have rushed upon me like A precipitous rivers. Yet the Lord is with us. An effracted and massive onrush of waters shall in no way be able to overwhelm and submerge us; but our spirit, being innocent, shall pass beyond the savage whirlpool of the torrent; or rather, we shall be washed by these waves of water and cleansed, and shall emerge pure and white from the very source out of which we feared we might be defiled. Among other things, my brother, as is necessary, will report this craftiness of mine and the deceitful cunning which I expend upon the laws of the marsh, and how I am, in this manner, some sort of great man, powerful in strength and bearing all things by the word of power, I who am exposed to the contempt of all, and prone to the slander and injury of everyone, I who am sluggish with ears, so to speak, stopped up, and am cast down to a lowly seat, and, with my lips as if bound, fall entirely silent, having become like one who hears neglectfully and complies listlessly, unhappily lacking in every good. Yet I have offered my back to the B pressing whips, and have presented my cheeks to frequent blows. And no one has dared to close this mouth born for detraction and slander. For it will be the task of your high and noble mind not to receive, not to listen to him who is subject to these confused croakings of crows and varied whisperings of starlings; rather, even in this, to imitate God, namely, in saying and doing all things with an upright and exact judgment. He who knows all things before they come to pass says, "Having gone down, I will see." May He Himself preserve and guard you, as far as possible, made like unto Him, separated from every crime of foulness and removed from every misfortune.
EPISTLE II.
To the Master, Lord John.Neither have I time for profound leisure. For the business in which we were involved, and the weight of affairs—since I entrusted that (work) to have been done for us—have crept into me even to an anxious sadness of soul, as if it had been permitted to occur, whereas it has not in fact occurred. But since, on the one hand, neither of these is now in our power, it is certainly foolish and absurd to investigate and pursue things which can no longer be done. Wherefore, it is fitting for us to attempt the one remaining thing. I say, indeed, that once that other matter has been shaken off and crushed, you should submit yourself C to a little pleasure and relaxation. But if this breaks and frustrates that other pursuit and love, you will truly be one of those who indulge themselves too much rather than one of those who love their brothers, and who thus claim for themselves the law that commands one to love and honor one's neighbor above oneself. As if the measure of legitimate love could in no way be completed and fulfilled, whereas to that love and zeal which exists for ourselves, something even greater is added for our neighbor. And He demands these things of us, He who pursues us with great love beyond Himself, and makes these things manifest to those for whom He, up to D death and monstrous...
and has not been altered; He Himself shall shepherd us, and nothing shall be lacking to us. When Moses had rested, did Israel remain without a guardian? Was it not that they had as a guide and leader the type of the Greater One, and a minister of greater things, and the accomplisher of the promise of the land of desire, of which Moses was not A deemed worthy? When Elijah was snatched away wondrously, did not Elisha appear as a prophet in a double portion of the Spirit? I believe that from now on our affairs will be better than before, so that we may learn that we are being led not by human thoughts and strivings, but by divine goodness and words of power, in ways beyond our comprehension. As you ponder these things and things even greater than these, it is natural for you to stand above all faint-heartedness and lowliness of mind. And these thoughts having fallen into my mind, they have given me occasion to rise above the dejection occasioned by what has happened. B Conduct yourself in this way, most honorable brother, and let not the arrows of the foolish—who play with themselves in the things they strive for against us—shake the tower of your intellect. For you have already established it upon the rock, as a prudent man. And the Rock is Christ. The winds will indeed blow, and the rivers will flow from the rain and concession from above. But let Him remain for you steadfast and immovable, so that you may say, rejoicing in Christ: "Our soul has passed through the torrent." Has our soul indeed passed through the intolerable water? May God Himself, the God of all consolation, console you more perfectly through the Paraclete and the co-equal Spirit.
EPISTLE III
C To the Lord Patriarch Nicholas.I do not give thanks more than I receive through these letters to you, holy master. For this, most honorable brother, was requested of us by the excellent bishop of Pelagonia for your Holiness, as though these letters were to lead him, as it were, as a guest into the house of your virtues, to which he himself already hoped to go before, and thereby to grant him—given his ardent desires for your fellowship and intimacy—a modest refreshment through your own presence. And when he received them, he returned countless thanks, and was wondrously delighted, and especially he rendered to us that which we desire with greater prayers, without any desire for glory. For what greater thing could happen to me than to be wafted toward you on the wings of letters, even if I cannot attain as much as I wish? He himself is blessed, who, having ascended your mountain, looks upon you, D and face to face...
A beholds the divine beauty with you, and feeds his ears with sounds nearly celestial and echoing sacred mysteries, to which earthly beasts and feral bodies are in no way deemed worthy, seeing they only crop the low fodder of the earth and wander in blind running over the lands. For us, it is fitting to see these as in a mirror, and in an enigma, and to hear them from a certain removed interval. For this, the exchange of your letters with me easily grants. You know, therefore, what you are to do, so that we may not by any means be unhappy and unfortunate in all things regarding you; but may we be deemed worthy to enjoy, by anticipation, the grace of the Spirit that dwells with you. Pour forth, then, already those prayers which are accustomed easily to bend and entreat God. These are at present as if held back, so that they are little short of being separated by a long and, as it were, visible interval, and enclosed by a partition, lest they be present to those who need you. For these alone, the strongest defense of our actions, can purge and cleanse the wall of wickedness and error. Grant us these, therefore, in abundance, and we shall fear no adversity, whether those things that might make us wicked, or those that might B always afflict us with evils and hardships, O holy father and lord.
EPISTLE IV
To the governor Gregory Taronites.
Have I kept silence, and shall I keep silence forever? Shall I remain silent? Indeed I have been silent, and I have drained to satiety the orator of these calamitous days, and, drunk with anger, as Jeremiah says, I have lain in it, numbed as if by a sluggish stupor of drunkenness, so that I applied no sense to any word or any discourse. But now, as the sleep-inducing vapor, by which the squalid torpor of sleep had thickened, has been dispelled in a short space of time, having ceased as the spirit was released, and as the gravity of that base lethargy has vanished under the rays of the divine Word and its sacred splendor, I lay aside my former silence. This is also for another reason, specifically because I use such a minister and courier for the conveying of letters to you. But now, tell me, C are you well, you who are unconquered in spirit and incomparable in the vigorous strength of your heart? By this you manifest the excellent temperament of your body, and by that, the harmonious adjustment of your spiritual powers. You possess a mind that is in no way in need of hands, yet you have hands that accomplish what even the mind would despair of. You alone have championed human nature, as if it had not grown old nor rotted toward the generation of men, but is still alive D and boiling with the prime of its power. And in times of peace, just as in the wars of rulers—you, who possess both the practical and the martial ability not by theory and miracle, or, to speak more truly, showing each to be surpassed by the other. Where, then, might you be, you who are yearned for by me everywhere, and who are the receptacle of all good, you most capable of all? Are you establishing nations, and instructing the minds of men, and becoming a Prometheus, fashioning a daily and philanthropic mold of men? Or are you setting companies in order, and appointing captains, and deepening phalanxes, and signaling the times of onset, and revealing to the Barbarians that the ancient Roman spirit is not dead in you? Indeed, may you have...
worthily of yourself, and you act better than our expectations and prayers. And if you also declare it in a letter, you truly prepare for us a golden ceiling; and may you be kept by the Lord beyond every evil and adversity. A
EPISTLE V.
To the lord Nicephorus, chartophylax.I am not, holy lord and father, so little a lover of the beautiful, nor is your Theophylact fashioned from hard oak or from pine, as not to be overcome and inflamed by the B illustrious virtues of Saint Gregory and the rays of the Spirit of graces, and, before these, not to be captivated by that veneration and severe gravity which so vehemently adorns him. Indeed, I have been conquered by the sweet sirens of this man, and I have admired the pleasant candor of his speech and his elegance, and how, when he approaches his tasks externally, he gives care to both the elegance of his manner and the adornment of his body. Wherefore, in no matter have I ever long resisted his petitions and desires; and I have always been prepared to submit myself entirely to his will. What then is it that I have suffered? And consider whether I have been more circumspect and prudent, or rather cowardly and wretched. For your holiness knows with what countenance and with what spirit Gregory stands, and how much I need his own skill and talent for ecclesiastical ministry, both as a minister and associate for me in sacred chanting, and as a choir master in the divine harmony of psalmody. C Let this, therefore, be my first point; the second, and this most of all, you know of all men, that it is not without danger to receive those who depart from monasteries or other churches without the permission and counsel of those in charge. How, therefore, could I have kept here at my church this man whom I admire and love, neither having received a release from the person possessing the monastery, nor having a document from the abbot ensuring your peace of mind? You know, if anyone among men does, how those who confuse all things—the spies of the bishops—for a time overlook the canons while lurking in corners, heavily coated with filth and mold, or, when they are cast into the midst, trample them underfoot with pride and madness. But when there is a need to perform some episcopal duty, then they release them, and deck them out, and glorify them as if they were fruits of the Spirit, and set them against us, bitterly convicting us of transgression. For these reasons, therefore, I did not keep the man with me; but I suggested to him that it would be necessary to receive a written release from those who are superior, and from the abbot a kind of written leave. And since now, as I have learned by his own letter, he is not released in writing by those who lead the monastery, I do not know what I shall do, desiring, and more than can be said, to enroll him D
A for this Church which I oversee, while fearing envy and the malice of men. These, even if they were quiet, the anger of the wicked would arouse. However, if it seems sufficient to your holiness that to acquit us of judgment, the letter of the Superior alone, brought to us after he has been entrusted with it, should come—as is likely—let it come and be accompanied by him, and it will be gladly received by us. But if you do not even see this as sufficient, but it is necessary in any case to have the forgiveness of those who are in authority, I shall be sanctified, being deprived of such a man, and—what is rare for eunuchs who are well-behaved and of most simple character, and reckoning this also among other insults and injuries as a kind of addition—I shall patiently bear it, submitting to him who can bring all things sad and pernicious, and hoping to introduce this dear freedom, inasmuch as it is fitting. By whose help, from the ruin of this age that hangs over us and the snares of traps, may we be delivered by your holy prayers. B
EPISTLE VI. To Lord Gregory the Camateros.
C "Never," you say, "have letters from the city of Achrida, and uttered in the tongue of the Archbishop, come to us before—certainly not in large numbers." Verily, now a pressing cause urges the sending of letters. For the Archbishop has not forgiven that man, about whom the various examinations of the Emperor’s affairs always murmur with a low whisper, and to whom the letters of others induce no less annoyance and disturbance than the zeal and obligation of writing to others. Whence, therefore, has this new and importunate business arisen for us? Whence? From your skill and dexterity in every good thing. Since God has granted you much power with the Emperor, you do not use this divine gift in vain and absurdly; but you manifest yourself as one worthy of greater deeds, and fulfill them for those to whom that which was then sent to you, you have administered as is worthy of God; and by demonstrating your vigorous industry and power of acting with the talents that have been poured out to you from heaven, you show how it also befits you to be, "Be a ruler over ten cities," which was said and entrusted by the just Lord and fair governor to worthy and excellent men. D For what is now in your power, to submit it all now to our prince—this is indeed so far removed from this iron generation of present days, as it approaches the golden one of Hesiod; who newly united things by nature separated apart from each other: the weight of character and moderation—the former, which he kept for those acting wickedly, and the latter, which he poured out for the more virtuous with a sweet flow; and with the one, restraining the measures of the unjust; and with the other, [rewarding] the good.
sharpening them toward a more evident goodness, healing what is crushed, and calling back what has been cast away. It is clear that you will show Ochrid, which has been delivered, not to be a subject of envy. And to appoint for us such a governor—how is this not an incitement for you to obtain greater power from God before the Emperor, so that you may benefit even more cities and nations through your selection of leaders, and establish [your position] before the one holding office? This has loosened my tongue and led your ears to attend slightly to our speech. For I knew that I must not see such a great, and indeed so strange, a good arrive among you through yourself, without declaring to your great splendor the awareness of the gift bestowed, nor to acknowledge in words what a matter we have attained. For, among other things, by accepting your own judgment and embracing it happily like a beautiful offspring—just as a father—you will still further add wings through your letters to the course he has chosen; so that the good may be shown as better, and you may fashion a Nireus and already an Achilles. But if this Achilles were cautioned by you to attribute more modesty and severe, dignified gravity to Phoenix or Nestor, in no way would he prove false to that hero. Through all things you will show yourself, just as those who are known to us now [proclaim] you to be, as the clear-voiced one to the divine bird of Zeus.
Epistle VII
CTo Lord Gregory Pacurianus, the son-in-law of the Great Drungarios.Am I bold to you, and excessive in my frankness, Pansebastos, that although I have not yet seen you, nor been seen by you, I immediately set myself up as your mentor? Or do you wonder too much at my candid simplicity, because I share my own wealth with my associates, and distribute those things which are more fitting for you? I indeed think the second is the case; but if anyone thinks or considers that it is the first, I call him a fool, utterly stripped of every sense of humanity, and such a one upon whom the light of reason has never shone. For I say, because you have newly obtained the prefecture of men, that your mind, being well-disposed, ought to be D joined and gathered together everywhere, and that you should gaze upon all things with more eyes than that many-eyed Argus did the cow committed to his faith and custody. For in these things this fable indicates that which is primary, namely, that no wickedness or crime may secretly imprint its own character upon your soul.
your noble soul. And in that, the ardor of youth is something too bold, and too easy and prone to work. But when the license of power A is at hand, then, as they say, it speaks and chatters like a drawn sword. But do you, holding your speech and the absolute and perfect powers of your reason, and [the] vast [measures] of your worth within yourself, prepare all things as material for greater glory. And shaking off and suppressing the ferocity and ardor of youth with a sharp and imperial spirit, turn them to distinguished endeavors, lifting up a burning and saving torch B for those immersed and buried in poverty. And I judge you blessed, because you have not yet almost displayed the spectacle of yourself in the theater of this life; thus indeed you have the same for the convenience and utility of your subjects, as an easy pretext of freedom toward the great emperor and ruler always. For let your great nobility of spirit weigh well that nothing can so unite a man to God as integrity of morals and the pursuit of humanity. And this indeed is wonderful, that we are not asked for anything great and difficult, but only to know nature itself, and to demand the affections and powers which are wonderfully required and flow from it. Show me yourself to be such, and be proclaimed by such a name, and store up these riches and treasures rather than the various myriads of talents of others, which they hoard with tears and groans, and which they even now openly prefer to the oblivion which they construct late for the future time. For you will show yourself, as if a God, to all who lack C kindness and humanity, and especially to those who have set themselves apart privately and specifically for God. For thus you will most show how much you have studied to serve Him. Since He also cherishes you with much effort, and foresees the dangers impending for you; He who shows Himself grateful much more than toward private servants, at least especially manifests the affection and state of [the] soul in you. But now perceive the end of all this discourse. You will fix envy in the eyes of all, nor will you turn away the clamorous tongue of calumniators, if you obey the laws of our days. And may God, the giver of goodness and justice, keep you separate from all wickedness and disgrace.
