanwhile they had come to the roof of the pitiable house, mourning, where the untimely funeral of the maiden lay exposed to the tears of all, and a weeping assembly and tumult had filled the whole place with the voices of bitter wailing. The flute-players lamented with modulated groaning, songs that flatter the dead, and an unhappy multitude, running about, clamorous with frequent sorrows, had thrown the unhappy house into confusion. The Lord forbids that she who is composed in sleep be mourned, forbids that one who will live be lamented as dead. For to all, indeed, the body seemed extinguished. To Christ alone, who had come to bestow life, did the sleep seem but a slumber infused. And this indeed pertained to his singular glory, that he called the dead girl sleeping, so that, being about to show to the parents the deeds of admirable powers, declaring himself to give less than he actually gave, he might avoid the injury of human praise. Then, softening with the fire of the Spirit the motionless corpse, the body chilled and bound by the stiffness of cold death, by the command of his imperious voice he raised the maiden from the underworld, and granted the girl, though born but once, to live twice. They were amazed. They look on, and in their gladness turn their mourning into rejoicing in a changed manner.

Thence, as he withdrew his step, behold he sees two blind men following,

crying out: Renowned Son of David,

shake off the nightly shadows from our extinguished eyes,

and grant clear day. How safe it is to believe,

how sound it is to know God! Already in heart they saw,

those who felt the way of light; then the blind eyes

of the suppliants, like a torpid fire when oil is poured on,

gleamed beneath the Lord's hand, and by his serene touch,

restored, their faces shone forth with their own lamps.

These having thus been dismissed, another sick man is brought forward,

wretched with manifold weakness, who, deprived of voice,

empty of hearing, through his limbs made useless in every way

was full of demon alone: him at once, in sacred order,

God healed by reversing the opposite causes,

emptying him of the demon, restoring hearing and voice.

Nor meanwhile does he less command all his own

disciples to be capable of all things, and, filling them at once with all his powers,

the parents, hesitating to believe in their daughter what they were seeing, and stirred by the sudden joy of the event, with tears poured out yet more abundantly for gladness, changed the character of their mourning. Thence, having finished the working of restored light, departing, he sees two men wounded by lost sight, imploring with nearly these words: Have mercy on us, Son of David. That is, they were imploring that mercy which, by removing the darkening night, might restore day to their faces from utter blindness. How safe it is to believe, how sound it is to trust eagerly in God! For already they saw with the heart, those who, as Christ walked, perceived the path of light. Then their eyes, pressed by the sorrowful blindness of their affliction, like a torpid fire when oil is infused, gleamed at the Lord's touch, and, his serene right hand being applied, their seeing faces shone with their own lamps.

These having thus been dismissed, another was brought forward, weak with threefold illnesses, who, deprived of voice, emptied of hearing, with limbs rendered useless in their functions, seemed to be filled with demon alone. This man, the causes being reversed, the Lord immediately healed in such a way that, having cast out the demon, he likewise refilled him, restoring voice and hearing together. And, not delaying, he grants the same power also to his twelve disciples, and bids them to be able to accomplish all the things which they had seen him do, and, sending them forth enriched with all powers, to the hunting-out of the lost sheep, that is, of the house of Israel, because he had not yet spread the dignity of this name continually through all nations.

Go, he says, and drive out the sad plagues of diseases,

but to the house of Israel (since not yet had this name

extended to all nations), proclaim the kingdom of heaven,

take away the place of demons, drive away leprosy;

and call back to restored life the lifeless bodies.

You have received freely, bestow on all freely.

And, as though saying this: I indeed to you, my ministers,

commit the flocks to be kept; I indeed am the good

shepherd, and I bestow my own fields for sustenance.

Let none sell pastures to my sheep, which are mine.

These things, therefore, the Almighty first uttered into apostolic ears,

so that from these teachers, with himself as their author,

the flowing teaching might run down into the age to come.

Just as from one fountain of paradise are said

to proceed four mighty rivers with their courses,

from which streams are scattered over the whole world.

For whoever performs the work of the Godhead, which he does not have from himself,

but bears it as delivered by the Lord, under a pure gift

shall receive it, and dispense it under a pure gift,

that he may be considered a dispenser, not a merchant,

and may sing, in David's manner, of the life to come:

I shall enter into the rest of the Lord, because I know no wages.

Going, therefore, thus he admonishes, among other things which he was commanding: preach, saying, that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near; heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give. As if the Lord, solicitous with pastoral care, were saying: I, being a good shepherd, entrust the flocks to you, my careful workers, more cautiously, for whose bodily sustenance I grant fields of my own right. Let none, then, sell pastures subject to my authority to my lambs and sheep—which he handed over first to apostolic discipline for this reason, that from their teaching thence propagated the doctrine of the succeeding age might flow down to posterity, just as rivers, once diverted, wander innumerable through the whole bound of the world. Whoever, then, exercises the work of the Godhead, which he does not bear as his own, but has received worthily by spiritual transmission, having obtained the grace of a pure gift, let him be devoted to the grace of a pure gift, so that he may be seen rather as a dispenser than as a merchant, and, the song of Davidic joy being fulfilled, may thus pronounce for himself the hope of the life to come: I who have known no trafficking,—

Thence, entering the conspicuous hall of the synagogue,

he beholds a helpless man, maimed in the measure of his body,

half-dead in his limbs, not wholly alive, whose withered

right hand condemned him to a numbed part;

and healing him by command, he bids the chilled palm

grow warm again, and be restored to health by divine manner,

just as he always acts, taking nothing away, and giving back all.

Behold again, renewing his old arts, that slippery water-serpent is present, who, livid with the gall of black venom, rejoices to grow fat on human corruption, and the poison which he had so often scattered through alternating sufferers he now poured forth, gathered together, into the vitals of one man:

to whom he had taken away voice and light, and holding the man's limbs afflicted with threefold fury, he shook him, mute and blind.

I will go in unto the power of the Lord. For no servant can have, without the Lord's bounty, that which he may minister, or whence he may distribute gifts, if he has not received that which he pays out. Let us hear Paul the apostle likewise saying this: Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among dispensers, that one be found faithful. And again the same teacher admonishes, and says: What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? Then the Lord, having entered the synagogue, beholds a man weakened with the numbness of a shrunken body, maimed, his limbs half-dead and wounded, wholly neither living nor dying, whose withered right hand the ice of sluggish torpor had swollen up, now lulled to sleep with hopes of use abandoned.

Then by the powerful help of his command he won the palm, and though the motions of the blood in the veins had ceased into a foreign chill, he did not bestow animation by art, but granted it by commanding, saying: Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched forth his hand, and it was restored, as the other. Truly this is a singular gift of God, which he unceasingly exercises, who takes nothing away from human welfare, and always restores all things.

Behold again that slippery water-serpent is present, a harmful renewer, who, most abounding in the livid poison of gall, rejoices to grow fat on human corruption, and the poison which he had often poured forth through many occupied by alternating sufferings, he raging gathered wholly into the limbs of one man, from whom he snatched the mind, closed the voice, extinguished the light, and weaving together threefold plagues at once, drove him, mute and blind, into madness.

Then the Lord of the world, our light, and the Word of the Father,

The filth being cast out, renewed his eyes and mouth;

And words come forth through the Word, and lights arise through the Light.

There had also come a woman, contracted by an old disease,

Not by age, trembling, groaning, bent, with failing

Features, and bowed down beholding only the earth.

Who, by the Lord's mercy, after eight

And ten unbroken years, lifts up her limbs,

And at last sees heaven and the stars, and remembers

The burning orb of the sun, seeing wholly upright; because those whom the evil enemy

Oppresses seek the depths; those whom Christ nourishes rise again without stain.

Then, when he saw the people who had followed him into the desert,

Like the typical Moses, and the true prophet,

Feel the ancient hunger, by greater deeds

He showed forth the ancient help; then with much fowl

He gave rich feasts of flesh, now with twin fishes he increased them.

drove him to madness. To this man the merciful Savior of the whole world, our light, the Word of the Father, when the unclean spirit had been troubled, restored sight, renewed his mouth, and through the Word words prosper, through the Light lights come to life again. There had also come a woman to be healed, more contracted by an old disease than by age, trembling in gesture, panting with groans, curved in the shoulders, bowed in countenance, and always bent down looking with downcast gaze at the lowly earth. She, raised up by the Lord's power after eight continuous years and ten, with her limbs lifted upright, looks upon heaven and the stars, and remembers that she once saw the burning globe of the sun. Consider, you who worship idols, how much difference there is between the God whom you flee and the demon whom you appease—if indeed he can be appeased who does not cease to harm.

For all whom he possesses are oppressed; those whom Christ burdens with the yoke of his sweetest lightness are relieved. Then when he saw the people who had followed him into the desert, like the typical Moses, and the true prophet, failing through the barrenness of ancient want, he repaired the ancient comforts with the greatest increase. For then indeed he suddenly multiplied the flesh of many a bird, then of two fishes

He then rained down sufficient manna, now with loaves

He gave abundant sustenance for five thousand men, through five loaves.

The rest of the crowd lies hidden, closed by no number—

The greatest legion of little ones, or the greatest of mothers.

And what should amaze you more, the removed fragments filled

Twelve baskets, and though increased by the devouring peoples,

What returns from all the tables is not the abundance that was given.

And now, as the warm day grows old beneath the blue

Of ocean, the sea seizing it, when the pallor

Of night was present, and Hesperus was bringing in the star-bearing shadows,

The disciples, the Master alone remaining on land,

Sought the wave-tossed sea, and with the surge swelling,

The grim waters tossed the laboring ship,

For the wind was against them; then in the time of dark night

The Lord walks upon the trodden waves,

And treads the fields of the vast deep, and the glassy waters

Poured around lapped his sacred soles.

The stunned company marvels that a pedestrian path

Had opened ways for ships: but Peter, taught

To have friendly faith, and always to recognize Christ,

Went down into the midst of the waters, whom the Lord's right hand

Lifted as he slipped, suffering nothing in so great a gulf:

For him that hand was a harbor, and, a traveler of the sea,

He moved free footsteps over the glassy plains.

Then, as the Lord came to the land of Genesareth, the farmers

he made overflow in quantity. Then he poured forth abundant manna from heaven, now, five loaves being distributed, he granted that so many thousand men should have plenty of feasts. The movement of the rest of the crowd lay hidden, the multitude of women and children having no reckoning; and what you should marvel at even more, whoever reads through these things, if you have not yet learned it—after the hunger of the satisfied people was driven away, the removed mass of fragments filled twelve baskets. Nor was there as great an abundance when it was given, as there was, already disdained, in the leftovers when it was taken up.

Meanwhile, beneath the blue wave of the seething ocean's heat, as the ocean received the plunging day, when the approach of the starry night was announced through the paling sky, the Master remaining on land, the disciples sought the sea voyage alone, and the sea raged against the ship exposed to the opposing craftsmen winds. Then, in about the fourth watch of the shadowy night, the Lord, walking upon the trodden waves, calmed with a peaceful step the swollen billows of the foaming deep, and the sea lapped Christ's sacred footprints with a gentle washing. Those in peril marvel at the sudden strange sight, that a pedestrian path had opened ways for ships. And as all wavered, whether the Lord truly appeared, or whether uncertain phantoms of darkness deceived eyes clouded by the fear of danger, Peter, wounded by faith, and a friend, to whom familiar grace always granted the power to recognize Christ, asked that he might go to him. And being called, fearing nothing, he went down into the sea, not submerged by any rapacity of the flowing wave, since, lifted up by the aid of the Lord's hand, he had fled to the safest harbor of that powerful right hand, and cut a path through the glassy fields of the salt sea, a traveler going against the mind of the deep. O growth of increasing faith! Formerly he despised the poor man's nets, the comfort of his life; now he refuses life itself, that he might come to Christ.

Then, leaving the ship, the Lord walked upon the land of Genesareth, with the company of disciples accompanying him, whose inhabitants

Dragged their sick, that the fringe alone,

Scarcely touched, might heal bitter diseases with God's power;

And as many as touched it felt continual health.

How precious was that garment, never sold,

Which by the gift of a little thread redeemed them all!

From here, as he sought the parts of Tyre and the fields of Sidon,

A Chananaean woman, anxious for her daughter's affliction,

Whom a spirit vexed with dark goads, begged him,

Confessing herself equal to the dogs, who by their sagacious habit

Always lie down at the threshold of the fragrant table,

Accustomed to lick the falling crumbs of their masters.

A lowly voice, but lofty faith, which, her daughter being saved,

made a sheep out of a dog, and drove her, though sprung amid the thorns of her nation,

to feed more freely on the grass of the Hebrew field.

Then, climbing the high ridges of the mountain, the people following,

thousands of blind men, thousands of lame men everywhere,

and lepers together, and crowds of deaf,

and feeble hands, and whatever of the sickly multitude

had come, he restores by his motions to their former use,

and tunes the recalled instruments to their own sinews.

And while, healing, he revives the sick throng by his power, receiving a welcome arrival, they gathered together those of theirs hindered by various sicknesses, to be healed by the divine presence, so that even the touching of the fringe of his garment might cure the most grievous diseases. And whoever deserved to obtain this was at once made possessor of health. How precious was this garment! Or rather, it had a price beyond price, for, sold in no commerce, it redeemed all with the gift of a tiny thread.

From here, as he was passing through the regions of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman, for the affliction of her wounded daughter, whom a black spirit possessed, was beseeching him suppliantly, asking that she be reckoned equal to the dogs, who do not knowingly abandon the tables of their masters, so that, licking up the scraps that fall, they might be fed by the smallness of the falling crumbs. A most humble voice, but exalted faith, which, her daughter being saved, at once turned the dog into a sheep, and made her, though risen amid the thorns of her own nation, enter into the pastures of the Hebrew grass.

