transfigured for our deception, perhaps by demonstrating that he will give graces, so that you might fall and worship him, or by announcing that as another Elijah he is to be taken up, or by promising to sanctify; some who accepted their faith on this point missed the truth and became bereft of their senses. You, therefore, O supplicant of the holy Trinity, knowing these things in which you labor, keep your heart with all vigilance, lest perchance, while paying heed only to external labors, you be craftily ensnared in those within. My words, then, O son, have been spoken to you; but may your heart keep my sayings; remember Christ who guards you, and do not forget the adorable and consubstantial Trinity, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
OF THE SAME: A TREATISE ADDRESSED TO THE SAME, CONCERNING THE VICES WHICH ARE OPPOSED TO THE VIRTUES.
BCAPUT 1.
I deem it necessary to submit also the vices which are opposed to the virtues to your diligence in a brief summary; for while we have until now cultivated the mind, we have cast out from the tilled land the thorns of our thoughts: yet we have not arrived at this point by works which we ourselves have done, but by holding to the pattern of sound words which we have heard from the Fathers, and of which we have become conscious in certain of our actions. But the whole is grace from above, which even to sinners points out the deceits of those who mislead minds, and which makes us secure and says: "What have you that you did not receive?" that through receiving we might give thanks to the Giver, because we do not attribute to ourselves any boast of glory, denying the donation; and therefore it says: "If you even received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" "Now," it says, "you have become rich," you who are poor in works; "now," you who have begun to be taught, "you are filled," the deception of whom has recently passed over to me: both through the discourse which I received as a loan, putting forward the poverty of my works, and also through the counsel by which I have admonished C that the doctrine of D discipline
A be granted to me by you, so that we may also briefly set forth and signify the vices which are opposite to the virtues: what gluttony is, against which stands sobriety; what fornication is, and chastity; what avarice is, and poverty; sadness, against which is joy; anger, and longsuffering; and listlessness (acedia), and endurance; what vain-glory is, and non-vain-glory; envy, and non-envy; pride, and humility. These being opposite, contrary, and antithetical to one another, we have thus briefly set forth.
CHAPTER II
Gluttony, then, is the mother of fornication, the nurse of thoughts, the relaxation of fasting, the curb of ascetic practice, the scarecrow of contemplation, the picturing of foods, the sketcher of seasonings, an unbridled colt, a frantic madness, a receptacle of disease, an enemy of health, a barrier of the throat, the groaning of the bowels, the end of outrages, the fellow-traveller of fornication, the pattern of the mind, the weakness of the body, a heavy sleep, a joyless death. B Sobriety is the curb of the belly, the scourge of insatiability, the scale of proportion, the muzzle of voracity, the renunciation of recreation, the ordinance of a harder life, the subjugation of thoughts, the eye of wakefulness, the liberation from venereal inflammation, the pedagogue of the body, the tower of labors, and the wall of conduct, the restraint of habits and the check of passions, the mortification of limbs, the revival of souls, an imitation of the resurrection, a practice of sanctity. Fornication C is the fetus of voracity, the mollifier of the heart, the furnace of inflammation, the matchmaker of idols, an unsympathetic act, a shadowed form, an imaginary embrace, the bed of dreams, an insensible union, the deceit of the eyes, the shamelessness of the look, the shame of prayer, the disgrace of the heart, the guide of ignorance. Chastity is the stole of truth, the axe of lasciviousness, the charioteer of the eyes, the overseer of thoughts, the circumcision of the mind, the excision of licentiousness, an opponent to nature and the antagonist of inflammation, the worker of acts, and the cooperator of temperance, the lamp of the heart, the plummet of prayer.
CHAPTER III
Avarice is the small parsimony of idols, the prophecy of the people, the vote of the Sphinx, the accounting of deposits, the wealth of captivity, a genre of injustice, the richness of diseases, the diviner of long years, the enchantress of diligence, D the counsellor of wakefulness, the poverty of the belly, the cheapness of foods, an insatiable mania, a vice full of many cares. Poverty is the uprooting of avarice, the root of aversion to money, the fruit of charity, the cross of life, a life without trouble, an unenviable treasure, a heaven without care, a sun that cannot be distracted, immense matter, incomprehensible wealth, the sickle of care, the practice of the Gospels, a world that cannot be loosened, a swiftly running athlete. Sadness is the inhabitant of loss, the companion of failure, the forerunner of pilgrimage, the memory of relatives, the attendant of straitness, the fellow-goer of acedia, the crime of irritation, the reminder of outrage, and the darkening of the soul, the gloom of conduct, the drunkenness of prudence, the sleep-
A antidote or soporific medicine, the cloud of form, the worm of the flesh, the grief of thoughts, the bond of captivity. Joy is the destruction of sadness, thanksgiving for calamities, the vision of prayers, and the gladness of labors, the cheerfulness of beneficence, a shoot as if grafted on for renunciation of the world, a receptacle of hospitality, a refuge of hopes, the nourishment of those who practice, the exhortation of those who mourn, the consolation of tears, the aid of affliction, the ally of charity, and the consort of long-suffering. Anger is the robbery of prudence, the destruction of one's state, the confusion of nature, a savage form, the furnace of the heart, an eructated flame, the law of the excandescent spirit, the hatred of injuries, the mother of beasts, a silent battle, the obstacle to prayer. Long-suffering is the armor of prudence, the tribunal of wrath, the medicine of the heart, the admonition of those who are arrogant and ferocious, the serenity of those who are troubled, a harbor free from storms, kindness to those who cause grief, gentleness toward all, it blesses him by whom it is defamed, it rejoices when it is insulted, the consolation of those in straits, the mirror of those who hope, the prize of those who are afflicted by evils. B