EPISTLE VIII. To Ophiomachus.
What is this, that even the good and fair John has been brought into the middle [of the fray], so that he might enter the struggle with the Laestrygonians and Cyclopes? For such D I consider the works by which the clarity of a name is acquired, and immortal felicity is prepared. But so that you may not appear as another crafty and prudent son of Laertes, and that you might not oppose a living keenness of mind to any frauds of things and to various labors, truly Mercury has bestowed that sacred Moly upon you, and already in all things has shown himself a wonderful guide to you. Do not therefore be anxious, but use this power of his, this lot, and you will escape altogether unharmed with your allies, carried by that ship, steered by the rudder of the mind, and laden with those vast and distinguished goods, [namely] your confidence in God, which Virtue herself grants to you for your subjects. For now, indeed, consider that you are not otherwise
the subject, and as they are said to be in a more solemn A examination, as those who go forth to the Olympic contests. And would that it might be my lot to hear that my friend and acquaintance is an Olympic victor! For I would immediately sing outstanding victory odes in your praise, in which I would scarcely acknowledge that even the renowned Bacchylides and Simonides were my superiors. And perhaps I would adapt and compose them to the lyre of Pindar, in which a more splendid sweetness of harmony and elegance of argument utterly shines forth, and I would even rise boldly in a most solemn assembly and sing them to you.
EPIS. IX.
To the master, Lord Nicetas, bishop of Serres.
You, too, who were an interpreter of the truth of the Gospel, have you been convicted of a lie; or shall we impute to you anything other than the crime of lying? You surely mean your arrangement of these matters, a resolve so wise and excellent, which, with sweet praises—no differently than with hands—has brought up our childish hearts, indeed cast down and humbled upon the ground as they were, weary from the tedium and morose B nature of your works, and has wiped away the creeping tears and repelled the harsh sorrows with the most sweet kisses of an amiable mouth and a most cheerful concert of encomia. I, indeed, nurture and foster my works in this way. For I would not think that you would so easily lie, you who have led others to the truth, any more than that one who illuminates others should himself be shrouded in darkness. Nor that you are so neglectful of our own affairs as not to know in what position they are placed, for if it remains to aid in all things, it remains to aid as best one can; and that is through the power of the word. Therefore, do I miscalculate your C reasonably fading disposition, or is this alone the only thing in which the wicked are unable to deceive our judgment? But if you have discerned something else more profound, and for this reason you were abundant in your praises of us, having received the voluntary rain of love from above, reveal this also to us, you who even uncover the deep things of God to the holy people through the Spirit. Yet, however the case of these present days may be, it seems to me entirely strange, when, because iniquity abounds and love has grown cold, we bite and devour one another; and it is very difficult not only to encounter a praiser, but even a moderate detractor; and is good to us, not he who bestows favors, but he who is generous in not causing harm; and, simply put, blessed is not he who is divine in the excellence of virtue, but he who has contracted nothing demonic with himself through vices and crime. Do you, therefore, conduct yourself in this way, and so traverse the path of happiness, and be entirely separate from evils. For this is indeed fitting. But my brothers, and your disciples, embrace and honor this admirable gravity of your office, and, as one might say, they kiss you as their own rightful father; and they easily announce to you that they will perform whatever you enjoin them. And finally, pray for us that the temptations which distract us on all sides may be utterly uprooted.
EPIST. X.
To John Ophiomachus.
I have suffered this very same trouble in regard to you, O handsome John, which I suffered with regard to the hares and the frogs D
as the fables testify. For all the remaining time I have perpetually wept over my own wretchedness, the fear of my heart, and its soft treacheries, and on account of these I have deemed it worthy to dig myself into these hollow depths of the earth. But now, because I have found you to be more timid than myself, I raise my crest, and stepping toward you with a hint of pride, I approach with a flourish, like that hero of Salamis. A Why, therefore, O admirable man, have you been so frightened at the sight of these matters, when we, subjected to the strivings and dire calamities of these things, even find pleasure, although we are altogether unprepared for them and have been tempered and fashioned with no strength? You know our condition of life, and how it is worn away by leisure and every inconvenience. For it breathes only of books and the statutes of ancient custom, which have nothing in common with this new and active mode of living. Nevertheless, I have endured, and I have remained constant. But you, how do you flee and, like a wicked and sluggish soldier in the battle line, leave these things behind your back? Why have you trembled at the confused clatter of chariots? The horses have no rider, no driver, no warrior; they are carried along only by their own clattering B chariots, unruly and disordered. Stand firm against the rush, withstand it, and they will immediately cease their course. Soon, by having looked about yourself, you will mount upon the horses, and your horsemanship will be your safety. Have I recounted to you riddles and enigmas, and do you need their solution? Or have I led you into a labyrinth, and is there need for you of Ariadne’s thread, that you might skillfully know the entrance and the exit of the path? I, indeed, do not think so; for you know that there, these are the affairs of the Bulgarians, which he who boldly seeks the scepter of empire will view as the likeness of a rigid war. Then he will also master them, and will preserve these things, and as far as it is possible, will save the portion; and so much the more, in that he will strive to have God as an ally, to whom the doing of justice is more pleasing than the blood of sacrifices, C as we have learned from Solomon. Through whom may you also be pleasing to Him, O man most dear and most useful to me, so that, having lived in a manner worthy of the reason that brought you forth and nourished you, and gladdening my ears, you may have your own glory as the renown of a beloved son, and you may have the righteous God, holding His mighty hand over your command, and keeping you above all malice and harm.
EPISTLE XI
To the Lord Theodulus, Metropolitan of Thessalonica
This alone remains to us for consolation, most holy brother and master, in these days of a most wicked age, namely, that we may converse with one another, and invoke one another’s prayers, according to the example of those D who look to allies, and as we greet your holiness through this present letter of ours, we entreat…
we pleasantly entreat your holiness; and we ask in turn that you send forth this supreme help of yours, which you possess, to our infirmity, as if to a cohort that is both weak and laboring in extreme danger, as a most valid and powerful helper. Your hands, I say, A which alone, when raised, overthrow and rout the cruel Amalek, who resists the servants of God with supreme strength and obstructs the straight path of the journey and the level way of virtue. For, seizing all the crossways and the courses of the paths, he intends to completely crush the royal priesthood, which is the most powerful estate of the Lord. You are not unaware of who this is, who from the beginning was an apostate and a stiff-necked one, the proud one who exalted his arrogance, the tyrant of the whole world. Against him, indeed, we call upon you, O man of God; and would that it might now come to pass for us, and for all those pressed and routed by his tyranny, that by your aid we might find some end to our lamentations and sorrow. B Straightway, indeed, you yourself will enjoy the great benefit of your prayers, not only for this reason, that now sharing in our griefs while bearing the calamity, you will again be mixed with our joy, but also because, being privately entangled in many of the thorns of griefs, you yourself will be in need of someone who might remove them from you, and when he is present, he might afford you no small assistance.
EPISTLE XII. To Caesar.
My holy master, your letters, which are perpetually moist with the joyful dew of consolation and flow with a dripping cloud of solace, which were especially brought to me recently, flooded and immersed my breast with all the rivers of anxiety and fear, and taught me that you had been miserably and badly affected in your body, and that your soul had been swallowed by the terrible sea-monsters of sorrow and sadness, due to that lamentable death of the sebastokrator, who, beyond controversy, clearly surpassed all men in the glory of his achievements. C Certainly, I immediately perceived that he could find the measure of both medicine and salvation before God, who is the Father of the soul and the Creator of the body. And this man, like a son, He took away from dire lamentations with sweet enticements and honeyed hilarity, and will at last strengthen His own offspring, sending forth to him most powerful supports of strength. Indeed, when I turned my eyes toward Him, the greater flood of anxiety was checked and stood, driven back. But as I beheld you, great-souled and shining with a grave light of mind, and meditated on the innate strength of your soul, my vessel immediately stood on dry ground. For I reasoned in my mind that you had deemed all these misfortunes D of intermediate events to be matter for the magnitude of your mind, and you rightly consider the miserable bodily griefs to be a kind of memory—as indeed they truly are—and that you are so instructed that you might affirm that not all things are subject to him whose raging flood we cannot restrain, even if we have brought together all the might of wisdom and power with our every effort, so that this indeed [index: entries preserved]
A should be mourned by me, if by any other; and this [gift] you shall receive as an object of preparation. For I always trust, according to the word of the Proverbialist, for whom you possess wisdom no less than the kingdom itself, that you prepare your works for the departure, and the very nature of the body, and simply every shifting judgment, and keep only the ever-moving thing as immovable, as if making it some sort of precursor of the thing that will surely come. And most of all now, as if they were nearer precursors, and, to speak more familiarly, B as if a torch-bearer were persuaded that he who is awaited is already at hand, and for this reason you make yourself more prepared, so as to acquire tranquility. Thus, I, having considered your majesty—such as it is, incapable of being overcome—arranging everything, both bitter things toward the sweeter and unseemly things toward the more beautiful, from the flood of the many waters of despondency, I see that not even any mud has been left in my heart. For the sun, having considered me, has dried everything, only as to how you might be disposed toward events. Why are you not also about to receive everything unpleasant pleasantly on account of your greatness of soul? Seeing that you even declare my words, which are without any unpleasantness, to be the sweetest of all things. C And you confess that the eagle is charmed by the croaking of the crow, and you trust that the fish from us, being likewise made sweet by my words, will be able to arouse to every other thing the appetite of the senses, which is entirely dead. You, therefore, speak things worthy of your kindness, exalting yourself the more by the things with which, in descending, you lift up my lowliness. But we are conscious that we have nothing soothing in either our words or our deeds. Nevertheless, fish have been sent; some are salted, others simply roasted. And may my conversation, which I make through this letter, be sweet to you; but may the fish be even sweeter to your appetite, as also a mission and blessing of her who in the body brought forth the Giver of Life for us. May they revive this [nature], and become a strengthening for the body, D leading it to the stability of the natural functions. Since the number of these is also a symbol of natural perfection. For if ten is the perfect number, while nature is pentadic on account of the matter regarded in the quaternary of the elements, and that which is the five from which all things natural to us are composed.
EPISTLE XIII. To the Bishop of Semnara.
A I would that it were so, and indeed it would be much more advantageous, most holy head, were those who are eager to inflict blows and disasters upon us, compelled by the death and slaughter of others to greater humanity and gentleness toward us. But now they are so tireless and obdurate in their unspeakable wickednesses and crimes, that they grow yet more savage and exasperated by these very blows, just like that Egyptian of old. And this is not yet enough for their zeal; they grow not only by the slaughter of their own household and neighbors, but even by their own calamities. Indeed, as they say of many wild beasts, when B they have been pierced by various wounds, they are compelled, especially not sparing even themselves, to rise up and rush more fiercely toward savage wounds, as if they feared their adversaries because they themselves were about to die. If you grant me what histories relate concerning Antipater Herod, it was a deed approaching the most savage death, and certainly worthy of his ferocity. For when he had gathered all the select cohorts of the Jews and brought them into the royal court, he immediately slaughtered them all like victims and sacrifices, so that, he said, no house of the Jews might, if it should somehow cease from mourning, raise joyful applause at my death. Such, I think, are the thoughts and ponderings of these beastly, “Herodian” men in these days, and they are excited and compelled to be irritated and to grow savage, and even when they are utterly defunct and hidden in the furrows of the earth, they manifest their vices, crimes, and immortal disgrace. C The more closely they foresee divine scourges approaching, the more they endeavor to devastate and plunder. So that, as soon as those scourges have passed, they might neither see their own destruction, nor be able to mock and deride it, but might entirely contain that time of savage confusion for those whom they have determined should be consumed by perpetual groaning and dire labor of sorrow. For if you hope that any of the demons might be changed in their disposition, either persuaded or compelled by the dispensations of God’s goodness to alter the destruction they have set for themselves, then you may also hope that our own most bitter torturers might, by the more severe powers of manifold wisdom, be able to mitigate their harsh vengeance. But if that cannot be done—and I do not know how I could conceive that this could be effected—in these men every kind of villainy and the strength of vice increases by the very state of their body, and now takes on the powers of nature, as we understand from their deeds. D Unless it is that we must do what is lawful for us and what becomes us. Indeed, we must always pray for the easy outcome of our labor, and that they may be amended. For after the Lord searched the reins of Judas and found him impervious to correction, He did not cease to exhibit the gifts of His goodness. Therefore, do not cease to pray for them yourself, and to exhort others whom you know to be strong to the same work, if perhaps, beyond all hope, we might remove the stone with great labor.
EPISTLE XIV. To the Bishop of Cytra.