Then, ascending the high ridges of the mountain, accompanied by an innumerable people, thousands of the lame equally with the blind, gatherings also of the deaf and lepers, and the feeble of hand, and whatever of the sick multitude had streamed together, he restored to their former use, and set in tune, according to their own sinews and motions, the instruments of the weak limbs.

And while, marvelous in the working of his power, he revived the throng. The third day was at hand, and on the barren turf no food had touched so great a people, and hunger, redoubled, was feeding excessive toil, if the wearied crowd, fasting, should return through the vast path without food.

Moved by which pity, God, who is ever present as bread to the needy, and brings sustenance to places without crops, fed the immense throng of men with a few small fishes and seven loaves, and besides the weak of the second sex and of age, satisfied there four thousand who ate; that you may marvel the more, learn also that the food was increased, the crowd nourished the feast by eating it, and the food, worn down by their bites, grew.

And their leftovers, the tops of seven baskets, fleeing hunger feared, when, the fragment taken up, it saw an abundant harvest from a small seed.

Nor yet, though in a human body, was it hidden that Christ, bearing mortal limbs from the setting of his mother, was God, because a city set on a mountain is never hidden, nor is a burning lamp put under a bushel, but scattering its panting fire higher,

or wounded, the third day was passing, and in places dry from parched barrenness the wearied people, fasting, had touched no sustenance for their food, and, languishing, nourished the ailment to be roused by doubled toils from want of food, if the exhausted people should bear, on their steps returning along the path, the long burden of scarcity impending over them. Moved by which pity, the Almighty, who is ever the generous bread of the needy, when he grants food, when barren fruits were denied by necessity, with very few and small fishes, and seven loaves broken up, satisfied four thousand men, besides an immense throng of women, and a swarm of little ones to be likened to bees. And, that you may marvel yet more at another thing, the food was increased even as it was devoured, and the meals, nourished by the biting, produced fruitful losses at the tables. Fleeing hunger feared its own leftovers, gathered into the heaps of seven baskets, where it saw, from the abundance of so great a fragment collected, a manifold harvest overflowing from a small seed.

However, though Christ seemed, from the occasion of his maternal generation, to bear the limbs of a human body, yet it could not be hidden that he was God, because neither is a city established on the head of a mountain hidden, nor is a burning lamp placed under a bushel in a hollow, but, its substance of living flame raised higher, it administers light to all. For with three disciples of his own, Light works upon all: for radiant to the witnesses with ample

brilliance, three disciples, like a fiery glow

of the sun, turned into an ethereal form of splendor,

he had conquered the day with his face, and, to those beholding it,

the white form of snow shone from the covering of the Lord's garment.

O sublime merit of the three, to whom it fell

to see in the world those things which are not believed by the world!

What of the fact that they also saw Elijah and glorious Moses?

Unknown to their eyes, they saw them by the light of the heart,

so that our faith might be the greater, that he is throughout this world

the Beginning and the End, that he is seen as the Alpha, he as the Omega,

he whom, standing in the middle, such prophets surrounded with light,

the one still living, the other standing on the threshold of life.

witnesses, led away to the height of the mountain, transfigured, he showed the likeness of his glory, and shone like a fiery glow from the sun, imitating the whiteness of snow in his garments. But why the most wise Evangelist compared the most brilliant splendor of the divine majesty, which no gaze can behold, to the visible forms of the sun and of snow, a clearer reason will teach. For nothing indeed in this world is clearer than the sun, whiter than snow, and for this reason that likeness of the highest divinity was thought fit to be applied, than which nothing further is granted to mortal eyes to perceive. For to such a degree did that surpassing brightness of the Lord exceed both the sun and the snows, that it is easy for anyone's gaze to look upon the sun and the snows; but when the apostles were unable to behold Christ shining with the brightness of his own light, they fell to the ground with their faces prone. O great height of sublime merits, to whom it was given to know in the world these things, which the world did not deserve to perceive! What of the fact that they likewise recognized Elijah and Moses, unknown to bodily sight, by their inner eyes, so that the truth of a greater faith, becoming known, might show him to be Alpha and Omega, that is, the beginning and the end? To whom such prophets are seen to have come together, of whom the one still enjoys vigorous old age, while no course of human lot exceeds the final goal of the other's light; and by the discourse of a starry voice, saying, "This is my Son,"

the Father's voice showed by word that Christ was begotten.

After the power, having returned through his bodily limbs,

covered the adored form of flesh with its veil,

and the Lord showed himself openly to the peoples, behold, suddenly

a humble man, his eyes cast down in sorrowful countenance,

comes forward, and stretches out suppliant hands and arms,

and, groaning, implores: "I have one son, only one,

Lord: whom a spirit tears with dreadful rage,

nor leaves him, unless it plunge him in waters, or oppress him

with dark fires, and wear out his soul under uncertain death.

This one, I beg, having pity, expel both frenzies,

and give him back to me, or give him back to himself, lest blind power

snatch away his trembling life, its light withdrawn."

He had spoken, and, embracing his knees, and rolling at his knees,

he clung there, and the Lord, now with pious heart, to his prayers

by a heavenly oracle prolonged, when he says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," taught by word that Christ was begotten of the Father's voice. But after the Lord resumed his bodily appearance, and again covered his ethereal form with the veil of flesh, and showed himself openly to the peoples, a certain humble man suddenly, bending his knees, cast down with grief, prayed, beseeching thus: "One only son remains to me, Lord, if he is to be called remaining, suspended on the border of death and life, whom an unclean spirit vehemently assails, and, tearing him, strives either to burn him with flames, or often to quench him in troublesome waters, and, worn out with many dangers, contrives his final end.

This one, I pray, his mind's madness driven away, restore to me, or to himself, lest the power hostile to light, and blind, take away his despaired-of life from wretched me." These things he still poured out with tears and groaning, and the Lord, now with pious heart, was healing the boy.

He had granted it; then the raging robber, the harmful enemy,

by whom the fabric of another's right had long been possessed,

forced to depart from the invaded house, is roused

to kindled wrath, and strives to tear the seized limbs,

and in vain, the Lord forbidding, laboring,

he flees into dark shadows, the boy living on.

The King even of kings alone, and Lord of lords,

did not disdain, while Peter was fishing, to pay

the tribute of Caesar; from the midst of the sea's depth

he bids a hook be brought, bearer of a golden didrachma.

Soon the dweller of the deep bit the hanging thread,

bringing the bidden tribute, and, heavier for the burdening metal,

the cheap honor of the fish weighed out at a greater price.

When his disciples asked him, who could be held greater

in the halls of the heavenly kingdom? As God, and marvelous teacher, he says, He who is humble is loftier than all, and shall go forth more powerful than all, who shall be subject to all, and shall bear himself as lesser, with bowed neck, even as this little one appears; and he shows a small child standing there.

Then the raging and turbulent robber, who had long harassed the fabric of another's right ill-handled, being about to remove to the dwelling of the perverse house, was goaded into kindled wrath, and, seizing the limbs, being unable to tear them apart, since the Lord forbade it, flew off into the lower regions, the boy remaining unharmed.

The King also, who alone is King of kings, and is proved to be Lord of lords, not disdaining to pay the tribute of Caesar, bids Peter, fishing amid the sea's waves, to rise up swimming, as the bearer of a gold didrachma. Then the swifter, quick dweller of the waves swallowed the trembling snares of the deceiving hook, hung by the lashing rod from its native waters, and the most worthless fish, bearing a rich payment, was worth more in the honor of another's weight than of its own. How much, nonetheless, by this deed did Christ wish us to be imitators of his teaching, who, though he could have refused the unworthy imposition of this exaction (inasmuch as he had nothing in common with the common people, except that he might aid all with saving benefits), preferred to pay an unnecessary due rather than to deny anything to any petitioner, so that, as the founder and teacher of justice, who said: Give to everyone who asks, he himself, first, might fulfill the precepts of his own law.

And when, as was their custom, the apostles simply asked which of them could be reckoned greater in the kingdom of heaven, as God and wondrous teacher he answered that the humble is superior to all, and that he excels all who has made himself the least of all, like a little child, whom, for the sake of a spiritual example, he held standing in the midst—that is, of tender age.

Namely, let us follow the disposition of the tender age, not in years but in mind, he bids, because the softer age loves nothing of mortal pomp, does not court honor, nor swells with pride; so the path of pure life, the more it lies low upon the ground, the nearer it becomes to heaven: for the mind that bends downward seeks the heights, and what is high bends down, and the lower step, by which it wishes to descend, rises.

Behold, the Lord lifts the humble needy one from the dung, and makes him sit among illustrious rulers: but on the other hand, the swollen rebel, resisting with a combative mind, he has bidden to go headlong from heaven down to the depths of Tartarus.

I speak of small things, if I should run through each of God's deeds, and unfold as particular a good that is in fact general.

Now again, having crossed the placid sands of the Jordan,

following the road of Judea, mingling with the nameless

crowd, and relieving countless bands from ruin,

he receives the sick, and lets the healed depart.

Nothing, therefore, is ever hard for those who hope in the highest

God concerning themselves, for whom it is easy

to level the steep, and turn the crooked into straight;

for whatever nature denies, he grants, being judge of himself.

For just as a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle

because of the bulk of its limbs, so the rich man, swollen

with rich abundance, cannot enter the narrow path

that leads to the threshold of the heavenly kingdom,

unless the Begetter of all things (who restrains the world by law,

and abides under no law, for whom to will is to create,

whom no face beholds, but who himself beholds all)—

Now again, crossing the streams of the Jordan,

passing by the path of Judea, he cured everywhere the immense crowd, and countless bands from every variety of illness without exception, receiving the sick, and granting the healed to return. Nothing, therefore, is difficult for the Lord to grant to those who hope in the Highest concerning themselves, for whom the power is ready at hand to level the steep, to straighten the crooked—that is, to bring down the proud to lowlier things, to show the path to those who err. For Isaiah, the magnificent prophet, is known to have spoken thus when he announced the coming of Christ: "And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain." Did he prophesy about rocks, or thorns, or the bent windings of roads, when Christ came to save the world, established not for forests and mountains, but for human peoples? This is also that saying, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness," which admonishes to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his paths—namely, the way of understanding and the paths of the will, by which the Lord walks with a direct approach into the dwelling of the heart of the world. For thoughts and wills are the ways of works, which seem to precede a good or evil effect in anyone. Whatever, then, will naturally denies is most easily subject to divine power. For just as the immense beast, the camel, cannot pass through the small eye of a needle because of the bulk of so great a body, so the wealthy and swollen rich man cannot enter through the narrow gate of the slender path into the heavenly kingdoms, unless the provident governor of all things, who holds everything by law, and yet is not himself bound under law, whom no countenance ever beholds, but who himself always beholds all things, moved by this condition, cherished his troubled disciples with such words of consolation: "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible"—for it is not to all the rich that

This is impossible for man, he would have said, but to the high

God all right is possible; and he would at length make the wealth

troublesome to many rich men grow gentle.

For he well manages his own riches, and wishes his treasures

to be stored up in heaven, where whatever is kept,

no gnawing rust devours, no moth furrows,

nor does gold, ill-buried, serve as prey to thieves—

whoever gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty,

shelter to strangers, clothing to the naked,

comforts those bound in prison, cherishes the sick,

and, generous to others, is needy only to himself.

Nor doubtfully does that substance reach heaven,

which, given to Christ under a poor form,

takes increase from losses, is scattered so that it may exist,

perishes so that it may remain, and, though dead, bestows life.

Moreover, the Lord, while passing along a certain road,

with a crowd accompanying him, sees two blind men sitting,

begging for the gift of extinguished sight,

filling the wandering air with tearful voices.

Nor does his wonted mercy delay to bring salvation,

which perceives faith burning, at once touching their eyes

the patrimony of his own estate is a burden, but rather to him who is a bad steward of his own abundance. For when the Lord says through the prophet: "Gold and silver are mine," he shows that what is his is not evil, if a good workman possesses it; for it makes no difference whether one spends nothing on good works, or pours out very much on wicked ones. He indeed keeps his riches safe and stores them well, who hides and lays up treasures in heaven, where no bite of the devouring moth nor of scaly rust consumes anything, nor is an entrance opened for thieves to dig through and steal—he who ministers food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to strangers, who comforts the sorrowful in prison, tends the sick in body, and, most generous to all, is poor and needy only to himself.

Nor should anyone doubt that that substance reaches all the way to heaven, which is proved to have been spent on Christ under the most humble form of a poor man, which is increased by losses, is preserved by being scattered, perishes so that it may remain, and represents life out of death. Meanwhile, as the Lord, hedged about by the accompanying people, went out from Jericho, he sees two men deprived of sight sitting on the roadside embankment, asking that their sight be restored to them. Thus they were asking, trusting to sit again with the mobility of gait. But the hostile darkness resists, nor did that power delay even a little, denying nothing to piety, which is accustomed to bring salvation wherever it perceives faith burning.

He bids them awaken, whom a great sleep had oppressed,

and, opening the long-closed windows beneath their brow,

with day coming in, he made the night depart.

Thence, walking again through the walls of the sacred temple,

he gave sight to the blind, and steps to the lame.

Such deeds he had left behind him after leaving David's city,

seeking the neighborhood of Bethany: and returning to the same,

as day grew bright, he hastened to visit its dwellings.

But behold, standing lofty in the midst of the fields,

there was a leafy fig tree, in whose trunk none

Did the hungry one find, having searched the trunk, any fruit.

And to its leafy branches, "Now henceforth from your bud

No fruit, he says, shall be produced from you remaining henceforth for

ever.

Straightway the fig tree, bereft of its own juices,

Withered, and remained dead with dry branches.

For everyone who nourishes nothing fruitful for God,

Like a barren trunk, shall be made equal to burnt wood.

But the just man, like a pleasant palm, shall flourish,

Ever having leaves, and like the cedar of Lebanon,

He is present to be multiplied, and touches the stars with his crown.