Truly, God possesses the spiritual man with spiritual things, and earthly things, and all things that are in all. Look upon yourself, most august lord, and see these things which have been sent to our humility. Even if
are earthly, they hint at something spiritual. For the perfume sent in two glass vials, distilled from the droplets of roses, reminded me of this structure of my own composition and bones. As if he had made the body and soul something diaphanous and transparent, like glass, we were constituted as these vessels for the perfume poured out and emptied into us. You surely know this drop, as it were, falling upon the earth, of which the part that is bound and solid is fragrant with a sweet odor. For it is endowed by nature with the power of preservation. And the part that breathes a good odor is stalk-like and dense. For it cannot be dissolved. For it does indeed have a yoke, but it is a pleasant one; and it has a burden, but it is light and sweet. Furthermore, it leads into a sweet bridal chamber, but by the narrow path of the way. And it bids us to exult with joy, but it also renders us trembling and fearful. Are those fragrant woods, then, sent by your spiritual wisdom in vain and to no purpose? But we would indeed be too lazy if we did not perceive here something spiritual. For since there are four woods, what else do they manifest than the four-part wood which wrought our salvation? In which Paul exults, and wishes us who are Christ's to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. You have therefore taught us clearly that it behooves us to be crucified to all the pleasures and delights of this world, which are fragrant. And one might perhaps say wittily that those things which were sent were sent against themselves. For through the number, as has been said, we are taught to be crucified to such harmful things; or rather, to bring all things to God, and through such things to come to the knowledge of Him who, even in other ignoble woods, has implanted such great honor because of their fragrance. And I had more things to write, namely, everything I perceived you teaching my humility through the things that were sent. But what gain is there for me, what utility, in pondering these things in my mind, yet executing none of them in deeds? But through your prayers I shall easily attain both to understand and to accomplish what is needful, and to show my own life as an odor of life, and not of death, to the wandering flock that follows in my footsteps and fixes its eyes upon me. This you will never cease to provide, you who are especially sought after by us for these things.
Epistle XV. To Camateropulos.
Although those who have died are forgotten in the cavern of Pluto, nevertheless I shall perpetually repay the debt of gratitude due to a deceased friend among those whom he has left behind. Indeed, I shall pursue with the debt of gratitude, as is fitting, the thrice-blessed and most honored Psellus, who without controversy held the first rank in the sweetness of his tongue—though I cannot repay such graces as no one could recount or relate. For I know that I have learned much from the [work of such a] man.
as I am able, through your love for us. For he who entrusts our present letter to your brilliance is a grandson of that man and, having experienced bitter fortune, is in low circumstances; see therefore if you can reconcile the tyrant to him. For if you not only converse with him, but also smile upon him and embrace him, and perhaps even take his cause into your bosom, he will be granted a taste of good things. And do not think that I am writing these things to you for any other reason than to fulfill a duty. For may I neither enjoy words, nor the desire for the salvation of my soul, if I do not write these things to you from the depths of my heart; for I pity the young man, having seen him long ago in prosperity, and I fear the soul of this grandfather of his, lest he reproach me for being hard and unyielding. B For I hesitate to speak for the time being of one who sets forth the inhuman in judgment for the left-hand goats. For if he appeared to me in a dream and reached out his tongue with its twelve-fold flow, do you think I could endure the phantom of the rebuke without shivering and agitation? But if, beyond other things, he drags in God through David—though he is dead—as a protector of Jerusalem, even if otherwise it were unworthy and without bloodshed, what should I feel about these things, being oppressed by the justice and God and the tongue of Psellus? But deliver me from these necessities, by placing in some service this man who is sent to you. For since many causes have been entrusted to you, it is easy—if not more than easy—to restore to us, enriched with some relief and benefit, someone recommended to you by so many; for the ways of the road are not cramped for you. And may God keep you safe from all evil C and harm.
Letter 16
To the Bishop of Ancyra
Has the wise prelate also been fettered in his tongue, alas! by the present times, which permit gout to bind and constrain even tongues? Thus do all things grow savage for the worse. But no, this has neither been introduced by the times, nor have you yourself been so affected. But you loosen the conversations you have with us, with which you also converse familiarly with our brother, leading him on and instructing him on this path through which one ascends to sacred philosophy. I perceive this, and esteem it more pleasant and sweeter than any conversation D you have with us. Therefore, would that you would converse more frequently with the young man, if it will in any way delight us…
to have him privately with you, so that he may derive some profit. Let him be refreshed by the common bowls of your wisdom and the sumptuous banquets of your offerings, and let him be graciously received along with the others who delight in joy with him without absurdity. I wish, however, that he would, in this manner, even privately be entrusted to your wisdom, that he might at least obtain this, that he might have some reward, or even that some favor might be returned to him. For mothers, too, as they take up one of their children separately with singular devotion, cherish him with the honeyed blandishments of their delights and gently soothe him. Do you perhaps wish me to provide a reason and an example of this thing of which I speak? Just as much as Theophylact, in love and friendship, has been preferred and set before the rest by you, so much in return do you owe the brother privately, and hold Theophylact dear to your heart above all others. I will show you another mode for this. The kind of person you wished me to be to your Paul, when I was teaching him the mysteries of wisdom with absolute devotion, such do you be to my Demetrius, who has been initiated and instructed in the study of philosophy under your tutelage. Finally, would that you might live long in the joyful spirit of salvation, most beloved of men to me!
LETTER XVII. To the Bishop of Corfu.
B You might say in a way that we received your letter with a pleasant and joyful spirit, noble master. For all things, by the very occasion and timeliness of them, seemed beautiful and sweet to us, and most of all, the oration. The oration, I say, which is the sprout of such a mind and opinion, and the offspring of such a tongue. For when I was involved in the greatest anxiety of soul, you poured forth that medicine for me by which the deep sleep of oblivion is induced; and when I was burning with dry thirst, you sent forth from the sweet rock, in place of moisture, sweetness into my parched throat. And as if you were an interpreter of the divine Paraclete, you refreshed my soul, which was to some degree afflicted and fixated on sorrows, and lifted it up with sweet consolation. For we are afflicted, more than can be said, by a heavy weight of affairs, so that truly horrible wars threaten us, and fears are within. Enemies are also prevailing against us. And friends and kinsmen are so disposed toward us that the former are utterly hostile, and the latter offer us help at the furthest remove from humanity and kindness. But indeed He who looks upon the humble and the abject, and who heals those who are worn down with a torn heart and shattered breast, has also been a consolation to us, to whom He has shown Himself a familiar friend. And that dew of yours, divinely distilling, has proved to be a salubrious medicine for us. Therefore let there be grace to the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, because in these most unfavorable and worst of days, and in this time of the ferociously raging and hostile incursion of enemies, He has granted your holiness to us, girded with paternal love and, as it were, steeped and proven in the very bowels of Jesus. Do not, therefore, grow weary, man of God, of directing toward us that wisdom in which you have become rich before the Lord, and that distinguished treasure which D your...
and this consumes my marrow. For I have not yet completely escaped the lion, when a bear meets us; and when I have fled from her, and have braced my hands against the walls of the house, an insidious serpent emerges from the hole—a thing which causes me even sharper pains. But these things, although I very strongly wish to spew them out, A in order to lighten my heart a little, I restrain with a patient spirit. And now, too, I set a guard upon my mouth, as in the time when the sinner stood before me, so that I might not bring disgrace upon the great task of the archiepiscopate, or its name. For the nature of a letter is talkative, as you know, and cannot be restrained; since, from fellow-priests and fellow-bishops, who seem to judge and direct the people, the nets of our afflictions have been spread. But do you pray, holy father and master, that we might escape the dangers that are among these false brothers, and that they themselves might wake up from the trap of the devil in which they have been ensnared. By all means, let him who is against us be ashamed, and let God be glorified through all things. Whose grace be with your spirit, all-holy and divine master.
EPISODE XVIII. To the Bishop of the Mermentlari. On inviting him to the reading of Holy Scripture, after profane writers.
C "Am I a god, that you liken me to the immortals?" But to you, indeed, even a friend concedes that you are a liar, who in the meantime practice and lead the truth itself with the clear responses and decrees of Themis, of which you are the interpreter and president. But as for us, it befits us to remain in the battle line in which we have been stationed, either as appointed decurions, or, as is your kindness and grace, as commanders of thirty men. We hear only of the glory of the military tribunate and the prefecture of the army. Do not, therefore, impose upon me the judgments of Longinus, nor appear yourself to decree anything according to the mind of Longinus. For we are now so much inferior in our own power and strength to those by whom we were once powerful and D superior to all by a long interval, as much as we were then surpassed in the resources and wealth of the ancients. For these regions no longer set me to teaching, and the very books the Harpies have snatched away. The hands of the collectors of taxes, no less than our own, have stripped away all reading, just as those of Phineus snatched the food. You, then, move away from walking toward the Academy, and go toward the Stoa and its beauties; and take your enjoyment for me also in the Ionian meadows,
draws from them, which those Phinecibos A disturbed. Therefore, transport those Peripatetics into the Academy and into the varied Porch, and send them forth into its noble beauty. Do you, however, play amidst the luxuriant Ionica gardens with light step, and receive the soothing Zephyrs of these places with an open breath. Pluck also the fragrant roses of the Iliad, as many as might, perhaps, please you for their sweet scent. Sit as a spectator of the tragic theatre, and sport with the comic scurrility, nor reject the bucolic pipe, which depicts splashing fountains with pebbles, and the mutual whispers of the leafy pine, and whatever other things are harmoniously fashioned with varied cultivation—unless any of the things involved in these playful loves should seem fit to be rejected by your sweet Muses. Do you, meanwhile, nourish yourself both with these things and with that much more excelling offspring which supports your soul with sacred stabilizers. For He, once descending from heaven, fostered and recreated with a pleasant life those who were walking through the desert of evils and tribulations, and now also He is both able and is said to nourish. But do not apply yourself too curiously to these Mosaic B tablets of the Law, whether by adopting what they indicate outwardly or by investigating what they harbor within. Strive, rather, for this: that you may behold with the attentive light of the mind those prophetic visions and those marvelous images, as things that could have come to pass, and that you may fix your firm footsteps in the knowledge of things and in history, which leads you as if by the hand toward a true imitation of the ancients. Still, gaze upon the Sun of grace that is shining, and enjoy its gleaming rays as much as is permitted. Imitate those Gregories and Basils, and follow the blessed gathering and divine choir of these men, and prepare for yourself sumptuous feasts from the abundant goods of all these. But pray with us, for in truth, failure to utter any voice at all is turned against me as a reproach. I have brought this about most thoroughly and most poorly. At last, I desire to see your longed-for face, and to hear that sweet and honeyed speech of yours, which I admire above all things, O man most magnificent to me both in deed and in word. C
EPISLE XIX. To Anemos.
A speech that soothes the disease with its sound: How sweet a gift you are, arriving in good time!
Since these are the words of Orestes, as you know, my dearest soul, I alter all things slightly in this little song to apply to you. Do you wish that I also relate to you that of the comic poet, namely: How I rejoice, and delight, and long to leap for joy.
But why do I anoint my letters with this fat oil of sinners, when it becomes them to shine only with the gifts of Him who, being made fat with beautiful celestial oil, said: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God." For He has clothed me with a garment of joy and a stole of glory, instead of a spirit of heaviness. For He has rent my sackcloth and girded me with joy. For He has given my enemies their backs in flight, and those who hated me He has thoroughly destroyed, and He has sent a man D
A to heal those who were broken before us, to visit the weak, and to be all things to all men for their salvation. But well done, because you have appeared to these parts of ours as an averter of evils, just as things here had already been despaired of. Lysias might have said, "The wickedness of the rulers has reached its pinnacle." Even now, the surveyor of the camps is pulling down the resources of the wretched, and the tax-collector is sifting and winnowing our very soil. Among these is a third, to whom even another Pharaoh is most similar by the very kinship of the name. I do not know if there could be anything more intolerable than these things already mentioned. But now they have been looked upon from on high with a vigilant inspection; they have been foreseen, and pure reason will guide them, and will be their leader—if I have not yet forgotten myself and my most sweet Nicholas. And they will exult, in exchange for the days in which they were humbled by the evils they endured. This shall be for them; and I am the messenger bringing them good tidings of what is to come.
EPISTLE XX
To the Bishop of the Mermentlai
This short time during which you have been silent, know that it has seemed to me like a hundred years. For so do I love your speech, O most illustrious to me of all, and your present letter is like a phoenix of the sun to me. But, O most blessed one, do not think that this phoenix is to me that rare spectacle that it is for the Egyptians; rather, imitating the sun daily, illuminate me with your letters, or rather, grant me a longer day. Indeed, hide the night from me entirely. For do not seek to use the long lingering of the night as an excuse, or you will do an injustice to your own truth, being able to suffice both for them and for the letters you send me. For there is no greater dexterity of wit in Homer’s Paeon for wars C than there is in you for eloquent speech. For you breathe out even your improvised works more beautifully and more sweetly than those who produce the products of oil-lamps—those which they curl and comb and adorn with sapphire earrings. And then, for a while, they seem worthy of great admiration before a drunken and mad theater. "And Phoebus sets, having left the beautiful marsh," and we do not even see the Dawn. If, then, you required time and periods for the labor of your words, your rare and slow letters would have some justification. But since you have thrown open the doors of your sober mouth and speak with divine inspiration, you see, do you not, how you wrong my longings by worrying over Themis? But do you not do so any longer. D Send me your Zephyrs, though you be ill-tempered in your soul. You know our ailments, and especially these present ones, when the Lord has cast a scorching heat upon us and melted away every life-giving moisture. But this—the only thing I had—I have warded off with iambic verses, singing many elegies throughout the whole year.
A by one compelling me. But you, since you will never fail us with the appearing of workers of evil—I know not whether because of the necessary cycle of the current season, or because of the ascent of our sins toward God—do not cease to provide us with comfort. In any case, even the Zephyrs will not fail you, or else the aroma-bearing fragrance would be the first to do so.
EPISTLE XXI. To Anemos.
B You tell me my own dream, most beloved of men, saying that I have become barbarized in the midst of the Bulgarians. Consider, in fact, how much of the cup of rusticity I have drained, being absent so many years from the region and seat of wisdom, and what a drunkenness of uncultivation I have contracted. But who shall give us to be made drunk with the opposite drunkenness from the cup of wisdom, which she mixes according to Solomon, making those who were hitherto foolish into wise men? How often have I said to her these very words from the Song of Songs: "Show me your face, and let me hear your voice"? C But she escapes me, and hides herself, and provoking my loves all the more. I, a miserable lover, incurable, run the risk of becoming a fable to life, like the one who loved Echo—whether it was a demon or a god—or like the much-talked-of Tantalus, always thirsting, and always being deceived by the drink itself. Again, the saying of Solomon comes to me: "I said, I will seek wisdom, and she departed far from me, further than she was before." And in saying these things, I appear to be doing nothing else than brooding over my own miseries. Wherefore it is of great concern to me to contrive a certain remedy, as though these [miseries] were to be constant and lasting for us in the land of the Bulgarians. For now rusticity is nurtured at the same breast with me, and sits at the same hearth. But do not you, being always wrapped in a kind of dissimulation, wish to be entreated too intensely by those who know you. For yesterday I laid the books aside from my hands, so that the echoes of the wise might still remain with you. But furthermore, we have now sent you a Chrysostomic book. And may the fountain of wisdom, wisdom itself, which is Christ, be guiding you and joining you together in this path upon which you walk, and teaching you His own knowledge together with action.
EPISTLE XXII. To the Bishop of Corcyra.
D And again, there must be a high speculation for us, because again from...
A your letters have reached me, most honorable lord; the power of which descended upon my mind as snow upon the grass, and as rain upon the green herb. For your discourse was sweetened for me, seasoned with brotherly love and salt. And I embraced you as if you were present, and kissed my lord and father with the mouth of love. But, O envy, by what means have you separated us by such long barriers, so that you may prick each of us in private, and woe to the one on one side, and again to the one on the other, lest the cord that binds us should become unbreakable, strengthened by the weaving? Blessed be God, the Word of God, who makes those who are far off near B by the power of the Word, and by the grace of letters makes the stratagems of envy prove false. For even if we have been orphaned of each other, this is in appearance, but not in heart; rather, we converse with one another through the mouth of letters, and one refreshes another from the heat of painful things, performing the task of an echo, returning to each other the voices we have received regarding the things that afflict us, yet lightening our own spirits of the heavy burden of the heart through the works of the Word. Therefore, since you have offered me the cup of the narrative concerning those around you, I in turn offer you the same toast. How that vine should perish, from which such draughts are to us! Sennacherib the Assyrian indeed C squeezed us, whom Mesopotamia sent to us, cruel and unrelenting. But the second is heavier by a great measure, just as he is more senseless (for, among other things, folly renders its own disciples obstinate and unyielding in wickedness). Thus, they stand against our own bowels (if one must call those who subsequently plot against us our bowels), and concerning the people being chopped and honey-combed, they have spoken a few words, and being resentful, he has devoured me, he has honey-combed me, he has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with gall. In a word, to him, that man is honorable who has either said something against the Church or done so; but that man is dishonorable, and acting no worse than any other, who is reported to have spoken with us, or who entered the church even on a feast day. For he was D also envious of this for the Christians, so that in the common gathering his purpose might be concealed. For he did not even deem himself worthy to worship the Theotokos; as he supposed, providing for his own lack of humility and his firmness toward us (for such is the pitch of his madness). But as I judge, he suffers this only as he deserves, and has his penalty right there, from which—as they say—he rages, knowing how to respect neither men nor God, but having become entirely possessed by the madness that has taken hold of him. From this, how do you think we who are here in our entirety are disposed? Some indeed were merely sent away, while others even stood up against us; but upon all, simply put, wickedness has triumphantly feasted.
A For us, however, Jesus was left behind—the deliverance both in fact and in name—and being gathered up with Him, while the others were scattered, we endured whatever it was we had to suffer. For that sweet voice was calling out to us, "Take heart, I have overcome the world." And with Him, even now, He pastures us in a place of grass; He makes me to dwell there, and feeds me by the water of rest. What more? As if he were not satisfied, the enemy, a man-slayer from the beginning, sharpened a direct dart against us with his nearby wounds and blows, a bishop’s weapon. Regarding this, I wrote to your Holiness earlier. For he incited against me a certain bishop of such-and-such a city—a man who is both a worker of every kind of craftiness and a workshop for the same—and sent me, little by little, down into the tombs with those who are descending. But that man—alas for my misfortunes!—he brought about as a killer. B But to recount his actions in a tragic style would be longer than the leisure I have for speaking, and more painful than the peace of mind you possess for hearing; for I would not want you to have sorrow upon sorrow, since your brotherly love for him is no less than your love for me. For according to the wise warning, he who acts wickedly is the one who suffers evil, and for this reason it is most pitiful to you; and hence the account of this matter is even more grievous to you. I shall therefore cease speaking about this, so that we may not insult the high priesthood doubly—both by the things we do, which are not even worthy of mention, and by the things we say, which it is not even fitting to ponder. For such things must be buried right there, so that we do not give wider room to the passions of the people. And furthermore, for one who has made peace with a brother, even if he himself remains hostile and is spotted with such embroideries, I would be acting inconsistent to stir up such unpleasantness. Nevertheless, wishing to manifest the causes of these grievous things to your Honour, however dimly, I have made mention of them to this extent. For this reason, it is necessary for me to set out for the Emperor—or, to say the same thing, to traverse again the deadly Charybdis, or to cross Egypt, a difficult and arduous path. Do not imagine, O man of God, that I consider this journey to be less significant than all the tribulations I have undergone, or that I consider the imagined release from these difficulties to be anything other than an unbreakable bond. C Not for this reason alone, that a bishop approaching an army encampment is a thing exposed to envy or hated in these sinful days; nor that we must have our horses foal three times a year (as we were taught in the fable of the Elysian Fields when we were in the swaddling clothes of education, and as we ourselves taught when we were swaddling others), so that we might have everyone mounted with whom we converse; and that the fields should yield us a golden harvest, or the trees produce golden fruits, like the apples of the Hesperides that have been brought forth by poetry. For are we not being demanded such things by just anyone, and even if we are not present to heal these bitter things with desired soothing remedies, we are slandered as though we are burying them—as if those saying such things have any innocence? Are these not the only things that make the road to the encampment steep for us, or narrow and constricted, and not even the end
that I have, and also this spider-like body of mine, which, as you know, is equally weak and easily dissolved against every labor, especially that of travel. But if you would clothe it with strength, and gird it with the power of your prayers on our behalf, everything will become bridgeable for us, for God does the will of those who fear Him, making the way passable for us through your angelic prayers, and casting the stones out of the path. B
Epistola XXIII. To the same.
No difficulty remains for me, since I have received a message from the most pleasant of tongues and the sweetest of minds, and one that is not transitory, like a high blow of the air that manifests and dissolves at once, but one that is constant and persistent for me, and endures with tenacity. For this missive, fashioned from your magnanimity and loftiness, has descended to my humility, as if it were present and resounding to me, and as if it clamored with your own mouth, as often as I might wish and unroll this scroll. Which indeed is easy to secure for one who removes from himself these troubles of affairs, shaken and beaten as he is by heavy misfortunes. But when I approached the reading, and to your various monuments, I judged that nothing other than that potion of forgetfulness had to be drunk by me, or, to speak more appositely, that because of the land of the Colchians—in which you yourself now dwell—old age is scraped away from me by the art of the Colchian Medea, and my youth is renewed. Do you see how, in times of common misfortunes, I myself am fortunate because of you and your good fortunes, which even surpass the celebrated ones of the ancients? I, for my part, have accounted the very time of receiving this message a fortunate omen. In this, it is reasonable, since the one who speaks is also an eagle, apt and skillful. For as I was departing to the great Achillios, so that I might celebrate with them at the festival, your letter was handed to me on the way. But you, even there, are embittered against those who afflict us, those ministers of greed, those enemies of the Evangelical proclamation, those miscreants of the Christian order. Send this dart, which you alone possess, against those accursed ones who show the belly of the innkeeper Hades to be narrow, and who exult in their prize. These...
...[Jesus] having mastered that great sea monster A under his own hand, and having touched their belly, might reduce the great swelling and disperse the tumor, or whether as he managed the collection of Zacchaeus, or as he [managed] the others among the Jews, the rulers who were otherwise incurable. Upon them he has let loose the sharp surgeons, the Romans, to cut and to burn. But as for you, may he who is the sure Way B—may Jesus, who is always looking ahead of you from your right hand so that you might not be shaken—and through the poor, and through those who are otherwise subject to him, and who rather represent him, while you receive them genuinely and bountifully, and show your affection for them by your deeds, may he make your arms a bow of bronze C and gird you with strength, so that you might scatter in yourself the nations that desire wars; may he break the bow, and shatter the weapon, and burn the shields with the fire of the zeal of your readiness! And if those who do evil draw near you, and the camp of the enemies of the Lord draws up in battle array, may they themselves grow weak, and may they fall from their counsels; and may you pursue them, and overtake them, and crush them; and like the mud of the streets, may you grind D those who love the broad street of the godless Mohammed. And these things I do not merely pray for you, but I also trust that they will come to be. For God is not so unjust as not to adorn with the crown of victory, most abundantly, the man who has been called forth through the purity of his soul and the nobleness of his deeds. Indeed, I shall already sing for you the song of victory: “David has struck down his ten thousands,” 19 he who is the most gentle of all who are now living, and the most warlike; he who has struck the bear of desires and the lion of blameworthy anger; he from whom the Lord, who has always loved righteousness and regarded uprightness, has never separated his mercy, always keeping him apart from all impiety and all wickedness.
LETTER XXIV
C To the great Domesticus, Lord Adrian.Indeed, I have already died, O most venerable and greatest helper of mine; and, having been placed among those who wander in the lowest cavern of Hades, I am now awakened by you, you who restore this little soul of mine to me, gather together my bones, and piece together the dissolution of my body D, and build it up with a congruent proportion of the elements and with the reason of harmony, and feed my flesh, and draw taut my skin, and become a life-giver to me. Do you wish me to draw away the veil of obscurity, and...
manifest to you the true meaning of my words? I look with a sick heart upon the confusion of human life, and the wantonness of greed, and the shamelessness of those who are so brazenly whoring and defiling all things; and I see those who manage public affairs acting as A plunderers rather than tax-collectors; and I see divine laws and imperial decrees alike being held as spider-webs—a thing, as Anacharsis once said to Solon, that captures the gnats while it is torn by the wasps—and I see the affairs of the Christian people being tossed and driven as if they had no freedom and had not been granted life. All hope of salvation has almost entirely been stripped away and repelled. If anyone were to say that the state of my soul is compacted and weighed down by various calamities, he would not be wrong. Every plan has vanished, and I lie almost dead and lifeless, for the sole reason that I am in total despair, wishing that I might in some way be corrected. But your most noble son-in-law, that sprout of good-will, that lily in the valleys where the scum of evil now flows together, and that rose among the thorns which lacerate and prick everyone—he is truly a spirit breathed by God; one who stands firmly by our works and afflictions. B Certainly it seemed a strange spectacle to me, like a river flowing sweet from the very brine itself, and a traveler passing through miry paths while remaining undefiled—for I have thoroughly explored that all these things are the effects of your instructions. Here, however, the spirit of most useful and saving hope has flown back to me, and all those things which are said to have appeared as terrible and frightening to Ezekiel have been fulfilled within me. Must I give you moderate thanks in prayers and praises to the Giver of life, the Life-genitor? Or should I give as many as, if it be permissible to say, there are curses for the incorrigible enemies of goodness, for the soul-destroyers, for the life-abrogators? But alas, what we have suffered! C The young man is in truth a lily, and a rose, exhaling sweetness for a short time; or rather, having become a sweet fragrance to God through the poor, He smelled it more sweetly than the odor of ancient Noah’s sacrifice. Then he passed on to your air, leaving us only a memory that brings no consolation. For who in the future will gather the remaining goods for those who are not property-owners, and who will lead those who are in the drink of want toward a station of sufficiency? Who will give the orphans cause to be grateful even to death, through whom, being deprived of frail parents, they received such a capable one at that time? Whose commands, sounding like the echoes of divine goodness, will steady the lot of the widows? Whose eyes, shedding tears for those who are wronged, will lament those who do wrong all the more, as they themselves become lessened, and will make haste to resolve the losses for both sides, for the one the greater, and for the other the lesser one? And what poor man will find an advocate against the rich plunderers, and what rich man will find an advocate against the malicious and slandering poor? What healer will the order of the divine healers find, who does not judge according to ranks—for that is a practice of the godless D who, because of their hatred of God, necessarily make their own display in the dishonor of God’s servants, and contrive an apology for the unworthiness of those who claim the right to be honored? But he saw everyone as better than himself, and believed that he would be sanctified through them by the anointing of the Spirit, and furthermore that he would be perfected in all things divine and sanctifying, and those...
A who are not of this opinion he deems uninitiated, inept, and destitute of all sanctifying grace. For they who believe that the priest is a sanctifier, and acknowledge that they themselves are sanctified by him, are unholy if they despise the sanctifier; or, if they do not believe him to be such, they show themselves as having no share in the sanctification according to Christ; for he who is sanctified is sanctified by a sanctifier. And what need is there for such as these to be accustomed to the ways of Christians? And who, without even being able to see, let alone lend an ear, would be deprived of a disbeliever in such a height of necessary things, so that the Bulgarians might not even murmur?