After being brought to him he felt the master's power,

The madman lacking speech, whom a hidden force of evil

Was choking, gripping him in narrow jaws, and by keeping silent the fault

To give, eyes long pressed shut by sleep, he suddenly rouses with a vigilant touch, and unbarring the hidden shutters of the windows beneath the brow, with day at once entering, he drove away the dark night.

From here, wandering again through the sacred walls of the temple, he gave sight to the blind, restored gait to the lame. After these renowned monuments of virtues, leaving the city of David, he had come to the region of Bethany, and returning the following day, he was making his way again toward the buildings of that city. A fig tree not far from the path, shady with the interwoven covering of its leaves, in whose trunk, when the Lord, being humanly hungry, had found no fruit at all, does not wound the inhuman branches of the tree with a curse, but condemns them with a command, rebuking it thus: Never shall fruit be born in you forever. And immediately the fig tree, its juices withdrawn and bereft, at once unfruitful, and its leafy dignity stripped away, withered utterly. Yet let us not take this according to the letter, although it is manifestly believed to have been fulfilled, since it is fitting that the divine law be understood by spiritual causes. For how had matter without sense sinned? Especially since, as Mark the Evangelist records, it did not bear fruit by reason of an untimely season; unless the Lord did this for the instruction of our benefit, who by parables of deeds and words shows us the path of life. Therefore all the industry of human conduct, which strives to nourish nothing pleasing to God, like a lazy, useless tree of a stock, full of leaf, not of fruit, shall be made equal to wood to be burned, just as also that unfruitful fig tree standing there, which the Lord of the vineyard, who had planted it, commanding it to be cut down, allowed a reprieve of one year, so that if it should yield fruit even late, it might remain, otherwise it would deservedly perish; but rather, according to the song of the psalm which says: The just man shall flourish like the palm tree, and shall be multiplied like the cedar that is in Lebanon.

Then there was brought to him a certain man afflicted with the trouble of madness, also lying under the loss of speech, whose condition his silence had already betrayed. But the Creator, accustomed to relieve all infirmities, drove the robber from the besieged throat,

And opened a way for the voice, and with the bond loosed,

The tongue, long mute, poured forth silent speech.

Afterward the Lord, seeking the Pharisee's supper feast,

Shared himself with the dishes of his praying friend.

Then a woman, whom notorious fame, and very many

Sins of her life were biting, in suppliant mercy

Fell down embracing his footsteps, and bathes them,

Bending over, with flowing tears, and with loosened hair

Does not cease to wipe, nor to lick his sacred feet,

Warming them with fragrant ointment, until the joyful

Sentence of God, whom it never regrets to give his hand,

If we should regret having sought our old ruin,

"Go, woman, your faith has saved you from all,"

He had said, whatever evil you seem to have done:

With the passages of the throat closed, no voice sounded from the cymbals of the lips, and announcing nothing at all with his mouth, by his silence he made public his mute madness. But that starry Creator, accustomed to strengthen the weak, shaking off the imminent siege of the robbers' panting breaths from the throat, through the open pathways of the voice restored the loosed bonds of the tongue to full and speaking freedom of exchange. Moreover, while the Lord was exalting by his own humility the banquet of a certain Pharisee who had invited him, there came, hastening in her entrance, a sinful and notorious woman, who, wounded by the many wounds of her sins, led an obscene life.

Then, falling prostrate at his feet, she did not cease to wash them with weeping, nor to wipe them with her hair, nor to bathe them with precious ointment while kissing his feet, until the sentence of God was pronounced—he who does not regret giving his hand to the falling, if we should but regret the slipperiness of our ancient ruin—he relaxed forgiveness with such words, saying: "Your faith has made you whole: go in peace." O how greatly it helps the wretched and weak to uncover by confession that which, hidden, becomes deadly! For he nourishes his own wounds who conceals them, and, uncertain amid the sting of pain, neglects to bare the wound to the physician.

Use my peace. Great is the medicine of confessing

What harms by being hidden; for he nourishes his wounds

Who conceals them, and trembles to bare the wound to the healer.

Behold, she who had long been defiled, departed a little cleansed

By her groaning, and washing in the flood of her own weeping,

Returns clean by her tears, and wiped by her hair.

And now he had entered the synagogue of the city of Capernaum,

Duly teaching the peoples, whom when the wicked one,

Hidden beneath a human heart, had seen, with insolent cry

The spirit roared, saying, "What have we to do with you?

Have you come to destroy us, alas, O Christ? I know, indeed, who you are,"

"And I recognize the Holy One of God"; nor did he say more,

Terrified by the command, he is silent, and leaves the man,

Driven out, and fleeing vanishes into empty air.

Thus also he made an end of various infirmities,

And always compelled the expelled demons to keep silence,

And forbids that such a witness declare himself.

For of old that fierce serpent, lover of black death,

Cast down from the height of heaven

With his pomps, and his companions, and all his wicked

Army of soldiery, beholds Christ, whom he had known there,

On earth, covered with the veil of flesh,

And groans that the Lord of power is friendly to man.

And while, having passed through the region of Tyre, again toward Sidon

Behold now a woman, defiled by the contagion of a long-standing illness, is cleansed by the affliction of a small groan, and is washed in the flood of her own weeping, and, drenched with tears, wiped with her hair, departs clean, who had come defiled. When the Lord had also come to the city named Capernaum, in which he taught very many peoples in the assembly of the heavenly synagogue, suddenly, through the ministry of a human voice, that most wicked devil roared out into such a cry: "What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." And soon, terrified and cast down by the Lord speaking threateningly: "Be silent, and depart from the man, unclean spirit," roaring with a great bellow, by which he confessed himself scourged by the divine command, he left the human breast, fleeing into the air, not to be seen in the darkness.

Likewise the Lord brought saving help to many who were sick with various languors and were afflicted by the calamity of diverse ills, and by the word of his power he shut out many demons, not allowing them to speak at all, disdaining that the faith in his heavenly majesty should have so common a witness; for indeed that ancient serpent of Tartarus, the destroyer of life, the inventor of death, together with all the madness of his companionly pomp, and with all the foul retinue of his condemned soldiery, cast down from his heavenly summit, was astonished to see on earth, clothed in the lowliness of flesh, the Christ whom he had known as starry in that citadel, and, envious, groaned all the more because he perceived that man was so beloved by the Lord of power.

And while thereafter, passing by the regions of Tyre, the Lord walked along the Sidonian shore, he healed a certain most wretched man who was brought to him, afflicted by a twofold calamity, who, deprived of the offices of voice and of hearing, could neither give his own words nor receive those of others. But by the touch of the heavenly hand all the inner passages, which the violence of a swift disease had closed, were broken open; suddenly the doors, forced, stood open, and, the guards of his veins at once relaxed, he who just now had seemed mute and deaf both merited to speak himself and heard others speaking.

You also felt the gift of the Lord's power, falling upon your eyes, into which Christ spat, and removed the appearance of a feigned death. Hence, teaching the peoples greater heavenly things, he reveals himself in speech to be truly God, and the crowded throngs, which had pressed in too much, wishing to avoid for a little while, he seeks the pools, and sitting in Simon's small skiff, he was strengthening from the water the people standing on the shore. And already there was an end to his words; then he bids the boat, driven farther out, to go into the sea, and the fishing nets to be let down into the vast deep, which through the whole night had been able to enclose nothing, their labor being empty.

could receive words. But at the touch of the heavenly hand all the inner passages, which the violence of a swift disease had closed, were broken open; suddenly the doors, forced, stood open, and, the guards of his veins at once relaxed, he who just now had seemed mute and deaf both merited to speak himself and heard others speaking.

You also felt the gifts of the Lord's power, into whose eyes, pressed shut by infernal blindness, when Christ spat, he at once wiped away the appearance of a feigned death. And when, teaching the people to hold the pledges of eternal life through sacred institutions, he was revealing himself more plainly as God, avoiding for a little while the crowds pouring in headlong, he came to the pool of the sea's gulf, and sitting in Simon's small skiff, he was instructing the people remaining on the shore with divine oracles. At length, finishing his words—never abundant enough for the desires—he bids, as the little boat went farther out, the fishing nets be let down into the sea, which, through the whole circuit of the night having elapsed, had been able to draw nothing from the deep, their work being frustrated. Simon obeys the sacred command, rejoicing, and, taught to enclose the wave-wandering multitudes with the line, Simon obeys, exulting, and pressing upon the watery peoples,

casts the linen barriers, and so vast a catch filled the opened bosoms of the net, that the overflowing prey disturbed both boats, laden with heaped fish: for a companion vessel was there also. So we often cannot bear the greatest joys, and we fear the very things we had eagerly wished for; and what is easy for God, men do not even dare to hope for.

Distinguished by such powers, he went into the city

which is called Naim, hedged about by an abundant people,

and by a flock of disciples, when lo, close at hand,

he sees a wretched youth being carried forth, a cold corpse,

undergoing the sad service of many funeral rites and an empty burial,

whose envious lot had already widowed his widowed mother

with a twofold urn of loss.

Nor did his pity, the enemy of grief, delay long,

but brought living help, and, the bier having been touched,

he says, Arise, O youth; and at once, at the word spoken,

the dead man rose up, and, sitting up and speaking, came back to life,

and departed as his mother's companion: for though numbed by death,

and though he had suffered the crisis of a lost life,

the servant could not, with the Lord calling, be silent,

nor, with life present, could he die. Soon the throng turned back,

captures the peoples of the watery deep, encircled by a wall-like protection, and so great a multitude of fish heaped up the extended bosoms of the net, that both Simon's boat and the companion vessel standing by, overwhelmed by the scaly masses, were scarcely rescued from peril. So too the unexpected happiness of a very great success frequently disturbs us, and the joy which we receive as wished-for, if it exceeds measure and proportion, we already fear as an unbearable burden; and what is granted by a ready divinity, men are afraid to hope for.

Distinguished, and renowned by such powers, the Lord, accompanied by disciples and hedged about by crowds, was hastening to enter the city which is called Naim, when suddenly he sees a youth's corpse being carried out, exalted with the sad service of empty funeral rites, whose mother an envious lot had once widowed of her husband, and now, by a second misery of a twofold urn, widowed of her son as well; and pity, the enemy of grief, delaying nothing, at once lent living help, and, the bier having been touched by the hand of redemption, the Lord said to the dead man, Young man, I say to you, arise. And he who was dead sat up, and began to speak, and he gave him to his mother. For although the youth, deprived of light, had been overwhelmed in body by sluggish death, and though the extinguished corpse was being carried forth, yet the servant could not be silent when the Lord called him, nor could his spirit fail to return, with life present. So then the whole

company, laying aside its trembling grief along the returning path,

brought back the happy parent with a bright procession.

Nor was your salvation small, O Mary, when the Lord healed you,

he cured a sense wounded by manifold hurt,

which a fierce madness had invaded with sevenfold weapons,

massed in a demonic band; but the scaly serpent,

fleeing the commanding miracles of the sacred word,

driven out, departed from your heart, and, gliding through the swift air

into the inner darkness of infernal Gehenna,

drew after him seven great circles, seven coils.

And lest the Lord should allow the overflowing harvest, with its heaped grain,

to languish for want of laborers,

he also sent forth other disciples, whose mind, conscious of what is right,

and pure simplicity, shining in number and in merit,

was a golden balance, and bade them go, like lambs,

among bloody wolves, saying:

Take up the rights of power, so that you may fear no enemy;

the threats of vipers and of scorpions, and of the enemy's

the company, its face made serene, and, turning its steps back onto the returning path with sorrow laid aside, brought the mother back rejoicing to her own home with a bright procession. Nor was your salvation small, Mary, granted by the Lord's healing; he cured the hidden wound of your breast, afflicted by many blows, which a sevenfold madness, massed in a demonic band, possessed with sevenfold assaults of arms. But the scaly serpent of speckled error, fleeing the dread commands of the Almighty, driven out from your heart, sought the chaos of infernal Tartarus, twisting the coils of seven members, and vanishing in seven windings.

Then, lest the most abundant seed of the rich harvest should languish for want of the labor of a scanty number of cultivators, he also bids another seventy-two disciples, simple in mind, shining in purity, who, conspicuous in number and merit, were worthy to be called a golden balance, go, like innocent and gentle lambs, among the harsh minds of men as if among wolves, urging them with such words, and saying: Go, behold, I send you as lambs among wolves. And again, when they had returned rejoicing, that even the demons were subject to them, he said, admonishing them thus: Behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing

shall harm you; tread down all things by the sense of faithful power.

No hostile fierceness shall harm my servants.

Nor rejoice so much in this, men, that the dark spirit

lies subject to you, as that your names

have been written by the heavenly letter in the eternal book.

For it is indeed God's right to set life before deeds.

For when the merit of goodness is lacking, miracles are nothing,

which the wicked often do, to whom the Judge of the world

will say, I know you not; depart, all of you

craftsmen of crimes, who by your ever wicked deeds

have counterfeited the divine work. So too in the time of Moses,

a certain man in the land of Memphis, by vain incantations,

They gave signs not by God's own will, but by a false semblance

they lent magical shapes to human sight.

Afterward he enters the house of a certain ruler of the Pharisees

to bring it glory, not merely to take food,

to which he had then come at his easy invitation.

Here a man was swollen, his belly stretched visibly,

full of water, and his heavy skin had suspended a womb

enclosed, about to bring forth death; already his limbs were flowing,

his hollow increasing, and, infused through his wretched joints,

a swollen wasting, blown through, had thinned the sick man,

they will not harm you. Nevertheless do not rejoice that spirits are subject to you. Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. For this is the rule of divine judgment, to prefer life to deeds, not to set deeds before life. For if the merit of a holy institution should cease, miracles have nothing of weight, since they are proven and are frequently displayed even by the malicious, to whom he, the witness of secrets, and judge of deeds, and the requiter of words, foretold in the sayings of the evangelist, I know you not, depart from me, all you who work iniquity. Such were, once under the tyranny of Egyptian Pharaoh, two artificers of wicked partnership, who, trusting in Memphitic vanities, strove to rival the heavenly miracles of Moses, and with magnificent tricks set forth before human eyes images and shapes fashioned of mists.

Meanwhile, coming, having been entreated to a banquet by a certain ruler of the Pharisees, hastening not so much for the sake of eating as to bring glory to his house, he saw a man distended with a false swelling of bulk, whose belly, with water overflowing, was thought to be a transparent wineskin, not a womb, and whose monstrous, pregnant skin was bringing to birth an enclosed death, and whose immoderate hollow was increased by the wasting away of his failing limbs. Thus the wasting, wherever the space of the womb had gathered, was entirely dropsy.

The Father of the world did not endure this sight, and passes over

his own Sabbaths, caring nothing for them, ready to heal

the man whom he wished rather to be his own: for the Sabbath

was established for man's sake, man was not made for the Sabbath's sake.

Then the merciful one commanded the moist plague of the body,

its water dried up, to depart: at once the flowing disease

leaves the inward parts, and the emptied fibers settle in the breast,

and the watery pestilence left the fleshly pool.

Meanwhile the Lord, passing through the fields of Galilee,

began to touch with his holy foot a certain town.

When from afar ten men bearing spotted portents,

leprous, saw him, whom a discoloring punishment

troubled in foul body with unseemly shapes,

"Master, have mercy, for you can do all things, Jesus,"

crying out they said together: then power, bent low,

which is never lacking in pity, more gently speaks:

"Go, bring back your faces before the sight of the priests."

And as they sought the way, suddenly, cleansed in turn,

the men marvel at their own limbs, and beholding

that there is nothing varied, each looks upon himself, and all

examine their own forms by another's light.

Of whom, that he might give thanks for so great a gift,

scarcely one, turned back on the returning path, prostrate

is laid low upon the earth, adoring the Lord of power,

and he presented his face to the true priest.

In fine, who is the prince of priests, and the high priest,

if not Christ? The author of the twofold offering,

after the order of Melchisedek, to whom are always given the gifts

which are his own, the fruits of the grainfield, and the joys of the vine.

When the blind son of Timaeus, sitting there

beside the road by which he had learned the Lord was passing,

had sought the light with frequent shouting cries,

and, though the people forbade him, not falling silent, was bidden to approach

the Lord with groping hand, and received his sight,

and returned with no one leading him. How strongly does

importunate faith press on! Whatever a hard matter has denied,

frequent prayer alone, with honest petitions, obtains.

So he sought the friendly bread of one mind,

who, with the doors closed, through the dark silences of the night,

striving hard and long, and confidently, from one who refused,

wrested it by ceaseless voices and by panting prayers.

And as the Lord, passing along the way, came to the places of the Samaritan woman,

about to be so, returning with grateful haste, he prostrated himself before the Lord upon his face. Great was the man's faith, and great his prudence, who under the working of one single quality fulfilled a twofold act of devotion: faith, in that he believed himself cleansed for this reason, because he asked; prudence, in that, though bidden to show himself to the priests, he chose rather to worship Jesus. For who, if not the Lord Christ, is priest of priests, high priest of high priests, author and founder of the twofold offering, whose gifts, according to the order of Melchisedek, which he offered for us when crucified, are offered by the kinship of his own body—the sweet food of the wheaten seed, and the pleasant drink of the lovely vine?

When the son of Timaeus sat beside the road, deprived of light, by which he had learned Christ was passing, and, crying out frequently with a shout, and not falling silent though the crowds forbade him, demanded more and more that the abundance of clear sight be granted to him, being bidden to come to Christ, he went forward led by another's hand, and, having obtained what he wished, returned supported by no guide. O the power of unbroken confidence, how violently you obtain what you desire, and, gathered by assiduous prayers from the heart, you exact as a debt that for which you ask—thus do you deserve it!

For whatever a harder matter, according to its difficulty, has refused, frequent prayer alone, with simple and honest petitions, obtains for the suppliant—not because anything is difficult for God, but because the greatness of the cause makes it seem humanly hopeless, just as that man in the silence of night, who, asking bread of a friend who long refused him, could not deserve by right of friendship what he justly wrested by the help of importunity. The Lord too, passing by the places of Samaria, having

gathered a human thirst under the burning heat,

and the ever-flowing fountain of water desires a modest draught,

that he might drink, in that part by which he was a body; then a woman,

a dweller of that people, standing, who had drawn a small draught

from the well, when she hesitates to give the gift of perishing water,

recognizing his own life in her many-husbanded state,

prays that the gifts of the unfailing stream be granted to her,

to set at rest an eternal thirst, of which no one shall be

worthy to be without, unless plunged in the flood of the Lord Christ,

he may receive the calm waters of the soul, not of the body.

And while sitting in the midst of the vault of his own temple,

thundering with his ancestral voice, turning back to the open path

the erring people by friendly warnings,

behold, she was being dragged, with a great crowd pressing about,

a woman to be stoned for the guilt of foul adultery,

whom the Pharisaic band, setting before a mild judge,

when they prepare to condemn, rather set free: for of all those

from the crowd there was not one without his own crime,

who would be the first to take up the cast stone,

striking the contagion of the foul adulteress.

Nor could anyone pluck out the tiny splinter

from another's eye, who knew that in his own sight

there was a great beam. Thus that onrush withdrew

in flight, and a merciful sentence forgives the fault,

had gathered the burning of human thirst in the heat of the day, and the fountain, ever open and ever flowing with everlasting water, desired a small draught, by which he bore the substance of his body to be drunk. Here a woman native to that region, who was drawing water from a deep well, hesitates to grant the gift of a little water, recognizing by a prophetic voice the life of her sin from her many, or another's, husband; she begs that the Lord grant her immortal streams, by whose never-failing substance the thirst that must be abolished should fail, not knowing at all, nor understanding, that no one shall obtain so great a gift, except he who, plunged in the flood of Jesus Christ, shall be satisfied in soul, not in body, by spiritual waters.

And while this Saviour, thundering with his mouth, was seated within the walls of the sacred temple, taking pity on the wandering people, and turning them to the right path by the kindly counsel of life, behold there was led forth, dragged from the assembly of a great multitude, an adulteress, headlong and disfigured, to be overwhelmed with the casting of stones according to the ordinance of lawful custom. Her the savage fury of her accusers thrust before the pious judge, desiring to condemn her, yet he set her free. For when a condition was proposed, that he should be the author of the sin's punishment who himself had no sin, no one was found pure by his own judgment to strike the impure woman. For no one dared to pluck the splinter from another's eye, when he knew a beam remained in his own. Soon therefore the whole fire of swift accusation was quenched by the impurity of conscience, and every accuser was silently found guilty by confession. Then the merciful sentence of the Lord absolved her, no longer released under the condition of not sinning.

For whoever licks again with his mouth, dog-like, his own vomit,

this man strives to have neither the old pardon nor a future one,

holding to this one's losses, losing this one's gains.

Thence passing on, he sees a man born blind sitting,

who, having slipped from the womb of his ill-conceiving mother,

rushed into the light without light. Then that founder

of human blood, and origin of the rising world,

not enduring that the parts of his own work be held long imperfect,

smearing native clay through the barriers of the cheeks,

supplies the man from the old seed.

Yet he does not receive sight before, at the word of the commanding

Lord, he had come to the water of Siloam,

and, warmed by the remedy of kindred mud,

had bathed his eyes with pure water; then at once the twin

gazes shone forth from his face, and at last they deserved

to behold the unknown day. Know, all of you,

what the mystic miracles teach our souls.

the fire of the accusation was quenched by the impurity of conscience, and every accuser was silently found guilty of confession. Then the merciful and gentle sentence of the Lord, not judging the adulteress of manifest crime, absolved her; and pitying, did not punish her, she who would surely return to punishment, if she should return to guilt. For whoever, in the manner of a dog, seeks again and licks up the filth which he has vomited out, strives to have neither the old pardon nor a future one, losing the gains which he vainly acquired, and suffering the losses of that which he did not merit to attain.

The Lord also, departing from that region, beheld a man blind from birth, who, having slipped from the womb of his wretched mother, more wretched still, came into the light without light. Then that sower of the human beginning, and founder and perfecter of the world, not suffering the fabric of his own countenance to remain less than complete, since the material for seeing was lacking, smeared clay—that is, the natural instrument—into the enclosures of the cheeks, and the good craftsman supplied from the old mortar what he had seen to be lacking in the man. Yet he did not receive sight before, admonished by the Lord's commands, he had come to the healthful water of Siloam, and, made safe by the remedy of the kindred mud already applied, had washed his eyes with the water poured upon them. So at once from his healed face the twin gazes shone forth at last, worthy to behold the day which they had utterly not known before. All, therefore, reading these things spiritually, ought to observe what the mystic miracles of this deed teach. For we are the blind offspring created from the begettings of wretched Eve, through the darkness of our native

We are the blind offspring of wretched Eve's begetting,

bearing darknesses born of long error.

But God deigning to take on the mortal form

of human covering, there was made for us from the Virgin

a saving earth, which, washed in sacred fountains,

opens clear breathing-passages of the reborn light.

And returning to the soil of Bethany he had entered, and there

Lazarus lay entombed by his western lot,

now for the fourth day without light, and, enclosed by the marble

of the tomb, he breathed out a corrupted, decaying odor.

His sisters wept, the crowd present wept,

the Omnipotent wept too, but in body, not in deity,

and he grieved for the lifeless limbs in that part

by which he was to die, and filled with tears his friend,

he who as God possessed majesty. Why, Martha, do you delay to believe?

Or why, Mary, do you groan? Do you doubt whether Christ

can call back a single man from the infernal caverns,

he who will grant that countless throngs rise again after death?

of darkness, walking in long wanderings. But after God deigned to have the likeness of human flesh, there was given to us a saving earth from the Virgin, which, washed by the fountains of sacred baptism, opened the eyes of the reborn to brightness.

Then he had mercifully come to Bethany with his accustomed steps. There Lazarus, having met the end allotted to the human condition, lay under a sepulchral stone, already foul with the course of a fourth day's light. As the Lord came to his tomb, the gathered sisters wept with pious grief. The standing crowd wept, and the Omnipotent himself wept together with them, not in deity, but in body, grieving for the chill, lifeless limbs in that part by which he had been about to die. For he bestowed tears, as a friend; he showed forth the glory of his majesty, as God. Why still, Martha, do you not believe? And you, Mary, why do you groan, who in doubtful trembling hesitate over Christ, whether he can raise up a single man from the dead, he who will make the countless throngs of the whole world rise again in renewed life? Therefore, when the trumpet of the crying Lord sounded, saying:

"Lazarus, come forth," struck with great fear,

the realms of Tartarus burst asunder: the recesses of Erebus lay open,

the deadly chaos trembled, and the law of profound

death perished, and, the soul seeking again its own

marrow, a living corpse is seen standing before the eyes.

And after the sepulchral honor, as though recreated,

he himself stands, dying and yet posthumous, and heir to himself.

And that, despising the fleeting summits of the wandering world,

he might rightly show himself God, not by lofty chariots,

which is the honor of mortal pomp, nor by swift four-horse teams

did he furrow a dusty path, nor did he press the lofty

back of a snorting horse, adorned with trappings and purple,

shaking with blood-stained mouth the gold it champs.

But rather with the slow bearing of a lowly ass

was the honor sufficient for its rider, whose light hoof,

bearing so wondrous a glory beneath so great a rider,

was nobler under its burden, no less than that

which, though seeing Christ lying in an open manger

crying out, "Lazarus, come forth," suddenly with great

dread the realms of Tartarus lay open, shaken; the inmost place of hell

trembled, the deadly chaos was terrified, and the law

of death, by the profound departure, and the soul

poured back again into the members of its own body,

the safeguard of the tomb being broken, a living corpse

is seen standing: and after the due solemnities,

after the burial of the funeral was completed, as though

he had been born and created anew, he himself stood

dying to himself and posthumous, and departed a survivor.

And that the Lord, despising the fleeting things

of worldly ambition, might show himself the most exalted Lord rather by humility,

not carried on lofty chariots, which is shown to be

the honor of mortal pomp, borne with four-horse

speed, did he make his way with a furrow of dust-tracks,

nor did he press the lofty back of a snorting horse,

which, conspicuous with trappings and purple, shakes its restless

mouth, champing the foaming weight of bloodied gold:

but rather the slow bearing of a most lowly ass

was to the Lord an honor sufficient. Its hoof,

not glorious for great price, but by the merit of so great a rider,

shone nobler under its burden, not unlike that one, which, though it beheld Christ in a modest manger, yet knew him to be God.

Yet he knew him to be God. All the people, adoring,

laid down their soft garments on the solid path.

Tell me, ye Gentile peoples, to what king was such glory

ever given in the world? To whom did a meeting throng ever offer

palms and a veil of leafy boughs, with praise

in heavenly hymns? To none save the Lord Christ with the Father,

who rules the ethereal kingdom, a Prince within the Prince.

By whose grace the beast of burden shone, to whom, as he walked along the middle of the path, all the people laid down their garments. Tell now, all ye peoples, who till now have lain subject to Gentile errors, to whom has such glory ever been like, to one reigning? To whom has the full festivity of so great a crowd ever come with palms and boughs, chanting a song with heavenly hymns? None, save to the Lord Jesus Christ, who governs the starry empire together with the Father, Prince within the everlasting Prince.

Amid these riches of virtue, the day now nearest to the Passover

had begun to be, when the glory of the Lord willed

to lay down mortal flesh, and take up living flesh again,

not another, but that same flesh, which, filled with the gift

of light, raising it up from the lower world, he led to the stars.