The Pansebastos B was grieved by one thing only: that those who served him with sincerity were not only deprived of their earnings but also squandered what they previously possessed, and, according to the proverb, having found the treasure to be coals, were consumed by those from whom they expected enjoyment. Or rather, to speak more truly, he has not even grieved them, as they have deemed [this] a gain greater than all profits, and the acquisition of wealth—not its loss—[to be] the magnificence of such acts of youth. For this is the mark of good servants: to choose poverty—which enriches the master with good reputation—rather than wealth, which impoverishes through ill repute. But for the noble and good Sebastos, the place of authority is to be shunned, as it is in truth a crucible of wickedness, or a tabernacle of Kedar, or an iron furnace; C and for this reason, he flies toward your Beatitude as if on wings. But those who have enjoyed his kindness lament for themselves, as they are about to experience difficulties more severely than before (for evil is worse after the experience of good); and they pray to the Lord for a greater influx of every good, for you and yours, as one who so teaches, and for those who have been so taught. D I am not ashamed to rank myself first among those for whom he prays. And may God grant to you yourselves, and to those who belong to you, and to those around you, perfection in what is good, ease, and may He keep you simply above every wickedness and malice.
EPISTLE XXV
A Sebasto Pacuriane.The Lord has indeed taken away your sin; otherwise it would not be as great as it is always in His eyes. But I admire and praise you all the more for this, my most venerable son, that you see the gnats of sins as camels, contrary to how the Pharisees were rebuked by the divine tongue; and you consider the speck that is in your eye as a heavy beam, which the heavenly Word, who willed to be born among us, established as the great foundation of virtue. For we have believed that the beginning of salvation is one’s own self-knowledge. And cast it thus, if you could implant any light in mortals. Neither will any worldly force shake you from this standard of virtue, by which we, being lighter, are tossed up and down and deluded. And hold this constantly persuaded, that it is simply a shame for Christians to make it a law that anyone should be preferred and set before others in this, that he harms or saddens no one. For this is a precept of nature itself, which the diligent disciple of the Gospel is commanded to transcend and exceed. For the law restores man from what is contrary to nature into nature; but the Word of God exalts those who are persuaded by Him even B above the seat of nature; for this is his achievement and victory, which arises from his love and communion with nature itself. However, the bestial nature of many who are driven by madness and impetuosity against their own kind, teaches that this—namely, to wish to cause no one grief—is now required of the more honest as a great fulfillment. I am saying, that no one should wish to cause pain. But we beg of you, that you always counsel good things to everyone, and so keep the unity of the faith in the bond of love, that to bite and devour one another might be known to be derived neither from nature nor from faith. For thus you will draw down upon yourself more abundantly the graces of the good God, by whom you may be kept superior to every malice and harm.
EPISTLE XXVI
To the Lord Gregory Taronites.And whence, and what thanks can I repay you, most illustrious son and master in the Lord? For D you manifest me as the most truthful of all men everywhere, and you yourself do more than adorn the praises with which I study to celebrate you, and you turn them and sing them, not as the sophistic enticements of rhetoricians, but as the exultant dances of a joyful spirit, and as the songs and chants springing from the mouth of one who has learned only to extol virtue, for those who are truly honest. Behold, then, what has recently been brought to me, how much ears that are honest and generous prize...
A and together with the tower of Persian arrogance you have leveled the height of Frankish arrogance. And you have been shown to us as a new Phinehas, having impaled with your powerful spear two characters, two nations B unclean before the Lord. For he who was accustomed to collect tribute from the Nesman, and from the other Greek cities around the Pontus and within the Tanais river and the Maeotic lake, and indeed from that which presides over the Colchians and is bounded by the Phasis itself—but also that which is situated above in Lesser Armenia on a high hill, and even all of Armenia itself (for I pass over the Maryandyni and the Galatians, and the Cappadocians bordering on them)—having already become fat and heavy from the collection and heap of tributes, had his tribute-collecting hands cut off by the edge of your keen sword, and he learned thereafter how he himself ought to pay tribute. He also checked the incursions and struggles which, after the manner of a brigand, he audaciously stirred up, and he utterly rejected the invasions of ambushes, which he had made so conspicuous to the Taronite, and more well-known than a city situated on the peak of a mountain. But coming to the conflicts of war, he realized his hands were more withered than straw, and cities already filled with ten thousand, which he himself had scarcely captured, he surrendered faster than a word. Thus the die of fortune fell to him in such a way that it cast him into the most grievous disasters. Or rather, the scales of God inclined the balance of your virtues against him, no less than those of the people whom he conquered before your reign. C Hence he is convinced that the trophies of the Romans celebrated of old are not a myth, but rather that what is said about them is inferior to the truth itself. But in you I see the truth. And I say that he considers you to surpass them just as much as you, having set out from more meager preparations, compare yourself to those great men; such great power do you give to your own weight in the lack of affairs. And he wishes that you had never existed at all; yet he marvels at you as having come into being, and he curses your birth, but counts your parents happy, and he prays for childlessness for you, so that your race might be circumscribed in you; but for himself he prays for the births of such sons. And now for the first time he senses the misfortune of having been raised to such heights by former successes, so that he may grieve all the more by being deprived of more. He has only one thing for consolation, that he suffered such things at the hands of the most noble of the Romans; for the vanquished are accustomed to be glorified by the magnanimity and excellence of the victors. D And if Homer were present among us, he would say even now about you: *Before him the mighty one fled, but the stronger one pursued.* Be of good hope also, you most beautiful of cities, Neocaesarea, not long hence you shall have your liberator, your Gre-
-Agorius 38 to have and to hold. For not only because you never ceased to be affected by the benefits of the Gregories, but also because, having cast off the aging old age of present evils and calamities, you shall truly be seen as Neocaesarea. You have, as it were, hostages and pledges for this in your neighbors and those near to you. Expect, moreover, your most beautiful bridegroom, who shall be joined to you in your victory, and shall be adorned with a crown interwoven with most precious gems. For Christ raises up trophies and glorious monuments for the Taronite.B But now the most impious Turk, through you, falls to the depths, and now bends inclined, seeing only what lies before his feet. He who, everywhere but a little while ago, once cast the wandering pupils of his eyes, thinking to destroy both land and sea alike. But now he turns himself toward envoys—who might negotiate and reconcile peace—as if they were the support of his own salvation; and he extends his hands, not to draw swords like lightning-bolts, but to agreements; and, letting go of his rattling bow, he seizes the caduceus of peace, desiring to have as a stable and safe friend him whom, when he had him as an enemy, he found to be impregnable. But the Frank, iron-necked until now, appears softer than warm wax, and with a fervent heart adores you, and through you reveres and honors our most powerful emperor. And what is left to happen, when you see him, with suppliant veneration, wrapped around your knees? He who formerly showed ferocity with this adoration, and who bound others in unbreakable snares, now finds himself compelled to obey the will and decrees of the Taronites; and to be so oppressed by them by tyrannical force, that at least he might earn his own liberty by the grace of the emperors. He who for a long time now has strenuously exerted himself in this, and had inflamed this zeal with all his might and heart, so that he might purchase a slave for himself—one who would be established as the liberator of all the East—and thus he wandered, deceived by these long specters of dreams, as if he did not sustain the fruitful parts from the emperor, but turned only to you, as the most prosperous author of this attempt. For the Turk, confined by your powerful hands, and suppressed, even unwillingly agrees to a truce, both on other conditions, but especially on this: that he would deliver the Frank to our own most powerful emperor. For these things, indeed, I owe you thanks in some way. It was declared that I did not do so merely because you were demonstrated to be a man of truth, but because I enjoy these goods in common with all men. For all, whoever bear the name of Christ and pray for the best things for the Roman Empire, and with their whole heart labor for them, declare that they owed you, too, innumerable thanks. For regarding our best of emperors, what is necessary to say, and how worthily will he compensate your nobility and your prudent counsels, he who always prefers you to all others? And what emperor has been happier and more brilliant than he in delivering judgment? For he D
A (for this is driven toward you like a bird). But since what has reached us is sufficient, and perhaps we are not worthy to be hissed at by the theater of the word, I will say only this and cease. Lift up your eyes to the mountains, from whence help comes to you, and will come again and again; fix them downward, and do not turn them upon yourself. For such things are not of human strength, or only a little so, but entirely, or for the most part, [are of] divine grace. And in God you will create power, who crushes the enemies. Either you will strengthen it for yourself, or you will draw down more, becoming grateful to the One who grants it. You would become such if you were to be imaged after Him through goodness, which is poured out upon both rich and poor, upon those who live more holily and those who live more commonly—or rather, more divinely and more humanly—according to the need each has of it. Through which may you also be rescued from evil things and from the Evil One, so that you may neither do evil nor suffer it. B
Epistle XXVII. To Michael, Bishop of Chalcedon.
While only the wealth of the Churches was being plundered, illustrious brother and lord, we certainly took it ill; yet this trouble was for us on both sides light and tolerable, since we clearly saw that things more spiritual were not dissolved or utterly overthrown. Whence, even in these very great matters, we were greatly upheld by this consolation. But now, since all these things are also falling into ruins, scattered and dissolved for us, every consolation has utterly left us. For when the divine and holy canons have commanded nothing else to the multitude than that each person, with no desire for new things, should preserve the boundaries prescribed for him, and that the pride of human riches and arrogant insolence should not be mixed with the gifts of the Spirit; truly, some have learned to preach and proclaim these things to these and others, so that those whom they might see falling by deception and error might be corrected. C But others now most of all nurture their own inexperience and disobedience in these canons, and increase them in a great heap. Driven and sent into other territories, they confuse all laws, both divine and human. I do not indeed know what other consolation we are to have, than only the correction of the evil and misfortune already perpetrated. Toward which, to our own zeal and study, having persuaded ourselves, we shall bring no small amount of perfection and benefit, and we shall submit to your holiness this Kittaba, which has arisen and been established contrary to the canons. But do not laugh at me because of the barbaric name. There is a certain boundary of a place, belonging to our archbishopric, in which a certain one of the monks, building a house of prayer, was restrained by us, as he had begun the work against our judgment, and was doing things unknown both to the canons and to the laws of the state. He, however, claimed to have received a patriarchal stauropegion, and thus to have begun the work. He, therefore, was bound by us with excommunication D
to which they are bound by the canons, as you know. B We, not considering the matter to be of small importance, have written about this to the most honored chartophylax, Lord Peter, as much as the measure of a letter allowed; and we write also to your God-loving and therefore canon-loving honor, so that you yourself might speak with the man about this, for he knows no less than anyone what is determined by the canons, and what penalty is imposed upon those who wish to violate these things; yet I do not know how he allows such things to happen, by which all order and peace of the Churches is driven away, and the blood of Christ, shed so that it might make peace in all things, is shown to be in vain. For what participation does the Patriarch of Constantinople have in the case of the Bulgarians, who has no right to ordinations there, since the archbishopric has been granted autonomy, nor does he possess any other privilege over it? By whose authority, moreover, will the failures of the monks of the monastery established by his own counsel be watched and corrected? Through him who prevails over the other monks subject to him, and who directs them, whom we call the Exarch. And what sort of Cronion stinking of "Beceselenus" (to use the words of the comic poet in tragic circumstances) is he who would moderately tolerate the presence of an exarch of Constantinople among the Bulgarians, and would not treat him as an adulterer, manifesting a mind full of jealousy, which Solomon speaks of? I, for my part, do not think so. C And who else would not be vexed at the very report of this transgression, since piety at least still walks among us, and the canons seem still to breathe in our way of life? If, then, both our letter and your word should accomplish the object of our endeavor, thanks be to God, the author of order and peace; thanks be also to your love, of which God Himself is and is called and is believed to be the author. But if those who have the power to correct the things that are done amiss grow deaf to these things, it will be necessary to cry out more publicly and to declare the grievance to a greater number, if perhaps some might be found who would both wish and be able to heal this. But nevertheless, pray for us that we might have a life that is more tranquil and peaceful. For never have we desired either to have trouble ourselves or to cause it for others. May this now also fall to our lot through your prayers, most holy master.
LETTER XXVIII
To the chartophylax, Lord Nicetas.A rumor about your affairs D having flown to us, holy Father,
Various readings and notes
(41) *Sic vertendum monet D. Hasius ad Leonem Diaconum, p. 253, ed. Paris. Antea legebatur, quidam loci terminus a nostro archiepiscopatu diversus.* EDIT. PATR. (42) *Κεκςτέληνας ἱερῷ τὸ τ. κ. Respexit versum Aristoph. Nubibus: Καὶ πῶς, ὦ μωρέ σύ, καὶ Κρονίων ὄζων, καὶ βεκεσέληνος.*holy Father and lord, has moved and shaken our weakness not a little. For if we were firmly established by your solidity and strength, as if upon a powerful rock, nothing would suffice to stir up even the slightest motion in us. Unless, that is, you constitute yourselves as the foundation upon which we are able to take our seat, firmer and stronger. But since we are shaken and tossed about by present events, we are altogether building a structure more unstable and prone to collapse. There was, therefore, a rumor that wicked and villainous men, serving the father of lies, spewed forth against the high majesty of the emperors words worthy of themselves concerning you, and constantly stirring up the mire in their hearts, they thicken the stench; so that now they even cause the emperors to be ill-disposed, though otherwise they had been pleased with you as with the true sweet fragrance of Christ. I ask, therefore, that it be made known to me concerning your holiness if things are in accordance with this rumor and hearsay. I know indeed that this is superfluous, and more of a nuisance than the words of those who slander you. But for me it is necessary, not because I fear for your honor and dignity, but because I shudder at the misery of my own wretched lot, I who in these present days of affliction, drinking in the sweet dew of your discourse along with nearly all Christians, establish you as a medicine and consolation, after that first, common Consoler. But may the Lord of truth grant them correction and integrity, those who prepare hatred for you in place of love, and who cover your goodness and virtue with slanders. May you, however, be preserved for us and for others, both as light and as nourishment, so that each may enjoy you according to his need.
EP. XXIX.