And crying out openly: Father, from this very hour save

me: yet for this cause came I unto this hour;

glorify, he said, thy name. Most divinely and powerfully did he speak, who, when he asked that he himself be glorified,

marked also that the name of the Father was to be glorified. For God is the name that belongs to him,

which the Father and the Son possess alike in common majesty, undivided. And a great voice

resounding from heaven came through the clouds: I have glorified it,

and will glorify it again. What is more manifest, with the Father as witness, with heaven as affirmer? Yet not even so did the Jewish nation

wish to acknowledge Christ as God; some said

this was thunder: some, that an angelic voice had spoken.

O nation blind in eyes, O nation most hard in heart!

Neither could thunder, nor any angel,

have begotten Christ, its own author, who, upon hearing

the Father’s name, gave answer—but from the mouth of the Thunderer,

acknowledging his Son, so that the standing people might believe,

a voice was sent forth, consonant with his own word.

Then, celebrating the yearly gifts of the sacred supper,

the paschal feast according to custom, and making himself

a humble servant, and leaving to his own a pleasing example,

he rose, and willingly served his servants, and, girded

only with a linen cloth, he bowed to so great an honor,

washing of his own accord the feet of all his disciples,

nor did he except Judas, whom he knew

to be the author of wicked betrayal. But nothing to you of glory, cruel

The faithless Jewish nation, which had heard the weight of so great a truth, was in no way moved by signs so manifest to believe the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ as thereby approved. For some maintained that it had been the noise of thunder, others argued that an angel had spoken to him. O people truly blind, most hard of heart! Concerning whom Isaiah, prophesying, spoke thus: He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. For neither did thunder, nor an angel, a creature, beget its own author, Christ, to whom, crying confidently to the Father, that one should have answered as the Father—but from the mouth of God, specially of the Father, who truly knew the Son, an eloquent voice went forth, so that by this reasoning at least, the too incredulous crowd, though late, might be brought, compunct, to heavenly faith.

This, then, is the Father answering the Son, sounding consonant with his own voice, since Christ, begotten by the Word, is the Word of the Father, and by the like conjecture of utterance he revealed the Father in the Son, and revealed the Son in the Father.

Then, at the sacrament of the yearly banquet, when he was celebrating the paschal meal according to custom, so that he might teach that humility should rather be loved by his own example, he rose up, and girded himself with a linen cloth, and the Lord, as teacher to his disciples, bowed himself, washing the feet of his servants, and laid down so much of the summit of his power, that from the dignity of this service he did not even exclude Judas, whom he knew to be the author of nefarious betrayal. But nothing did this avail him of glory—Traitor, he granted him to stand with clean feet,

you who were polluted in mind, like every sepulcher

bearing outward the white veils of a fair form,

but full within of filth and foul carcass.

Nor did his guile escape the Lord, and the author

of the coming crime he betrayed, to whom he himself gave the bread,

who was himself, the bread, to be betrayed: for after he had consecrated

the two gifts of his body and blood,

and had given food and drink, whereby forever

faithful souls should neither hunger nor thirst without stain:

Straightway into Judas, where malice had its seat,

the foulest spirit entered, and taking up arms

against the Lord, roused him to rise in servile war,

having bargained for so great a crime at whatever price: nor is

guilt reckoned by the price, but crimes cleave to the deed.

As much wickedness, taking thirty coins

of silver, blinded by a small gift, did he commit,

as if he had seized all the kingdoms of the earth at once, and the riches

of the sea, and the whole sky with its wandering clouds,

he would have committed: for the goods of the world

would not suffice for the blood of great Christ once poured out,

who is the father of the world, who had also caused this man to be born.

And would that, condemned by a barren mother, he had not been able

you have done, accursed traitor, that you might seem clean in your footsteps, you who were defiled in your soul, like a sepulcher whitened outside, which within bristles, filled with the foul filth of corpses. Nor did his prepared guile escape the Lord, but he marked him out as the head of the coming crime, to whom, being bread himself, he gave the bread that was to be betrayed to death. Then was made manifest the saying of David, who says: He who ate my bread has magnified his heel against me. After the Lord Jesus Christ had consecrated the two gifts of life, his body and blood, and had reached out to his own disciples spiritual food and drink, whereby souls already faithful, satiated with heavenly banquets, might be unable to feel hunger or thirst.

Soon into the heart of Judas, the most wicked seat where malice had found a home, the monstrousness of the foul spirit entered, and, seizing accursed weapons against the Lord, roused the madness of servile war, having bargained for the great crime of this business at whatever price. For guilt does not remain in the price, but the crime grows strong in the deed. As much sacrilege, blind for thirty pieces of silver, did he commit by taking that small gift, as if he had gained at once all the kingdoms of the earth, and the riches of the sea, and the whole ethereal region with its wandering clouds, he would have perpetrated as much wickedness. For the goods of the whole world would not suffice to equal the feeling due to the day of Christ's Nativity, nor of this light

would he have drawn the calm airs with vital breath,

lying hidden in eternal torpor, and better for the wretch

would have been the lot of not knowing life given, than of losing it,

or, poured out ill upon the ground, straightaway

he would lose the gifts of light, like dust which the great wind

casts from the face of the earth, and, driven by swift flights,

is scattered darker than the mists into empty shadows.

Then, bloody, fierce, bold, mad, rebellious,

faithless, cruel, deceitful, venal, unjust,

merciless traitor, savage betrayer, impious robber,

do you march before as standard-bearer, companion of horrible swords?

And when you set in motion the sacrilegious line, threatening with swords and stakes,

do you press mouth to mouth, and mix poison with honey,

and betray the Lord under a fawning image?

Why do you feign to be a companion, and greet him with friendly deceit?

Does peace ever conspire with terrible swords,

or does the savage wolf offer fierce kisses to the gentle lamb?

to be compared with the blood once poured out, of him who is the father of the whole world, who also granted this wretched man to be born. And would that, condemned by the dry barrenness of his mother, he had not seen his natal day, nor beheld the pleasant things of ethereal light, remaining nothing in eternal torpor, and that lot would have been better for the wretch—not to know the life that was given, than to feel it taken away, or, as soon as he deserved to be created, to have deserved also to die, and to become an example of the chief psalm, so that thus he might utterly perish from the whole age like dust, which the wind drives from the face of the earth, and might, unhappy, have left no memory of his name. Then, therefore, bold, bloody, fierce, rebellious, then faithless, cruel, unjust, venal, and treacherous, then traitor, robber, savage betrayer, merciless, and impious, leading guide and standard-bearer, enemy, you accompany the dreadful line, which sacrilegious, violently armed with swords and clubs, when you threateningly set it in motion, you seal a covenant with lying kisses, and join honey to poisons, and flatter the Lord with cruel betrayal? Why do you falsely profess yourself a companion, and Betrayed then to wicked men, the holy Worker

did not withhold his accustomed help, and to the servant whose ear

had been torn off by Peter's sword, so that piety

might not lack from piety, restored it;

for vengeance was not fitting for the Thunderer in human wise,

who could ask the Father for twelve thousand

legions of angels more than twelve to be given him,

if he had preferred to take vengeance for his deserts,

rather than of his own will to forgive his wounds.

Then he commands the sword to be spared, because he himself had come

to lay down his life for all, not to take it from anyone.

For to Peter, who had already declared with clear voice

that he wished to die with the Lord, he said: Before the winged one,

the cock, shall crow, you will deny me thrice this night,

not reproaching his faith, but foretelling his fear.

Straightway he is led to the sad house of Caiaphas.

He at that time was indeed the chief of the priests,

and the chief of crimes, for with him sitting on this

pestilent seat, the council, roused by false witnesses,

burns, and now, now a thousand lies fly

against the Lord, forged from the vain embers of men,

you are grazed by the greeting of feigned friendship? Never does peace conspire into swords against the guilty, nor does a wolf offer savage kisses to a lamb. Therefore the holy worker, handed over to accursed men, did not withhold his accustomed help, but the ear of the servant which had been violently cut off, which Peter's sword had severed, he immediately restored and healed, lest at that moment the pious one should suspend himself from piety. For it was not fitting that human vengeance should support God, who could have asked that more than twelve legions of angels be sent to him by the defense of the Father, if he had preferred to exact punishment from the wicked rather than to release the injury of his own slaying. He therefore commands that the edge of the drawn sword be sheathed and kept safe, since he himself, evidently, had come to lay down his own soul for all, not to snatch anyone away.

For to Peter himself then, promising with a confident voice that he wished to die with the Lord, Jesus answered and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, that the cock will not crow today, until you deny me three times—not then accusing him of unfaithfulness, but revealing the fear of a coming terror. Soon he was led to the house of Caiaphas, who indeed at that time had been the chief of priests according to the rite of the Jewish religion, but since he sat in the seat of pestilence, and stood in the way of sinners, he seemed to hold the chief place among crimes. For the council had begun to be violently inflamed, and to be stirred up by false witnesses. A thousand lies flew against the Lord

And they perish by their own lightness, like a wandering fire

consuming dry stubble, whose slight material

snatches the utmost force of burning, and, its fury conquered,

the deformed glory of the feeble flame sinks down.

After no way opened for deceit, savage fury arms

arms to be raised against the innocent one: alas for me!

With what floods of tears am I hindered from recounting the raging

tumult—

that sacrilegious hands were set in motion? Did not, indeed, everywhere

the accursed rabble cease neither to strike his head with blows,

nor to beat him with the palms of their hands,

nor to spit upon his face.

Yet he, patient, with his body given over,

endured it all, and gave his own limbs for our salvation.

For through these blows our head is made healable,

these spittings washed our form through the Lord,

by these slaps the greatest liberty applauded for us.

But the elder, to whom the almighty author had foretold all

the things

that were to come, since it could not pass unfulfilled—

lies, dying away in the empty embers of the accusers, were revealing themselves not alive with the warmth of faith. Soon all things, spent by the movement of their own lightness, were exhausted, just as a raging fire running through the stubble of dry aridity, to which weak material does not supply the strength of burning to great heights, but the flame, turned at once into ash, loses its empty victory.

After no path smiled upon deceit, fraud, yielding to violence, turned into fury, and the impatient rabble armed itself to raise hands against the Lord. Alas for me! With how many showers of tears hindered, with how many stirrings of soul wounded, do I shudder to recount the sacrilegious hands raised against the Lord by the madness of the raging tumult! In short, the accursed rabble did not cease to strike his head with blows, nor to spatter his face with spittle, nor to beat him with blows of the palms. Yet he, enduring all things patiently, handed himself over for our salvation, and appointed his own body to torments for us. For through those blows we have the health of our head, those spittings are the washings of our faces; by these slaps we have obtained perpetual liberty.

But the elder, to whom the author of truth had foretold all things, and to whom it could not remain unfulfilled what Christ had signified would come to pass, having followed the footsteps of the Lord even into the house of the chief of priests unfulfilled—that which Christ said, that he himself was assuredly present

of his companions—once, and twice, and a third time denied him,

And the cock crowed; the decree of Christ was fulfilled,

And Peter's senses returned: mindful of his evils

he condemned the deed of his forgetfulness, and with groaning following,

guilt fled, sins yield to tears poured forth,

and you, bitter weepings, brought forth sweet pardon.

of the Lord's priests, because he too was of his disciples, was three times recognized, three times denied him, and the cock, the herald of day, crowed, and the oracle of the divine decree having been fulfilled, his former senses also returned to Peter, who, recalling the memory of his fault, chastised in himself the error of forgetfulness, and with continuous groaning following, sins flee, offenses depart, and the poured-out showers of tears bestowed sweet pardon through most bitter weeping. Instructed therefore by apostolic examples, we ought to recognize the force of penance, and its merit, striving after life-giving remedies, so that we may deserve to shut out the deadly diseases from the weariness of our souls. For if we shall have been wounded by the harmful poisons of thoughts, or by deed, or even by the contagions of shameful words, let us strive at once to flee to the most salutary medicine of penance, so that grieving from fault, we may not grieve from punishment; weeping from the wound, not weeping from death. Yet let us not prepare penance for future errors, but apply it to past offenses. For those who sin, trusting in future indulgence, hardly obtain the pardon they desire, which many promise themselves through presumed security, so that they might sin. For even David, the wondrous prophet, when he sought pardon for a past error, in order to obtain it more easily, signified of himself that he had sinned through ignorance, in such words: "Remember not, O God, the sins of my youth, and my ignorances." What then? Should whatever sins youthful age has committed be kept to be forgiven in old age? Far be it that they should so remain in us, that they grow old with us. But since divine clemency, in patient long-suffering,

And now the day was drawing near, sadder than the nocturnal shadow,

about to see a new crime, and, the darkness removed,

was disclosing to the peoples the crimes of the Jewish nation.

Soon therefore, when the Lord was led, bound in chains, to the walls of Pilate,

wicked Judas, when he saw it,

grew rigid, and rendering account of the exchange of his crime,

lest, the impunity of hope not being dulled by any of these things. But like servants long fugitive, let us at last, however late, return to our Lord, seeking pardon from him even in old age for the slipperiness of youth, although it is fitting that each one sinning should turn back at once, lest the first beginnings of the serpent's disease, like the roots of a bitter growth, sunk deeper by the negligent farmer's delay, should no longer be able to be uprooted by any labor. The same prophet, indeed, lest he should seem negligent regarding youthful sins, added that he prayed later concerning his ignorance, so that before the merciful Judge he might more easily deserve to have his error forgiven. So too the Apostle Peter did not intend to deny Christ, but fell into the lapse of forgetfulness simply and in ignorance. For he had promised with full devotion that he wished to die with the Lord, and could not bear to be seen as separated from his company under any peril whatsoever. For he had given beforehand, among other things, a magnificent example of his faith, that not even the terror of death could separate him from Christ, toward whom, hastening through the midst of the seas, he had once plunged headlong into the raging waves, deterred by no fear of nearby death.

Meanwhile the day, about to witness a new crime, sadder than the nocturnal shadows, dawned, which, the darkness of the shadows removed, disclosed to the common people the unspeakable counsels of the Hebrew assembly. Then Judas, the last serpent, and a homicide like the earlier one by poison (for as that one, life having been taken from Adam, so this one, Christ having been betrayed to death, became the persecutor of the human race), seeing the Lord being led to the praetorium of Pilate, and having in vain left behind the price of the deed, not the deed itself.

For what indeed does it profit, to tremble there with fear,

where there is no fear? Or what confession shines

in the foul hell, when now the axe, sunk

into the roots of the unspeakable tree,

which bore the deadly fruit, overturns

the deadly shoots utterly, and the wicked wood perishes

by deserved flames?

And straightway seized in mind by savage fury,

he also sought his own death; although then he would have been saner,

if he had forestalled avenging the crime, and himself the very throat—

the passage of that dire voice, which dared to sell

the redeemer of the whole world—

strangling with knotted jaws,

hanged his wretched soul by a noose from on high.

Gentler indeed was that wrath for the crime of so great a guilt,

than any punishment equal to all his evils could have been.

This outcome of death, however, and the lofty corpse showed to the peoples from how great a height he fell who, bound in fetters, loosed the fetters of sinners; the wretch grew stiff and shuddered, and restoring and pouring back the money—the funereal wage, that is, of innocent blood—to the savage dispensers, he emptied himself by the price of the crime, not by the crime itself. For what could the trepidation of death, conceived there, confer upon security, where no fear afterward finds remedy, according to the utterance of the psalm which says: There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear, that is, in the judgment itself, where dread, having no time or space for correction, is fruitless; or for one already placed in the jaws of hell, what confession can help, since it is written: But in hell who shall confess to thee? For Judas, a public murderer, who—what is scarcely bearable to hear—slew not only his own kinsman but the author of the whole world, sought in vain a remedy of repentance, whom, after the audacity of betrayal, the punishment of sentence already held fast, and the axe, already laid to the roots of the tree that had brought forth the accursed fruit, by utterly cutting away the useless shoot of the evil wood, would assign to savage fires. Suddenly seized with a mad fury, he contrived nonetheless for himself a deadly destruction—although he would have been saner then, when he avenged upon himself the crime of that unspeakable conspiracy—and, strangling with a knotted noose the life of that accursed throat from which the pitiless voice had gone forth selling the redemption of all, he drove out his unhappy soul with a hangman's rope. Small indeed would that punishment seem for so great a crime, to which no magnitude of torments could be made equal; yet the very manner of his baneful death, and the death of the corpse hanging aloft, forbids heaven to be looked upon and forbids earth to be touched, so that, guilty of an unheard-of crime, he might deservedly be expelled from both elements alike, enjoying neither air for life nor earth, composed in the common manner of man, to release his soul in exhalation. This disgrace also attends:

He who was formerly a disciple, now guilty, leaving the lofty stars, descends even to the depths of Tartarus; once an apostolic man, now made a vile apostate.

But the Lord, patient, as He stood before the tribunal of the governor, like a most gentle lamb led to the slaughter, the hostile band, finding nothing worthy of death in the innocent one's blood, brings the charge that he had called himself king—a lying charge for what was truth.

Nor is it strange if the faithless nation shuns God's laws and denies His rule, that nation which ever loved the groves and cherished idols; for, raging in like manner, they once worshipped Baal, now they have chosen Barabbas, and, the righteous one condemned and the wicked one spared, their sentence, through both acts, has turned aside from the just path.

He who was ordered to take life was the author of death;

He who was ordered to take death was the author of life.

Believe now that Christ suffered, believe that He suffered for all.

Why do you still doubt? Behold, His back is cut with scourges, subjected to reproaches, He embraces every punishment, lest even a thief, deserving to feel death, should perish.

as a sign of his own downfall's nature. For that the traitor and deserter met death at a high pinnacle revealed from how great a height he fell, he who was lately a disciple, now already guilty; lately an apostle, now called an apostate. But when the Lord stood, unafraid, before the tribunal of the governor, like a gentle lamb led forth to the slaughter, finding nothing worthy of death which the accusing people might object against Him, they cried out, in their zeal for sedition, that He had called Himself a king, when He plainly was king. Nor should anyone marvel that the people, friendly to deceit, dragged truth into a crime, and denied the rule of the stars and the divine power—that people who, ungrateful for the Creator's favors, once worshipped groves, and served, submissive, to idols.

For it seems a like madness, an equal insanity, to have then preferred Baal to the Lord, now to prefer Barabbas to Christ, and, while the righteous is slain and the wicked spared, the sentence, erring in both, changed the path of justice; the author of death being appointed to live, the author of life being appointed to die. From this, then, all of you who thus far remain in the faith, believe now that Christ suffered for the salvation of the world, who, furrowed by the scourge, provoked with reproaches, embraces every punishment, lest even a thief, deserving by his own deserts, should suffer destruction.

Alas! The grim sickle of the fathers, about to cut down the harvest of their descendants,

Alas, Pilate, your crime! How many offenses you committed in a single judgment, if with a watchful mind you had marked them,

You ought not to have washed only your hands, but with your whole body

You should have hoped for the sacred washing of forgiveness.

You seize the innocent, you set up a king before a governor,

You prefer human things to God; by what death are you bound,

You who fasten the Lord to the cross with countless wounds?

And when the Holy One, given over for punishment, went away to the savage soldiers,

He was clothed in a vile cloak under the covering of scarlet dye,

So that the whole appearance might be an image of bloody death; a crown woven of thorns

Encircled His broad head, since He, in His kindness, had taken upon Himself

All the thorn-thickets of our evils;

A reed filled His hand, a scepter ever unstable,

Weak, fragile, empty, light: and presently, other men's

Alas! How sad is the edge of the sickle that cut down the harvest of Jewish posterity. For, demanding the death of the Lord, they professed that His blood should remain upon themselves and their sons, saying furiously and crying out: His blood be upon us and upon our children. They condemned every fruit of their own offspring, until this stain be spiritually washed from them by that water, whose blood, sprinkled upon them, now reigns fatally within them. Alas for the wickedness of your deed, Pilate, which you committed! You who committed so many crimes—or rather, prejudgments—in a single judgment, which, if you had recognized with a provident mind that they needed healing, you ought not to have washed only your hands, but should have poured over your whole body continually the sacred washing of spiritual water. You unjustly scourge the just, you, a governor, examine a king, you, a mortal man, do not tremble to prefer yourself to the Lord.

By what bonds of punishment, then, are you now held fast, since you fasten the Lord of creation to the cross through countless wounds, fearing more to offend Caesar than to offend the maker of Caesar?

And when Christ, handed over to military execution, lay under the sentence of death, even in that very apparel which He received under the mockery of a royal image, the mysteries of a great sacrament were being enacted. For that He was clothed in the covering of a scarlet cloak displayed the bloody appearance of His coming death. A crown of thorns encircled His head, since He alone, in pious humility, bore the thorns of all the sins that had everywhere invaded mankind. For He held the reed given to Him, a scepter truly resembling worldly kingship, which, because of its very frequent changes, is seen to be fragile, empty, light, and transient. And presently, laying aside garments,

He put on His own proper vesture,

About to lay aside, that is, the covering of human flesh,

And to take it up again, so that henceforth He might bear nothing mutable,

Rising after death in His own majesty,

Laying down mortal flesh in its human covering.

Nor is it without divine ordering that it happened

That, when wine mixed with gall was given, He touched its bitter taste with His lips and removed it from His mouth.

Since He was about to taste bitter death for a short time,

Which He was preparing to scorn once His flesh should be restored.

Straightway raised up on the summit of the outspread tree,

Changing by pious devotion the wrath of that peril,

He himself became the peace of the cross, and, adorning with his own limbs

The violent timbers, he clothed punishment with honor,

And made the instrument of torment to be rather a sign of salvation,

And, hallowing the very torments in himself, he blessed them.

And lest anyone should be ignorant that the form of the cross is to be venerated, which bore the Lord in triumph, by a powerful reasoning it gathers together the four regions of the four-cornered world.

The shining East gleams from the head of its Author; stripped of what was another's, he is at once clothed with what is his own, as if about to lay aside at the death of his body the garment which he knew he would receive back after a little while, about to take up nothing thereafter that is mutable, since after death he returns and rises again with the full majesty of his flesh.

Nor did that depart from the fellowship of his divinity, that, when given, he took wine mingled with gall, touched it with his lips, and cast it from his mouth. For it was a wonderful sign that the Lord should taste bitter death, and immediately, by the aversion of his returning countenance, spurn its horrible poison.

Therefore, fixed on the lofty wood of the gibbet, by pious devotion he changed the wrath of that accursed peril, and, casting away cruelty, peace ascended upon the cross, and, adorning with his own limbs the instruments of fierce and violent timber, he clothed punishment with honor, he consecrated the instrument of torment with salvation, and, in his devotion hallowing the very torments in himself, he made the sign appointed for condemnation to be consecrated with blessedness. So that here no one should wander in ignorance of mind, everyone ought by a prudent reasoning to gather that the form of the cross shows the cause of its veneration, since it deserved to bear, worthy of adoration, the Lord, and that it is extended through the four regions of the world. For the head of Christ, as he was stretched out with limbs extended upon the cross, was received by the axis of the East. But the western boundary smiled upon his sacred feet with the western star,

His right hand holds the Bear, his left raises up the middle axis,

And all nature lives from the members of its Creator,

And Christ, embraced by the cross, rules the whole world on every side.

And a title is written, This is the King of the Jews,

By which nothing is void of deity: for what was done from heaven

The Hebrew tongue reports, and the Greek, and the Latin tongue.

smiled upon his feet. The northern region shone forth on the right, the middle region gleamed on the left. And the entire substance of the world altogether, rejoicing in the body of the Creator, showed in itself the line of the cross fulfilled by straight and slanting boundaries, which is seen to have been followed from the very origin of the first light. And when his soldiers were dividing his garments among themselves, they cast lots for the tunic, as to who should have it, since it had not been sewn but woven throughout from the upper parts, and they had considered it wicked to violate the form of so great a miracle; let the schismatic teachers indeed read these things, and know what impieties they practice in tearing apart the catholic concord. For if it seemed harsh to sacrilegious and accursed soldiers to tear the garment of Christ, what wickedness do they commit who, having disturbed the peace of the Church, do not cease to divide the Lord Christ himself by their schisms!

The title also, written with the threefold signification of languages, having Hebrew letters, Greek, and Latin: This is the King of the Jews, was read affixed above the Lord. It does not seem absurd that the reason of this mystery too should be inquired into. For nothing that is shown to have been done in Christ escapes a great mystery. Why then was this title read written in three languages, when the greatness of the Acts of the Apostles testifies that many and various nations of peoples were by no means lacking at Jerusalem, and either the language of one interpreter could suffice for the diverse peoples, or, if Pilate wished to set this forth before the eyes of all, he might have rendered it known to the common people by the exchanges of many languages? But let us understand spiritually what was not accomplished by human arrangement to be fulfilled. For indeed the true faith and catholic confession, which was signified in Christ, proclaims by a special word one King for the peoples, who rules over the whole of creation, a thing fitting both to the worldly cause and to the divine reason. First, because Pilate, either from fear of Caesar, or from the admission of his own belief, defined of what people he was king who had called himself king, lest, by the bare name of kingdom being designated, he should seem to set him forth as king in general, and to proclaim him against Caesar, and to appear sacrilegious as one who had decreed death against his own ruler as well. Then, because Christ is religiously named King of the Jews, and all the gentile world lay hidden in the worship of idols—

This one faith teaches, to call one King thrice.

For his garments the lot is cast, that the sacred robe,

Remaining unrent, might forbid schism from Christ.

Nay, even they set two bloodied men on either side

Of the innocent one, though the merit of one sentence

Does not make all equal; for

Among the executioners, while the Holy One hung, and the robbers,

The penalty of the three was equal, but the cause of the two was unequal.

For these were guilty before the world for many a crime;

For him, the world is guilty, saved by his righteous blood.

Yet even in these very sufferings the Lord of things

Lost not the rights of his power: as a just Judge,

Beholding both, he chose the one, and rejected the other,

Weighing the merits of both in his lofty scrutiny.

For the one, whom neither fierce life nor death forsook,

Moving wicked reproaches against the Lord, kept biting

With his own words, and, like a bristly goat,

Tore with poisonous mouth at the pleasant vine:

The other, having adored Christ with words of prayer,

Cast down, turned his wounded eyes only,

opened, since he deserved to obtain the sacraments of the Christian teaching, begins to be called the people of God among the sons of Abraham. To whom it is read that it was promised that he would make him, as indeed he did, the father of all nations. Jesus therefore was called King of the Jews, not only of those present, but also of those to come, who, abandoning the useless bristle of their natural stock, would soon, grafted into the olive of fruitful sweetness by the anointing of the holy chrism, lose the bitterness of the barren wild-olive.

Nay, moreover, the savage and harmful populace, its mind never sated with any tortures, decreed that two bloodstained men should be fixed on either side of the Lord under the same condemnation, so that by the outrage of such persons it might aggravate the inflicted wounds, although the likeness of the sentence does not carry a likeness of merit. For among the robbers, while the Just One hung between the executioners, the penalty of the three seems equal, but the cause of the two is unequal. For those indeed are guilty before the world for many a crime: but for him, the world itself is guilty, which by his blood has been freed from sin. Yet the Lord, set upon that gibbet, did not lose the rights of his power, who, from the lofty scrutiny of the cross, as from a royal throne, as a just Judge, beholding both, and weighing the merits of both in the balance of his divine heart, chose the one, forsook the other, examining not the past deeds for which they suffered, but attending to the present differences of their minds. For the one, whose fierce and atrocious disposition did not waver even at the point of peril, tore at the Lord with savage insults, execrable in his biting words, like a shaggy goat hostile with poisonous tooth to the branch of the sweetest vine, thus spoke mockingly: If thou art the Christ, save thyself, and us. But the other, of better hope and more modest, who while he spared his tongue, spared also his punishment from torment, addressed the Lord with words of prayer, turning aside his eyes, for chains held back his two hands.