To Nicetas his disciple, deacon to the Bishop of Chalcedon.You know, most holy son, that Antilochus endured many perils for his father Nestor, when for the sake of his fight and victory, he himself received the spear of the Ethiopian. But I, your father, do not summon you to peril, but to a service that is safe and free from danger. Perhaps, therefore, you will collapse from fear and so easily refuse me this help? But in such a way you would even put to shame the pangs of the word, and the conception, and the delivery, and the nourishment, as I might say, which was bestowed upon you, such as it was, with milk and with already more solid food. However, this will not be so, nor will it be what you imagine. What, then, is the help which the sweet and gentle address, like a certain exactor, demands of you? Letters from me have been brought to the holy Authentria, the mother of the holy mistress, whom she bore, O friend, not more for us than for herself. They request, indeed, that she might aid those who are harassed and repelled by her most venerated son, the protostrator, in accordance with the sacred laws and canons, and especially that she might be of assistance to that very man who is oppressing them and crushing them. For there is nothing more grievous or harder for them than what...
to constrain and coerce them. For it is a divine work; its patronage and interpretation belong to Him whose power you believe is perfected in weakness. For many and grave dangers threaten those who dissolve the commandments of God and diminish His statutes. Whether she is thus eager to assist, as it were, the Son of God, whose laws and decrees are being disparaged and abolished, or is working to deliver her own son from this insult and injury, she realizes a truly great gain from the harm and wickedness she directs toward those people. Therefore, we deem it just that you show and manifest these letters to the handmaid and servant of God, our common lady. Moreover, since I have already written to the A pansebastos protostrator regarding this same subject, I hope it reaches his knowledge that I have sent these letters to him as well, so that if it happens that they should be sent on B to him, he may know. For this reason, we also entreat the most holy woman, in the letters to her, that this command of ministry be free of all weight and trouble, and we request that it be performed in the manner of a father who truly spares the strength of his child. I ask that this be accomplished for me and granted, and I shall then easily absolve every debt of duty. But you can do greater and better things. As for us, we refrain entirely from attempting even the small and easy things, so that we may not stir up even the slightest disturbance or agitation, either for others or for ourselves.
EPISTLE XXX. To the Great Domestic, Lord Hadrian, brother of the Emperor.
Who am I, my lord, my lord, that you have loved me to such a degree that I can now speak with you, as David once did with God? "To what purpose have you laid upon me such a burden, when I have shattered C all my weight-bearing strength? This is something for the lofty columns that stand opposite one another, supporting the broad heaven, those whose strength is that of Atlas; yet you bid me to disperse the clouds of the prophetic book and to manifest the sun, naked and revealed. But who will blow away for me the cloud of circumstances which the dense exhalations of slanderers have nurtured into an overcast sun hanging over us? And who is this sun? One who is beautiful as a bridegroom, great as a giant, and who brings all things to life and victory by his heat and nourishing rays. It would be necessary to melt these clouds away so that they might not even appear if they were to form, yet he thickens them into a composition of clouds—perhaps according to reason, yet as it seems to the many, contrary to reason. For we do not yet have serenity from the former trials; again, the Eurus and the Notus have fallen, and the Zephyrus blows harshly, and night arises from the heaven. This D brings into me more and sharper stings of despondency, when I have night from above, in the place where I had hoped for light. But, for that matter, so that I myself, while composing clouds through obscurity, might not shadow the sun of the Word, those unjust witnesses who rose against me yesterday and the day before—whom our most mighty Emperor and your much-beloved brother, having detected the lie, caused to fall from their designs, so that the injustice itself was revealed as a lie—these men, having now approached him again and said the same things about the same matters, have so...
gained strength that they have persuaded him to cast aside those white pebbles and votes which he had graciously granted to us who are in the right, and instead to bring forth black ones, full of much gloom. And that truly royal judgment of his was made to appear like the web of Penelope, woven by day with the thread of truth, but unraveled by night with falsehood—and what is most terrible, that we are being condemned unheard. For as I have learned, the scribe sent to us has been commissioned to strip us of the Church land in Achris; a land for which documents of exchange were also A produced, by which the Church, instead of the lands which she gave up to the public as her possession, received this land in return for the bondage of the parochial service. It was a matter of the most vital necessity, and a golden bull was established to secure the exchange. And a royal command was issued at the time when the Cercopes were teasing Hercules. In circumstances such as these, what kind of spirit do you think I possess? How, according to the divine Jeremiah, should I not feel pain in my stomach, and have my senses trembling, being thrown into confusion from every side, and as it were, driven to madness? For, as the venerable Thucydides says, sudden and unexpected occurrences, which happen quite contrary to reason, subdue the mind. B Yet, even with yesterday’s slanders, although I was not surely destroyed, nonetheless, because they sowed this alone into the royal ears—as if into fertile and excavated soil—like some poison and deadly aconite, or some other lethal plant, I was so wretchedly crushed by them and fell, my heart utterly bowed and as if I were cast down to the ground, with no dignity left to hold me up, and beaten by the blows of slaves. O Christ, King of kings, who, bound by no crime, were bruised by scourges, and with a meek and gentle heart endured the scourging of a man, a servant! For whom do you think dares fear to lay hands upon us, when he clearly sees accusers and adversaries so permitted, like heroes and demigods—as they say—to roam among the crowds C and petulantly and drunkenly to report and intrude upon everything and speak boldly? These things, and others, have been D done to me, and the Psalmist’s word is fulfilled: "Those who sat in the gates spoke against me, and those who drank wine sang about me." How then will they bear with me, whether I reprove, or rebuke, or exhort—whether they be part of the people or of the ecclesiastical order—after they have been seen, those on whose account they who are responsible for them, having become bestial, surrounded me with words of hatred and fought against me without cause? And on top of all this, not only did they not pay any penalty, but they even shine as if with a trophy of their wickedness, and there is no fear anywhere: but they remain like perennial sheep, and have finished their lives in good things. For it is not untimely to utter the words of the much-suffering Job. For I knew the Lernaean hydra, and how she became double herself by being cut, and caused trouble for the noble Hercules, who alone raised a sword against her. And even if the hero was in danger,
or if it was the ultimate struggle for the heroic man A had not the most powerful Iolaus, joining him as a companion with a lit torch, burned the severed limbs. What, then, does this fable signify? It seems to me that it is not fitting to treat wickedness—for this is the hydra—with a light blow or shaking. For we rather make those whom we punish in this way worse, since they especially believe that the punishment is inflicted upon them as a mockery. Hence, for this reason, they break out henceforth more clearly and boldly into unbridled liberty of wickedness. For in wicked and most base men, a sharper audacity is born precisely when they are tested by a softer penalty than they had hoped to suffer, which they feared would be more severe and harder. Not only, in truth, must the vessels and channels of vices be cut away, but it is fitting to dry up and bind the veins themselves, and the fountains through which that blood flows out, which nourishes and produces these bestial heads. But if the bulwarks of evils are not simply overturned in this way, then it will become that saying of the proverb: “A Lerna of evils.” Wherefore, indeed, with the injuries already inflicted upon me, my heart has failed me completely, and has cooled completely—namely, the fervent ardor of spirit which I had been accustomed to use for the curbing of all fear of wickedness, and I have manifested [it] to be truly a trap for B flaming and burning tongues. But if I were to receive the scourges and stripes, as the decree written in the manner commanded, which—as they say—vibrates more heavily from the very hands of the emperor, and which that prophecy of Isaiah direly decrees, that we should make use of a mind most alien and remote from our own; this, in truth, will be [the result]: that they will thoroughly detest us, and rise up against us with threats, because they are those who sit in the gates, and C sang about me, and drank wine. In any event, therefore, it is necessary not to bear them, whether they are those who refute, or reproach, or bend [others] with words, whether they are from the crowd of the people, or from the ecclesiastical sodality and fellowship. But those who have already been brought to a better mind, already at that moment, act upon the first reproofs and complete their work, on account of which, however, those who are guilty of the crime, stirred by a more severe ferocity, surrounded me with words of hatred, and persecuted me for nothing. And among all of them, not as if they had not paid the penalties, but as if they were carried along by a certain trophy of victory, they strive to be illustrious by their crimes and vices, and in no place does any fear reside in them. They persist, therefore, like the cattle of this age, and pass their lives among the good and the just. For it is now fitting to adduce and bring forward that [remark] of the most patient Job. D I, for my part, have known that Lernaean hydra, which, by having its own limbs doubly dissected, brought a difficult and heavy battle to the noble Hercules, when he alone drew his sword against it, so that the hero was almost called into extreme danger. Or that it would have been the ultimate contest for the hero, had not the most powerful Iolaus, joining himself as a companion to him with a lit torch, burned the severed limbs. What, then, does this fable hint at? To me, indeed, it seems that one ought not to use a light blow and concussion against crimes and vices (for this is the hydra). For we render the wicked, whom we thus punish, worse, especially since they believe that punishment is inflicted upon them as if in mockery. From this cause, therefore, they break out in the future more manifestly and boldly into an unbridled license of crimes. For when wicked and most foolish men are tempted by a softer penalty than they had hoped to suffer, a sharper audacity is born in them. We ought not indeed only to cut off the tubes and channels of vices, but to dry up and tie off the veins and fountains themselves, through which that blood flows out that feeds and procreates these beastly heads. But if the strongholds of evils are not uprooted so simply, then that saying of the proverb shall come to pass: “A Lerna of evils.” Wherefore, indeed, because of the injuries now brought against me, my heart has failed me within, and has run cold; namely, the fervent ardor of spirit which I had been using to curb every fear of wickedness, and I have shown it to be truly a snare of flaming and burning tongues. But if I should accept the flagella and stripes, as the decree written in the manner commands, which, as they say, vibrates more heavily from the very hands of the emperor, and which that [passage] of Isaiah direly enjoins, that we should use a mind most alien and far removed from our own; this indeed will be [the case], that they will completely execrate us, and rise up with threats against us, because they are those who sit in the gates, and—
we refrain from, as if those who disregard the divine and holy word were doing so nefariously. But let Baruch be present with me in this place, subscribing to the lamenting Jeremiah, and observing the misfortunes and calamities celebrated for the future. Then, since there are so many stains upon things, and they thoroughly defile us in this way, do you think that the mirror of the mind can receive divine inspirations and divine apparitions, when even the light of the eyes does not remain with me in any way? For this is more decent and consonant with reason. Nevertheless, in God, and in Him who reigns from Him and through Him, and in sum, in the goodness and virtue of your eminence which you reflect upon us, we trust that our hope will not perish with any disgrace, nor that the endurance of the poor, or the constant spirit, will fail in the end; nor that malice, or the powers of vice, and effort will excel, if indeed it is fitting to obey knowledge, which clearly shows this. And being thus rendered easier and more expeditious, whatever it commands us, we shall fulfill in act, and we shall offer our sense of taste to you, as to one who judges more skillfully and acutely. And if by chance the taste of wine seems to come from the scent of fragrant flowers, we shall also press the shoot of that vine, whose Father is the heavenly husbandman, and the rest of its grapes. But if the vinegar tasted should affect us sharply—just as Christ is mocked by those who crucified Him, while He is slain outside the vineyard, and beyond the decree of the Scriptures themselves—we shall know that we are wasting our labor in vain. May your humanity and benignity therefore suffer this of our present infirmity, until, lifted up by some brief consolation, our languid hands and almost loosened and relaxed knees might recover, and Christ, who is all power, might strengthen us with force, He who is perpetually superior to all infirmity, and of spirit, and of body, naturally, and to the offenses of vice and life.
EPISTLE XXXI
ATo Bryennios, the kinsman of the Emperor.As soon as I tasted the honey of your goodness, most illustrious lord, the juice of this sweetness remained in the very folds of my heart. And since I perceive huge swallows of such sweetness, there is nothing that does not make me mindful of the height of your majesty. For I always desire to discourse with you. But because I do not have—while I am desperately in love—a way to irrigate this desire, the interval of place, for fear lest I might be drenched with so sweet a dew, unfairly afflicts me, but by letters I ingeniously devise this. Therefore, I am always with you, and I speak with you the things that are fitting. Farewell, therefore, in body and in soul, and complete a good and happy course of your affairs, so that a perpetual type of happiness may entirely dwell with you, and that I may hear of you whatever things are pleasing to God, and useful to you, and brought forth by our vow; namely, that you esteem the honors of priests as those of parents, and that you acknowledge the rest of the people, and their safe arrival from a harsh pilgrimage, as if a liberator and redeemer were coming; and, moreover, that you even consider the broken slaveries of barbarian regions as being followed by clemency, more by clemency, rather than by spear. For that B is what especially drives us to flight. Benevolence, indeed, and goodness are the secure protection of love and charity alone, as if preserved by hands and guarded by armed men. Fame will carry these and many of these things to us, and we will likewise proclaim them with a loudly sounding voice, delighting in your most happy deeds, and with those who are well-affected toward these things, as if drinking up full streams of hilarity, so that in this at least we may attain this happy fortune, that our neighbors may behold us more blessed and happier, or we may utterly extinguish the eyes of envy for them, as if our affairs were too harsh for their bitterness. But if you desire to know these things because of your benevolence toward us, the one who is carrying the letter will narrate those things which concern the letter. For being one of our own and for this reason present with us, and having heard these things as they were being reported, he felt them in his soul, and holding them in his memory, when he heard them, if he were commanded C to speak them out, he will have his tongue as a teacher of instructional calamities. But we, indeed, being scourged by the Father, await from Him...
and the consolation; since He is also said to be the "Father of all consolation" 28. Being then one who has made the Most High his refuge, you shall not see evils approaching you, and no scourge shall draw near your dwelling, you being kept above all harm and injury.