Whom the Lord, as a shepherd a sheep through desert fields,

Gathers up as it strays, and rejoices to lead it with him

Into thy fields, O Paradise, where with everlasting bloom

The grassy field allures, and the delight of the groves

Is nourished by flowing waters, and among the gracious

Gardens conspicuous with fruits that never fail,

The ancient serpent groans to dwell as the tenant of old.

Both robbers, then, by different paths having undertaken

A different crime, wrought a mighty and violent deed.

The one goes to the infernal gates, the other to those above;

The one, following the deep, penetrated the bars of Gehenna,

The other, by his own theft, carried off the kingdom of heaven.

Meanwhile suddenly there came dreadful darkness,

And held the whole heaven, and with mournful obsequies

Covered the blackened day; the sun, hiding its bright rays

Beneath a cloud, veiled in gloomy garb,

Lay hidden, and stained the sorrowful world with mourning.

his eyes, but only such freedom as he had, toward the earth, since the taut bonds of his wounds held back his palms, willing though they were, from bowing in an act of humility. For after he had rebuked his companion—who had now deserved to be separated from him—with the reproof of a just word, and had acknowledged the fault of his own insolence, he thus prayed to the Lord: Remember me, when thou shalt come into thy kingdom. Whom the merciful Lord straightway, as a shepherd gathering back with rejoicing a sheep that had strayed through trackless wastes, addressed, saying: Amen I say to thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. O wondrous and divine promise! He says that he himself is entering paradise, who was hastening to descend to the underworld, so that he might teach that there is no time in which the Lord is not everywhere present. For that he might empty the thief's mind, now blessed, of the dread of death, he said not merely, "Today thou shalt be with me," but "in paradise," where pleasant delight smiles perpetually across the fields with unfailing bloom, and joy nourished by flowing fountains, and softly poured through beautiful gardens, gladdens the whole with pleasing sweetness; and among the blessed boughs of the trees, with no more deceiving snares of fruit, that infernal serpent groaned that the ancient dweller now lives on without any fall. So the two thieves, running by different impulses, entered upon paths of a different course, and, hanging over places far removed from each other, wrought a distinct violence by their deeds. The one entered the gates of hell, the other burst into the realms above. The one, submerged in profound darkness, penetrated the bars of Gehenna. The other, entering the light of clear day, seized the kingdoms of heaven.

Meanwhile the whole world was suddenly darkened, oppressed by the shadows of a sudden blindness, and, drenched in a mournful mass of clouds, it kept funeral obsequies for the day. But the sun, its rays withdrawn and hidden, veiled in a foul mantle, lay hid, and the world beheld this countenance, having deserved for itself,

bereft of its father's aid, rejoicing at its rising,

mournful at its setting. For as the light shone at the time

of the Lord's birth, so, at his death, it withdrew,

not to remain absent long, but marking mystic secrets

through its own span; for indeed, just as for three hours

the dark stars of the shadowed sky lay hidden,

so did the Lord endure for three days the cave of the closed tomb.

Nor was the earth without disaster, which, beholding such things,

trembled utterly, and, in doubtful outcome, nature

feared the ultimate measure, lest the highest summit,

seeking the depths below, should force the whole mass to collapse,

and the world, following its Maker, should pass away through the underworld.

But boundless mercy hastened toward the wandering shades,

restoring what was lost, not losing what stood firm.

Yet no signs of so great a peril did they fear,

who fixed the Lord upon the cross—nay, they went on to infect the drink they had drawn with gall. For indeed the elements, bereft of their father's comfort, deserved to receive such a countenance, that they, who had rejoiced at his birth, should grieve at his setting. For just as, when the Lord was born, the light shone brightly, so, when he was dying, it departed. Then a star shone by day; now it did not even appear by night. But although the fleeing light withdrew from both sky and earth, it did not remain in this withdrawal for very long—it seemed fitting to a great mystery that it was suspended for those very intervals of time. For just as, for three hours, the face of the world lay oppressed beneath darkness, so for three days the burial of the tomb enclosed the Lord shut within. Nor did the earth then stand without disaster, trembling in all its foundations, as it perceived such things being permitted, and reckoned that now the end of the world had come; nature hung in doubtful suspense at the boundary, lest, namely, the highest summit, descending to the depths below, should at once continually drag down the whole mass with it into death, and the world, accompanying its own Maker, should rush headlong into chaos. But that boundless mercy of the divinity hastened mercifully to the underworld, in order to restore what was lost, not to destroy what was established. And when those who had fixed the Lord to the wood of the cross beheld such perils occurring, they were by no means afraid—

When he, thirsting, asked for drink, one of the wicked crowd

held out to him, soaked upon a reed with a sponge, vinegar.

For the Mamzer peoples, sunk into worse things,

that liquid was fitting: for as sweet wines,

when they are turned into dreadful vinegar,

are cast away from the tables and lie discarded: so in ancient time

the people accepted by God is now a hateful offspring.

Therefore, when the whole Passion of the good Christ was completed,

he himself released his holy soul from his own body,

he himself to take it up again, since though dead,

he was the same one who was living, his limbs perishing in himself,

while God did not perish, by whose power the paths of the underworld

were laid open backward, and the divided fabric

of the split rock burst asunder and gaped, and the reviving

bodies of the saints who lay there departed from their broken sepulchres,

now quickened again into their own ashes; and, with a sudden crash,

that temple, exultant, seeing the summits of the greater temple

fall down, in the manner of a mourning foster-child,

laid bare its wounded breast, its veil torn asunder,

teaching that its inward secrets were to be unlocked

for peoples yet to come, since the law, long covered

by the veil of Moses, becomes open to us now that Christ has come.

they were not afraid. O so many unheard-of portents, signs of present terror! Nay more, when he, thirsting, asked for drink, one of the most savage crowd bound a sponge to a reed and held vinegar to his mouth. O how fitting a liquid this was to the most wicked mind of the Jews! Who, following worse things, or rather because of the fault, namely of unbelief, are called Manzeres: just as sweet wines, when they have been turned into bitter vinegar, are cast out and rejected by all the peoples of the tables, so this savage and impious nation, which in former times had pleased God, is now hateful, and exceedingly to be abhorred.

When, therefore, the Lord had fulfilled all things of his blessed Passion, he himself straightway, of his own will, laid down his soul from his holy body, to take it up again willingly himself, as he did, since he had indeed died, but he was living, his members perishing, while his divinity had not perished. Let us hear from his own person what John the Evangelist relates: for the Lord says to his disciples: For this the Father loves me, because I lay down my life. I take it up again, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment I have received from my Father. Who then could doubt, or fail to heed him, who, since he was free to lay down his soul when he wished, was likewise able to take it up again when it pleased him, and to work this power in himself all the more, which he deigned to demonstrate in very many instances? Behold, the gates of hell are unlocked, thrown down at Christ's coming, the infernal path now lies open backward, the rocks are burst, the earth is split, tombs are emptied of their bodies, the throng comes back to life; and lest faith should have failed among unbelievers, the multitude of those rising again is made known. Then that wondrous temple too, full of the ancient religion, seeing the summits of the greater temple fallen, like a sorrowing and groaning foster-child, mourned for its own author. Its veil at once torn apart, it showed its bare breast to all, signifying evidently that the inward secrets were to be unlocked for the nations, and that they would faithfully come to the peoples: because the law, which long remained hidden under the veil of Moses,—now that Christ has come to us—

Say, where now is thy triumph, sad death? Say, where now is

thy sting, dreadful one? Who, ever

unsated with rich evils, art wont to invade all nations

with penal dominion; behold, most wicked one, not thou

comest to Christ, but Christ comes to thee,

to whom it was granted to die without death, who, begetting all things,

establishing all things, did not form thee; that thou mightest be,

from viperous seed, thou art created with fault as thy begetter,

and, with pardon reigning, thou perishest. Now the spirit had left

the limbs for a time, now upon the outstretched wood the cold

inward parts hung, and still fury, arming weapons, violates

the pierced side with a spear-point: and from the open

wound, purple blood, and water together, ran.

These indeed are, for the honor of sacred religion,

body, blood, water, the three gifts of our life.

Reborn in the fountain, we are fed on the flesh and blood of Christ,

and therefore we are held to be the temple of the godhead:

which may God grant that we keep unstained,

at his coming, shone forth clearly. Speak, tell me now, sad and impious death, where now is that deadly victory of yours, where now is that sting, accursed one, which serves you at the tombs, you who, invading the human race from the first destruction of its generation, never sated with any funerals, are wont ever to rule with penal dominion over wretched frailty? Behold, now, most wicked one, you have not come to Christ, but Christ of his own accord has descended to you, to whom it was granted to die without death, who, begetting all things, establishing all things, did not create you alone, the malignant one. For the venerable Scripture says: God did not make death. If then you wish to know the matter of your origin, you were conceived with the serpent as father, and brought forth with guilt as your mother. But now, with mercy reigning, you are being consumed.

Meanwhile the Lord's spirit had already departed for a time from the body, and the cold limbs of Christ hung upon the strength of the cross, and still fury, not laying down its weapons, supplied a spear to the enemy hand, and by a wicked thrust the wound pierced the Lord's side with an inflicted blow, opening a deep and hollowed wound, through which blood and water together flowed. O how this event is joined to catholic doctrine! O how greatly these sacred things agree with the faith of the Trinity! For body, blood, and water are the three gifts of our life. For all we who, with Christ as our leader, are reborn in the font of waters, taking his body and blood, eat and drink, that we may deserve to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. For the Apostle Paul also speaks thus, saying: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?

That the Lord may command us to bear him as an unspotted temple, let us pray, that so great a dweller may make us, narrow and slight as we are, fit and capable for himself.

And make us slight ones capable of so great a dweller.

So then, where that noble place received the ample treasure of the deposited body,

the Lord lying there, yet more noble when he rose, the deceitful generation

nursed wickedness beneath its heart, that in the silent night

the disciples might steal Christ away, and report that he had departed,

on the day returning the third time, just as he himself had foretold.

Goaded by this fear, they demand that more guards

be given, and that the place be held under fierce siege.

If not yet after the bonds of the cross, after the wounds of iron,

after the death of dying, drenched with much slaughter,

executioners, have you fulfilled your task, and do you not believe that he

who so many times has led souls up from the depths of the shades

can recall his own the more—arm your plots fit for worse

counsels, seal the tomb, set guards,

roll a stone to the sepulchre.

Who will be able to guard God, to whom, at the hinge of all things,

all things lie open? He dwells in the waters, reigns through hell,

and thunders from the cloud of heaven. Why, savage tumult,

do you waste your work on watches? Why do you strive

to test that faith, which you are unwilling to believe even when trusted?

After, therefore, that sacred place received the treasure of the precious body deposited, which, while the Lord lay there, shone as noble, and when he rose triumphed as more noble, the generation devoted to deceit, contriving under its impious heart its accustomed wickedness, spread among the disciples the rumor that Christ was to be carried off by night in silence, so that, contrary to what he himself had foretold, it might be published that he had not risen on the third day. The Jews, therefore, terrified by this suspicion of theft, ask that a very great guard be more diligently applied, and that the doors and entrance of the tomb be enclosed with an all-too-faithful siege.

If not yet, after the bitter torments of the cross, after the blows and wounds of iron, after the mortal burial of the body, executioners drenched with blood, have you fulfilled your office, nor have you, after the death of the innocent, satisfied your unjust hatred, do not think that the Lord, who has so often brought souls up from the underworld by his singular power, will not much rather recall his own; carry out for yourselves counsels fit for the worse part, foster in your minds deceits armed with the nourishment of treachery, seal the barriers of the sepulchre, post military watches, close up the tomb with a stone, and preparing all things, as you do, with malicious arrangements, say, who will be able to guard the Lord, to whom all things are unlocked, nothing is barred? He reigns in the heavens, commands the seas, rules the underworld. What need, then, for the faithless of watches and labor? Why do you strive to test the outcome which you are unwilling to accept, even when it is proven?

Meanwhile, after the sad sabbath, the happy day

had begun to shine forth, which derives the height of its lofty name

from the Lord who is Lord, and was the first to deserve to see

the world born, and Christ rise again.

For when Genesis calls the seventh a sabbath, it is clear

that this is the head day of the world, which the glory of the King,

now also granting it splendor by the gift of his own trophy,

has given to retain the primacy; at the rising of this light

the Virgin mother, and other mothers together with her

bearing the gift of aromatic harvest, came weeping,

known to the tomb, and saw the place now made empty of body,

but full of power. For an angel sent from the stars

sat upon the top of the stone that had been rolled away,

fiery in appearance, resplendent in snow-white garment.

Who, bearing a double aspect of terror and joy,

and disposing all things, had come in a form threatening with fire

to the guards, but white to those seeking Christ.

They, therefore, learned by angelic faith that the Lord lives,

death having been trampled down; but the terrified

soldier holds onto life in perilous uncertainty,

Meanwhile that sad day after the sabbath had begun to shine forth, happy, which, most pleasing to the Lord who is Lord, took its name from his majesty, being called by this honor the Lord's Day, since indeed it attained such dignity that it deserved to be the first to behold the origin of the world's birth, and the power of the risen Christ. For this book of Genesis, the manifest witness of things, says that God rested from his works on the seventh day of the sabbaths. It appears then plainly that this is the head day of the world, from which, first in order, is numbered the seventh of the sabbaths, which the glory of the eternal King, illuminating it also with the trophy of his own resurrection, judged to retain, with due honor, the primacy granted among all the days.