EPISTLE XXXII
BTo the Bishop of Triaditza. I have received your letter, most honored brother, in which you represent yourself as benevolent and well-disposed towards us, and confess that we have bestowed upon you benefits better than those of a father, mother, or other relatives. And you have deemed yourself worthy to be loosed from that bond which was imposed upon you when the brotherhood gathered with us, as if you yourself had not gathered with us and been called to it, or had not been hindered from thence by the management of necessary affairs. As for this pretense of gratitude, we have been heavily burdened by it, for truth has thus perished from our midst, and deceit, with its many-colored cloak of hypocrisy, steps boldly upon our theater and plays out like a stage-show things that are worthy of horror—speaking peace with its neighbors but devising evil in its heart. For who does not know how your honor, upon entering the great city, released thousands of volleys of slander against those whom you now describe to us as our benefactors in your letter? And how almost no one was left, neither great nor small, who has not become deafened to our reputation by the slanders of your tongue? Of these things there are not a few witnesses worthy of great credence. But these things are both too long for speech and too long for the time, so as to be dramatized or mourned at length, especially when we gather from them that the times of apostasy are not far off, and the threats against them are not in the future. Therefore, we lift up our eyes to God alone, who is able to stop these things, and to the mountains of His justice, from whence our help shall come 31. For He who taught us both by what He did and by what He said to be grateful (what do I mean by grateful? To be providers of good even to those who do us evil), He will either correct what is crooked, or will surely weep when He sees it uncorrected, even as His law from above decrees. These things, then, are [our thoughts] regarding the way in which you have newly and unusually represented yourself as humble. But your remaining request, as disciples of Christ, even if unworthy, we have accepted: for "when He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but handed them over to Him who judges justly," and having condemned Peter’s small-mindedness, who thought it right to forgive the one sinning seven times, He Himself, being rich in mercy, lavishly bestowed the [forgiveness of] seventy times seven. We have, therefore, as has been said, accepted your request, especially since you have been, as you wrote, shackled by a heavy illness, and the danger of death is hanging over you, and as muchand delivered to him who judges justly. And recognizing the slightness of Peter's reasoning, when he thought it just that sinners should be forgiven seven times, He Himself, being rich in mercy, commanded that it should be forgiven seventy times seven, munificently and liberally. B We have received, therefore, as we said, the benevolence of your eminent magnitude, although you are indeed hindered by a grave illness, as you write, and the very danger of death is already falling away from you by a favorable turn. But do you, for your part, as far as it concerns us, recognize this, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and perform every priestly work freely and abundantly. Nevertheless, a tight bond has already been imposed upon you by many brothers, as the letter sent to you signified. These things I have also written to the bishops of Pelagonia, of Strombitza, and of Malesoba, to whom your servant will mark out the way. For I know that to them your magnitude and this splendor of your soul will appear as not to be despised. And they themselves will dissolve this bond which they have imposed upon you, being struck by one and the same spirit regarding you. We will also write to the others, from whom you will learn entirely what must be done regarding them. As for our own part, as we have said, it is fully settled; and for the remainder, pray for us, blessing those who love you, and not cursing, being ashamed to go beyond that evangelical precept which commands one to bless even those who persecute us and not to curse them.
EPISTLE XXXIII
To Lord John, the grammarian of Palaeologus.
Therefore will you yourself also trust the letters of many, venerable brother and lord, and will you dare to pass by and disregard these present letters, which I have sent to you in a time of necessity? They were not indeed written to you previously, because clearly no necessity was present to demand and call forth aid. Or, as one nourished on the milk of reason and subjecting all things to judgment, will you not reproach those who eagerly seek a remedy for illness in their time of need and demand it, judging it superfluous to give business to a physician when they are in a healthy state, if ever they call him to them? So indeed I think, and most especially I believe this without risk, unless I have already utterly forgotten your constancy and stability. But since my opinion of this matter stands thus, come now, learn also the subject of the letter. C There is a property belonging to our Church, lying around the Bardarion, which is becoming a source of supplies for our ruin at the hands of most godless collectors, and especially at the hands of the insatiably grasping Iasites, who knows neither how to honor men nor God. For a cruel madness has possessed him. This man, then, having made use of our base neighbors—whom one might call seines, and greedy nets, and altogether savage claws—for the purpose of his own soul's desire, has seized almost everything belonging to the farm, and has devoured me, and divided me up, D acting in a most irrational manner, as if incensed at the Word. Since, therefore, as we have heard, the governorship around the Bardarion has now been entrusted to the son of our most revered master, I have written to our common master, that he might as usual take up our cause, and suggest to his most beloved son... [alt-version omitted]
regarding us the more favorable things. And He will act kindly, if He keeps us undisturbed regarding this territory. And indeed, this will be a favor to us—or rather, a favor to God—not to send the census-takers to the village; for even the most inhuman of the tax-collectors granted us this. These things, then, we requested of our master in the letter to him. We write also to your Reverence’s honor, so that you may follow his lead, and lend your assistance worthy of your love, and to the God of love, and also perform this service: to present our letter to the A all-revered one; and do you always urge him to put an end to the matters sought through the letter, if I do not seem troublesome to you, admirable brother [(52)]. But what can I do, having no strength to contend against necessity, which the proverb makes more powerful than even the divine race? Support, therefore, this other labor, and become for us a Hercules against B the robbers [(53)]; for I consider the census-takers to be robbers of the truth. May God, to whom you have consecrated yourself both through the Word and through your profession, keep you superior to every wickedness and harm.
EPISTLE XXXIV.
To the Lord Hadrian, brother of the Emperor.
My holy master: by the letter recently sent to your Majesty, I depicted a dark gathering of clouds about me. And, being distressed by this, I traced the letter with almost nothing but tears. But now, since I see also a downfall of hail, C lamenting our affairs piteously, I do not know how I might worthily bewail the calamity. For the very strength of my tongue has been shattered for me, inasmuch as it lay exposed for the blows, appearing as it were a target. Yet this one thing alone I have the power to say: that truth has been utterly overcome by falsehood, and calumny, having crowned herself, parades brilliantly and bright on a purple chariot D against justice. For this reason among us many are weak, and sick, and many sleep [(54)]. For me—O earth and sun—for me, mocked by two Bulgarians, the theater of this present life makes manifest. But where is Oedipus, and his famed riddles? But you, the disciple and friend and ally of truth, bring help to her in her danger, as you are able. This will come to pass if you consent to speak of this to the ears of the Emperor and brother. For it is terrible, terrible...
as it behooves one in peril. For it will be a sure support if, rising up kindly on our behalf, you speak freely into the ears of the Emperor and your brother. It is hard, I say, indeed hard, that dead dogs should supersede and be preferred to a living lion, who is restrained by divine and royal bonds, and as if with a tight halter gives voice to mighty roars, by which alone he can strike fear into all. It is also hard that a valiant Samson should be shorn by the sharp razor of calumny, and then handed over to the aliens A so that they might savagely gouge out his eyes (with which he used to behold heavenly things) and compel him to grind that which nourished those impious men, and to be driven in perpetual gyres in the same circle, and kept from free movement. I have neither the strength nor the power to say more than this; I am indeed confounded by the mere memory of these events. But if the Emperor’s equity, on account of your most powerful speech for us, should order those who rise against us with bold and savage hearts to slacken the reins of injury even a little, then immediately we, who have had our hair shorn B of our power, will be covered as our hair grows back, and plucking the very seat and home of the injury from the aliens who were luxuriating in their base zeal against us, we shall bring this long struggle to an end. Even we, albeit with shame, shall escape a cruel death. For which cause may God, who is just and who turns His wrath to the very heights of the mountains, preserve you free from the stain of every crime and from the influence of threatening evil.
EPISTLE XXXV
To the Chartophylax.That my brother should be sent to you, and should accomplish a long and difficult journey in midwinter, let this, holy father and master, be a sure sign to you of our necessity and distress. For these things we must beseech the aid of your prayers alone, as if everything else offered us, as they say, fig-tree aid. For we have been so mingled with a most destructive C demon that, though many grievous troubles have befallen me since I dwelt in the tents of Kedar, those that befall me now so surpass the former in the bitterness and excess D of their misery as far as those, in turn, were less than what gladdens the soul. And now I have known by experience, if ever before, that to the one who has departed from God, and who in his haughty ferocity trusts in himself, because they have left the Churches constrained and utterly driven to despair—as if they were base and faint-hearted—that they might desert and overturn them, and hold all sacred and heavenly works in derision, and bring them to ruin. But reveal to those who doubt help on account of their little faith, and who seem to be overwhelmed and drowned in the midst of the sea, the harbor that is within themselves. For we are established within the limits of reason, and in truth we are found to have the kingdom of heaven with us. 36 And by all means teach him who stirs up the billows of the sea against us, that he raises up the sea in vain, since He is present with us through you who commands it and says: Peace, be still 37, and his waves will be crushed and broken against themselves.
EPISTLE XXXVI
To the Doctor of the Great Church.If you have truly seen me burning, most illustrious...
in the Lord, O son, you yourself holding the pitcher in your hands, did you A eventually pour it upon the burning limbs, or did you pass by, looking on with proud or unmerciful eyes? I do not think the second. Whether you think these present circumstances of ours are something other than worse than flame and burning coals, do not be so. Bring aid now, since you sit by the springs. But if I speak dark words and riddles, I shall perhaps not be proved to be doing anything strange, speaking such things to one who is accustomed and trained to resolve and speak such things. Nevertheless, even if you should hear what is said in an inhospitable manner, inquire of your disciple, my brother, and you will find a reliable teacher of our calamities and disasters. May the Lord disperse and overcome these by your prayers and efforts on our behalf, He who in all things cares for our weakness.
LETTER XXXVII. To the Taronite, Lord Gregory.
In the midst of double calamity, seized with an anxious mind, most illustrious son and master in the Lord, I am B quite ignorant of which I should turn to most. For having heard that you have departed from Colchis, I am divided by pleasure and grief. By the former, because we have you closer, and the queen of cities enjoys you, blooming forth from the wintry C season of your absence with the flowers of your arrival; and the Emperor, who is most powerful of all in all things, has you as a vigilant guardian, to whom he has shared the burden of his thoughts and cares, and has made you his legitimate counselor. But as for the latter, because he will not doze off at the strap of his shield, or rather, not even on his horse, but will lie down comfortably on a bed; and he will stretch out his feet, and will sleep sweet sleeps; and the Taronite will not flee even in his phantoms. But the cities of Pontus will now truly have an ocean of evils. And after the calm that was with you and through you, the gale that existed before you will again fall upon them and will stir up the salted fish [i.e., turmoil] D uncontrollably. And this is more painful to the wretched; for misfortune, when happiness is interrupted and returns to itself, becomes more grievous, just as cold after warmth is more chilling. Oh, most wretched of the wretched are those upon whom the abundance of good things they once enjoyed has turned into an excess of misery; and having blossomed in the temperate climate of your season, they have then suddenly withered, and have become as they were from the beginning, when you did not rule over them; and they have this in addition now, that they are more sensitive to their misfortunes, and that they have been deprived of their better hopes. For whom will they hope to find in the future, one who will so govern the civil affairs that he is ignorant even of the name of military matters; and yet will be so heroically becoming in military affairs that one who has not even seen the city will impoverish the adversary, and enrich his subjects? Who will make those soldiers who are swift when advancing to war, but heavy and slow-moving when returning, [such that] the one [is due] to the lightness of their eagerness and expectation, and the other to the abundance of their spoils?
hope to find in the future, who presides over civil affairs in such a way that the very name of the enemy is completely unknown, and who is so gloriously and heroically helpful and proper toward the enemies themselves that, even when he turns his eyes and care toward the city, he does not simply reduce his adversaries and those who resist him to poverty, but always enriches his subjects. He compels soldiers into war as if on the swiftest wings of iron, and brings back the wealthy and those burdened with riches, making them immovable. For that swiftness itself provides hope and alacrity, while this [stability] provides the resources of the Church as if by a certain abundance and plenty of spoils: and they will have a son B who nourishes her now that she is growing old, who believes that he is strengthened by blessings and grace, and who strives to support and protect himself with the strengths and gifts of the body, whose prudence also strikes the monks of the desert, as if they were surpassed and defeated by him in the integrity and purity of the body, just as much as they see the fire in all its greatness denying its own nature. But indeed, a huge emotion has almost made me strut with a tragic step. For them, however, these things are sufficiently and more than sufficiently consecrated by reason of brotherly love. But you, because you have drawn near to those who desire you, and all enjoy you as much as is fitting, and I myself, if any other is, am worthy to enjoy your C splendid presence. But do not by any means repay the grace of these letters to me, according to what I have already received, by measure, nor pour out the most abundant rivers of joy upon us drop by drop, but with the full bed of a river, inundate this my humility and mediocrity. And also disclose to me, who loves you with difficulty and desperation, the things that spout up more frequently in you. For you will no longer in the future use the Pontus itself, and the immense interval of the way, as a cause for guilt and an excuse. Indeed, you will always report to me the things that happen to you that are more pleasant and convenient, so that you may completely cool and refresh my tongue, which is so rich in the bitterness of the detriments and losses inflicted by slanderers. D For this reason, also, I suffer dreadful and painful griefs in this other inextinguishable flame. Indeed, whenever I hear your news, I receive it just like rain, as parched and dry earth. For I always hear Theodosius relating these things to me with a tongue both kind and benevolent, though suppressed by the value of his works. He who is always with us, generously pouring out the greatest things, by which he celebrates the dexterity of your genius. May the Lord, having graced you once and again and always, show you more brightly in all virtues, both of the soul and of the body, and protect you superior to every wickedness and harm.
EPIS. XXXVIII. To the chief physician, Lord Nicholas Callicles.
Are we held in such mutual hatred that we are not even compelled to exchange words? Yet, since I follow you with no hatred, I now address you. May you be well, therefore, and enjoy both the medicine of philanthropy and things royal, both of which are good. May you be kept far from the opposite things, so that in this way—as one who draws near to Zeus—you may remain untried by the thunderbolt. But share your success with your friends, and do not have the good thing all by yourself. You would impart it, if you would assist my brother in the things he needs from you, as is possible. Seeing him in such a time venturing upon such a journey, you will calculate the magnitude of the necessity by which he has been driven from here. Show
to us as much as you can; for thus we shall also pray for you to be able to do even greater things.