At the conspicuous rising of this light the virgin mother, together with the other women faithfully gathered, since they were bringing together the gift of spices, came to the sepulchre while it was still dark; her face was furrowed with tears, her breast shaken with groans. And soon they see the place of burial lying empty of body, but marvelously overflowing, full of power. For an angel had descended from the heavens, and, the stone having been rolled away from the doors of the tomb, sat marvelously upon it, fiery of countenance, white in garments, so that, resplendent in a twofold difference, he might show both terror and joy at once: terror indeed threatened to the guards by his fiery countenance, joy caressed to those seeking Christ by the pleasantness of his snow-white robe. The women, therefore, strengthened by the angelic revelation, rejoice that the Lord has lived again after death.

The soldiers, terrified by such a vision, cannot hold onto life, standing in perilous uncertainty, and having at once deserted their post, headlong seek again the city, bringing tidings of the miracle manifest by grace

having fled their post, and as a witness of his fear

truly reports for reward; afterward, gifts having been given, he deceives,

saying, composed as a false witness, that under the cover of a peaceful sleep

Christ had been secretly stolen away by night from among the sleeping band of disciples.

Speak, wicked guard, answer, criminal band, if Christ, as you dare

to say, being brought forth stealthily from the sealed cave,

lay hidden while men slept—whose garment lies within,

by whose remains does the angel sit? Did the thief of the blessed

body think it quicker

to unwind what was wrapped, than to carry it off bound?

Since delay is contrary to thefts, more carefully then

With the Lord, his linens could rather have been taken away.

The vain voice lied to itself; yet this thing

has an outstanding figure: it is agreed that Christ

was taken away from the Jews, whom we carry with devoted heart.

Mourn, O Judea, your priests soon to perish, mourn your ministers,

And your people, for such daring deeds.

No trumpet, no Anointed One, no longer is your victim pleasing.

For what wars will the trumpet sound for you, your king having been slain?

Who will be your Anointed, since you have lost the true Anointed?

What victim will be offered, when the shepherd himself is held as the victim?

Let the synagogue depart, darkened by its own color,

Christ has joined to himself the Church with beautiful love,

The paschal work.

they report; after they sold their faith for a price, they are turned into cowardly deceit, and soon they invent that the disciples of Christ, having watched for him in ambush during the quiet of night, carried him off. Speak, wicked guard, and, shameless one, tell, criminal legion, what you intend to establish, you who, in your eagerness to acquire money, do not see the pitfall into which you fall, nor the danger, and do not know how much punishment you deserve, since you prefer to seem negligent rather than truthful. For it is agreed that you were watchful, careful, keen-sighted, that you never closed your eyes in sleep, except that, to relieve the labor by turns, your fellow guard duly succeeded in his turn, so that you so shared the watch that it seemed accessible to no frauds. For if Christ, as you dare to falsely assert, was snatched from the tomb by the hands of his own during the quiet of night, whose linens are there, whose wrappings lie nearby, around whose remains does the angelic power sit to guard the garments? Or did he who stole the blessed body first strip and lay it bare, thinking it could be carried off more quickly once uncovered, than if it were taken away still bound, as it lay? "Iniquity has lied to itself". Yet this matter has an outstanding grace of figurative meaning. For it is agreed that Christ has been spiritually taken away from the Jews, whom we carry with the whole devotion of mind and heart. Mourn, therefore, O Judea, your priests, mourn your ministers, and your people, which, forsaken because of such great crimes, will no longer rejoice in the trumpet, will not be strengthened by the Anointed, will not enjoy sacrifices. For by hope of what power will the trumpet be blown for you, when you see your king slain? What Anointed One will be given any longer, when you have lost the very rule of the Anointed One himself? What victim will be slain, when the shepherd himself has been slaughtered as the victim? Let the synagogue depart, now dyed with its own color,

This is she who shines in conspicuous honor of Mary:

who, though she is always mother with a glorious name,

remains ever virgin; to her sight standing near,

the Lord first openly presented himself in light, so that as a good

mother, spreading abroad the great miracles,

who had once been the way of the one coming,

she might likewise be the herald of the one returning.

Soon after, mighty as a guest in the breaking of bread,

he was recognized shining forth, he who as the true bread

is ever present to open eyes, whom the grace of faith

makes clear-sighted, so that they can perceive the living Lord.

Often thereafter, at various hours of different times,

he visibly comes to his own disciples as they eat,

now bearing the appearance of one on the road, now of one eating roasted fish,

and eating a honeycomb as food, so that he might duly teach

that these were bodily things for food, and that he himself might be seen

in the members which he had before. Again in fear

dyed, Christ joined to himself the beautiful Church, with snow-white splendor. This bestows honor on Mary unto glory, she who, though seen with conspicuous brightness always as mother, is yet always seen as virgin. To her the Lord showed himself immediately after the triumph of the resurrection, so that she, his pious and kindly mother, might be the one to spread abroad the testimony of such a miracle—she who was the gate of his birth, when he came into the world, might likewise be the messenger of his departure from the underworld.

Soon thereafter he was present at a meal with certain of them, like a traveler passing by, and in the breaking of bread he made himself known to their senses and eyes, because it becomes evident to their eyes that he himself is the true bread, whom the inward faith, entering in and revealing him, leads to the recognition of the Lord by the brightness of grace; frequently too, at different times and moments, he showed himself manifest to the disciples. Now appearing unexpectedly to them as they ate, now taking food of roasted fish and honeycomb, so that he might teach more clearly that these were things belonging to the body's food, which by eating he proved to those who saw him, that he now bore those same members which he had borne before death.

Again the same one, when the apostles, fearing the people,

The apostate people, who had blindly denied the Lord,

while the faithful group remained with the doors shut,

brought himself in with the peace of one greeting, and, unfolding

his pierced palms, bares his side: but there Thomas,

whose surname was Didymus, had not been together with his brothers,

and bore a doubting faith in his heart.

Until, when he likewise was sitting there, he came again,

he who had never been withdrawn. Then, the threshold shut,

he stood in the midst, not disdaining to show

his open side to the disciple, and to be proved by the touch

of the wound, and patiently to bear the mind of the wavering one.

He is thus recognized rather because he is the friend of the doubter.

For whoever practices skillful frauds under a blind image,

and wishes to employ vain semblances,

does not wish to be recognized, does not wish his deeds to be inquired into,

so that his tricks may lie hidden under a cloud, and, shutting all things

away with mist, the deceiver hates anxious friends.

who had often denied the Lord, endured violent savagery, while, the doors of the house being shut, they remained fastened in, he, standing unforeseen at the doors, gave peace to all by the greeting of his word, so that, granting sudden joy to the afflicted, he might confirm what he had signified by the prophetic voice, that the Lord will not abandon a contrite and humbled heart. And soon he opened his pierced hands, bared the wound fixed in his side, lest they should think it a phantasm, if they did not see the marks of the wounds. But since Thomas, an equally venerable apostle, whom they call by the name Didymus, was not present there, and did not believe when his companions related such things: behold, the Lord, afterward when he was likewise sitting with the brothers, presents himself again with the doors still unmoved, he who had never departed from them spiritually, and, seen by all in their midst, does not disdain to indulge the trembling disciple: and, his palms and side shown again, he allows himself to be proved by the touch of the wounds, being recognized all the more by this, that he is indeed Christ, who cherished with gentle mildness the soul of the doubter once received. For whoever practices the tricks of an artificer under the blind image of deceit, and prepares vain mists and illusions to deceive unwary minds, does not wish his deeds to be known, because they lie hidden under the covering of a deceptive cloud, and, mocking wretched eyes with contrived phantoms, hates anxious ones, and even friends, once he begins to be detected. The Lord likewise, knowing all things, while Peter was fishing on the sea

with his companions, and nothing had been caught, urges them

to cast their nets on the right side of the waters; soon, the deep enclosed,

the hanging nets drew in the wave-wandering catch,

to be understood by a typical way: for the nets

are the shining precepts of God, by which everyone

remaining on that right side is enclosed, and at once is borne

by apostolic arms to the footsteps of the Lord Christ.

Nor were the fish, the coals, and the bread lacking, found in one

place for the disciples; who would doubt that here

one faith stands firm in these things, since the water is indeed the fish,

Christ is present as the bread, and the Holy Spirit as the fire.

For by this we are washed, by this we are fed, by this we are sanctified.

Then the Teacher invites them to the meal to be eaten,

with kindly words as was his custom, and, seeking the table

together, they enjoy the well-known goodness of the Lord,

and perceived him as their own Christ, and, with a modest provision,

after hunger was overcome, and they rose, leaving behind

less indeed truthful in all things, Christ, most gentle even toward one doubting to believe, does not grow angry with the one in doubt, but so that he might also plunge his fingers into the wounds, grants it with willingness, knowing that the example of this proof pertains not only to Thomas, who had been so blessed, but thereafter to the faith of many. After a few days likewise the Lord showed himself to Peter fishing with his companions on the seashore, and when, after the labor of a whole night endured in vain, he saw them weary and having taken nothing, he bids the nets be let down on the right side into the sea, and immediately, the surface of the deep being closed in, a gathering of fish plunged in, and the netting, crackling, drew them out with their catch, which they, rejoicing, cast before the footsteps of the Lord. Such a kind of miracle, then, ought not to be perceived by the common deed, but weighed by typical understanding.

For let us believe that the nets are the precepts, exceedingly clear and transparent, by which all who pursue the right course, bowed down, are enclosed amid the bloody waves of the world. For the fish placed upon the coals, and likewise the bread found in the same place along with it, are seen not to lack Catholic religion. For the fish seems to be understood as water, by which it is certain we are washed and reborn; the bread signifies Christ the Savior, of whose same body we partake unto salvation. The fire bears the image of the Holy Spirit, by whom, devoted, we are consecrated unto faith. For in that same appearance he shone forth manifest, when he suffused the blessed apostles, as the book of their Acts attests, with the clear brightness of his divinity.

Then he invites them to partake of the feast with the calm bidding of solemn words—those who, gathered with one voice at the table of the Lord, receive the foods of holy blessing, and know Christ with the full truth of faith.

Whether Peter loves him rightly, in bed or in the depths of the heart,

The Lord tests: Peter assents: therefore, striving,

The loving Shepherd, wishing to increase his flocks, to every good

laborer commends the sheep, and commends also

the lambs.

Warning him with this threefold speech, that the threefold guilt

of denial, recent, might remain purged with equal

number.

Then teaching what is to be followed, "Have peace, all of you," he says,

"Bear my peace, carry quiet peace,

Scatter peace among the peoples by holy admonitions,

And empty the world of evils: and I bid that nations be called

from all borders, wherever the breadth of the world extends,

by my commands, and that all be washed in the font."

When the Lord had finished these words spoken with pious speech,

he soon seeks the fields of Bethany: and in the presence of the blessed

men who had merited to behold so great a triumph,

carried aloft, he departs sublime into the ethereal air.

He himself sits at the right hand of the Father and governs the whole

But when they had risen, sufficiently filled with modest fare, the Lord gently asks Peter whether he loves him. To him, immediately assenting, wishing, as a good shepherd, to increase his flocks, he commends his sheep and lambs, as to a most faithful and tested laborer. And this he repeats and turns over three times, that the threefold denial of recent guilt might be purged by an equal number of declarations of love. But that he granted to Peter especially the dignity of feeding the flocks, though he is proven to love all equally, pertains not to the detriment of the others, but seems to be joined with reason; for this animal, most gentle by the simplicity of its nature, is compared to the just, whom, when the King of all shall come in his majesty, standing thus at his right hand, as he himself taught, he addresses: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,". Therefore he consequently commends the just who are about to enter the kingdom to him to whom he had promised to give the keys of that same kingdom.

Then, instructing them with blessed admonitions, and strengthening them by the tradition of peaceful doctrine, commanding that the precepts of religious faith be scattered through all lands, and that the single trinity of holy baptism be extended to all nations, thus he speaks and decrees: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,"

And when the Divinity had commanded all things to be fulfilled, soon, having gone forth into Bethany, the same men having likewise been led out, in the presence of the blessed men who had merited to obtain the sight of so great a triumph, carried through the ethereal regions, he ascends to the citadel of the starry dominion, and sits at the right hand of the majesty of his Father, and rules the whole

by his own right, he who, holding all things high and low,

passes through Tartarus after heaven, through Tartarus into heaven.

But they, beholding with joyful countenances the Lord going

above the high clouds, and treading with his own footsteps

the shining paths, venerate and adore him,

and bear back in their eager hearts the starry ways,

which they might teach to all: for they were rightly faithful witnesses

of divine power, who, seeing many things,

wrote but few of the innumerable good deeds.

For if they had wished to commit to sacred pages all

the deeds of the Redeemer, not even the whole world

would suffice to contain, through so many volumes, such dense books.

He who governs by his own will, continually possessing all things high and deep, descended after heaven to Tartarus, and after Tartarus returned to heaven. For this reason, then, he willed, while these men were present, to journey to the stars (insofar as he deigns to reveal it to the perception of my smallness), that he might show them the way by which they should follow, to whom, before his passion, when they said to him: "Lord, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?" he answered plainly, and said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." The way, because through him access is gained to the grace of the Father. The truth, because he will grant to believers what he promises. The life, because those whom he adopts are not subject to death.

With joyful countenances, therefore, the disciples, beholding the Lord exalted above the clouds, treading with his own footsteps the shining paths of the stars, the world having been overcome, venerate him as suppliants and adore him, and, with the most welcome return of his household, they turn over in their hearts, along the tracks of the aerial pathway, the regions which they saw with their eyes, and they report them to men of every race, that the nations may believe. For faithful witnesses, and proven to be of great divine power, are they who, seeing the deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, wrote but few out of his innumerable acts. For if all the miracles of our Savior could have been bound into religious pages, not even the world itself, as John the Evangelist testifies, would contain all the volumes of the books that would be written.