EPISTLE XXXIX. To the same.
A You know, indeed, that Alcmaeon, who for his matricide was deemed worthy by no part of the earth to keep his place; yet if you turn your eyes to me, you will behold the misery and calamity of that wretched man’s unhappiness. For that dire executioner, who clashes with the tranquility of men and reaps for himself great fruit from their calamities, has most miserably driven me from the soil of Achris. Then, when he perceived me making for Pelagonia, he does not deem me worthy to tread even upon that, nor does he intend to defend me by any right of equity, since he is a public official who has become an executioner. But why do I lament these grievous things to you? It is that you might yourself put an end to this my wandering. Surely, however, your river of kindness is not less than that of Achelous, which substituted a new land for the wretched Alcmaeon. But if you seek the manner in which we might stay and settle, my brother—whom we are sending to you for this very reason—will instruct you, so that he may find an end and limit to our calamity, and that you may set a final boundary to these other miseries from others, but to this my disgrace, by the easy industry of your genius. B Just as you will show yourself to be that healing Paeon both to me and to this my malady.
EPISTLE XL. To the supreme philosopher Amyrnaeus.
If you desire to hear of tragic events, O supreme among those philosophers who are Christians, and among those Christians who are philosophers, then seek letters from your friendship. For these will bring you nothing else but the anxious sighs of a heart and sad lamentations; since for these days we have an abundance of such material. But if you have enough of tragedies, and you enjoy them abundantly at close hand, it will not, indeed, be necessary to obtain them from Bulgaria. Nor do you require letters from me that reveal my misfortunes to you. For it is not possible—no, I say, it is not possible—even if we wished, to write of other matters. But as the pen writes of its own accord, the very statement of these calamities is inscribed. And thus we at once both write, and write of our calamities and sad misfortunes. For you yourself will more easily be affected by such events, lest all those C who bruise virtue should enjoy prosperity. But may the Lord also take away our weakness; not because of the works of righteousness which we have done, but because of His own immense kindness.
EPISTLE XLI. To the Panhypersebastos Bryennios, son-in-law of the Emperor.
Come, listen, all you who fear God, D and I will tell you... [Ps. LXV, 16.]
A all that the Panhypersebastos has truly wrought for my soul. And now, you too who do not fear Him: you who join in our joy may you progress, and look only to him, in whom we, trusting with bold and secure spirit, have never been deceived nor slipped. For he, truly most excellent, overlooks nothing by which he can most effectively bestow upon us great benefits. For when I was already numbered among those who are carried to their graves, and was gripped by the terrifying shadows of death, he recalled and restored me to the light of a joyful life. He brought to me the Emperor, [as it were] a sun, more warm and more life-giving, to cherish my life. Nor did he permit wickedness and vice to raise their head against the truth and to be crowned, even though they open their mouth with threats and strive with much exertion, intending, like abandoned eggs, to crush our resources. For they, having auxiliaries and helpers for themselves, dared to devise this: *They who said, "We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own; who is our Lord?"* And spitting upon us the venom of asps, they infected the most excellent and mild soul of the Emperor with lethal bitterness, and destroyed all that our Church contained with a vast slaughter. And B the cause of all these things was the insatiable greed of the tax collectors and a corrupt custom. Unable to endure the sword of our tongue, which was cutting the nerves of their injustice, they labored and brought forth iniquity. And they undertook this matter in the very presence of our most powerful Emperor, to our contempt and abjection, and they bestowed a feigned life of words upon things that never were, and adorned a foul lie with a fair apparatus of pomp. And while always testifying to the invincible strength against us, they persuaded us that those hundred-handed and hundred-headed monsters of fable, Briareus and Typhoeus, were mere trifles, as if they could thus compress and restrain our freedom of speech. Its bitterness and acrimony, invading their hearts, compelled them to be consumed with cold horror and to draw back their hands in fear. Then, wrapping their faces with a mask, they carried their very calumny and slander up to heaven—they who are worthy only of flaming Tartarus. And Lazarus, who, being a settler in the Church and planning to surrender himself too much to liberty, desired to shake off the yoke of his settlement from his neck—him, I say, they armed with a bold heart against us, teaching him how many and what kind of things to say; they even filled the ears of the Emperor, and blackened his mind, which was then candid toward us, with a dark crime.
C Once, therefore, this Lazarus, having seen that his own fabrications were flowing along with a precipitous stream for himself, while the works of truth were being forced to reflect back upon us as if in a counter-current, could not bear it, but used his grim nature more cruelly against us. For the Bulgarian nature is the nurse of every crime and of every evil. But he, D not content with himself if he were to incite only his fellow-soldiers and the combative Achridians to war against us, wanders around the other regions of Bulgaria, and seeks with great
A diligent care, if by any chance someone might be found against us, who either for his condition, or for his doctrines, had been condemned, or because he was a polygamist, or because he had entered into an unlawful marriage, or had been bound by ecclesiastical chains. And having found many such people, he brings them against us as Achridians, whom he has snatched from us from their plowing and the cultivation of vineyards, although they were struggling with the disease of their souls. And there are some whom he found in the city, condemned for other causes, whom he influenced to call out with a loud voice against the emperor himself, so that they might treat our name with reproaches and curses. For he knows that if he were to pursue me at the risk of my life, even if he were only to raise his voice, he would summon not only the archbishop, but the emperor himself to the matter, by which my honor might be thoroughly stained with sordid disgrace, or, to speak in the words of the Spirit, as if it were placed in a grave. Recently, however, he asserted that he had been entirely burned and consumed by me, although he was not ignited or afflicted by anyone at all; indeed, he had nothing left to destroy. For since he was not doing anything, but was busy with meddling, and making an art of insinuating himself with the tax-collectors, and regarding the dogs, those table-companions and B gluttonous wastrels, looking only to one thing—whatever might be thrown to him by them, barking first, and then barking more loudly later—he is more naked than a crustacean. And if he was indeed burned, this is nothing to me, any more than what happens in Libya concerns the Indians who inhabit Nyssa. When he was staying away from Achrida—the time when he says he suffered that unbearable injury—he was living in Pelagonia in another manner, seized by a severe illness. Then what would he not say about things that are hidden, and demand belief with authority, he who sets himself against such evident truths? Yet the emperor, although a man of very firm mind, and not easily given to believe lies, was nevertheless influenced by that utterly wicked man, by what means did he not feign, what did he not lament, what oath did he not spare, so that he might take away the arson, and persuade him that he had suffered such things from the archbishop, as retribution for the favor which he had shown? He even went so far as to claim that the roads were flowing with cheese, and my mountains were flowing with milk. And he swore by the acquisition of I know not how many talents that I was wealthy and opulent. And that I acted in the manner of a satrap, or rather that I appeared bitter and even Median, if compared with the archbishoprics, and that my palaces in Susa and Ecbatana were simply C taller than my many-storied buildings, and those miserable houses where, in the summer, I cool the furnace of the flesh that appears to me. All of these are fabrications of a demonic mind, and phantoms of a tongue that has learned only to speak evil. For outside of the land already spoken of, I was found possessing nothing of the public property, I, who am so great in my strength, and a rival to the Aloeidae; even though I was spitefully investigated and litigated against. For let no one take me as helpless, accepting the slanderer's accusations against me as certain from the start; but rather let him consider those things which he there—
A in his empty prattling has spoken, for I have been found to possess nothing of public wealth, I who was great in strength and power, even equal to the Aloadae—and he has investigated me injuriously and calumniously, and shaken me with bitter words. Therefore, let no one condemn me without a hearing, turning away thence the calumnies of the tax gatherer, which are certain and proven against me. But let one stand firm, for whatever he may say, in defense of ecclesiastical property.
Wherefore now I have the greatest need of your imperial authority: for I ask nothing new in this matter from you, nor anything which would be contrary to custom for the divine and most holy soul of the Emperor, but B that which he observes always and in all things, this I crave to be observed also in my case, so that I may not be forestalled and caught by the words of the abominable enemy and unjust avenger. For if he says that gains ought to flow to the prefect from the clergy, Hippoclides does not care about this. For I am not liable for this; first, because even before this, nothing of gain was received from us, but each one paying the tax for a single yoke, they fulfilled what was beyond these things to the public treasury; then, because for all animals before this they had an exemption from the tithe. And a judge who is not C perverse would never consider this theft 62, but an indefinite royal favor, of which those who find it enjoy the fruits abundantly. But now that this favor has received a limit and a known boundary, they have quite naturally been added to the public treasury beyond the prescribed limit, and they have added some bulk to the demand. Third, and this is worthy of tears, the majority did not enjoy even the exemption for a single yoke, nor that which was decreed for the animals 63; but, with more yokes and animals than were due having been added to them by the scribe, or recorder—if I may say something ridiculous—they were not only demanded for what they were rightly exempt from, but were over-demanded. And they suffered this most lawlessly even regarding other headings. For the clergy paid double what the laity did for mills, and for those things which in the Bulgarian tongue are called *strougas*—but a Greek man would call them trenches, which provide a catch of fish—even for these they were mulcted many times more than the common multitude. And the faithful and pious man contrived these things so that the gains brought from the clergy to the public D treasury might be puffed up, and I might be slandered as one who had brought about such a loss to my benefactor and protector, the ungrateful and insatiable man that I am. I say this same thing also concerning the taxes which he demanded from the people of the Church; for these too were most unjustly demanded for the public treasury, the Church having received an exemption for animals, both large and small.
A Since they were monks and ordained eunuchs, and furthermore some laymen too—not more than five, I think—all of whom hold nothing of the public domain, how could they be deemed worthy of being taxed? For not even the Emperor himself has the power to do this. But he extorted from me myself, in such a grand-scale manner, that he did not shame the magnitude of my dignity. So, for mills long since demolished, he demanded everything; but for those still standing, he demanded twice as much as he did of the Bulgarians. And concerning a certain marshy tract of land, which provides a poor catch of fish, he forced [the tenant] to pay eight out of thirteen shares, though he had taken fish from there worth no more than one diobol, whereas others in similar locations paid only a diobol for each. B Furthermore, although the Church has an exemption for animals, large and small, by imperial decree, the aforementioned men imposed the tithe on these as well, on the few animals I had given them for their brief comfort.
And that I may pass over the greater part of these things, lest I be reckoned as the "Arabian pipe-player" of the proverb C regarding the decree—that which your goodness recently issued and was so lately revoked—he rendered it useless in all respects by his actions. For he terrifies the inhabitants of this region in a thousand ways, as if he were establishing taxes for each of them that exceed their strength and ability, in case they should again choose the archbishop as their master. D And another of his wicked deeds is the failure to surrender to the Church those [people] in the village who are surplus; regarding whom he is obligated by such an imperial decree to make payment. For when we seek out their registration—according to what each one can afford—and then their surrender to us, he rages and is abusive towards our dignity alone; he says, "Even if you request the first man to be paid to the Church at the time of the final settlement, even against your will you shall pay so much." For who has stood against my will? And who shall judge me if I honor myself as much as the position is worth? Yet I for my part knew that the all-wise Judith sang to God alone: "You spoke, and they were made. You thought, and they stood fast." But who makes himself a share-taker of this blessedness? Who? Of what kind? Of what size? Of what stature? Underneath him they shall spread rot. Furthermore, he adds this: that even upon the tenants donated to the Church—whom he also most unjustly registered and increased in number—he adds nothing else...
that he might not yield anything beyond a single yoke to the Church. And as for all the other points, he threatens that he will hold firm. He clearly does not wish for the injunction regarding the surrender of the plot of land. And he does this so that, having been provoked—as I might be—I might become more sluggish in my pleading for that plot of land, and from that point on, Lazarus, the most charming of his associates, might lord it over these things. B And concerning the surrender of the land, he truncates the measurement of the cord, and furthermore behaves most ignorantly regarding the calculation of the modius. For where would he have the knowledge of the principles of geometry? And why should I document the number of the sand and the drops of rain? In every way, and place, and cause, and time, and deed, and person, this most "just" man contrives damages and injuries for me; and he devises ways to fix blame upon me, through which he knows full well his own schemes are brought to completion. For all these things, I request that a place of defense be reserved for me, as has been said, and that his words not be accepted as oracles. For once the shadows have been dissolved and the darkness scattered, the bright truth will cast off the lion’s mask and reveal the misshapen ape crouching beneath. Above all, I request that a command be given allowing me an unhindered departure from here, or for me to be brought up, so that I may not be swallowed up by despondency; for my strength is not truly the strength of stones. I would have been deprived of life before my time, I who have in no way, neither toward God nor toward your emperor, pursued anything—according to my best ability—with an unjust mind and broken spirit, as I believe.
EPISTLE XLII
To Lord John the Peribleptenos
What then? Am I not going to forgive one who has so recognized his sin, and has so hated it, that he has made it public through an accusing profession? But if one must speak the truth, this is not even a matter of forgiving; for no formal charge preceded this, but I should rather attribute this to your own goodness, thanks to which you have become your own accuser in your first words. For as for me, I did not consider that long silence of yours a crime, but a manifestation of my own sins. Because of these, some of my friends and neighbors stood against me, and they said these very words of Job: "My kinsmen and my acquaintances have abandoned me, and mine have forgotten my name; and the Lord has dealt thus with me," and He exercised His anger against me severely. But because you have thrown open to me the gates of your friendly and pleasant mouth, do not now close them again upon me, having let them drop; or if now, having been brought to account, you would be more ready and just—not only because of the reputation which you deposited with the letter asking for forgiveness; for you know that for you, no small thing is the price of the transgression, unless you intend to deflect me with the petty...
logues, and with such distinctions as you who are more rustic lead us into, you who pride yourselves on the Latin tongue; for you shall not be accused of failing to write later solely on account of the promise to write, but because you are not ignorant even now—if indeed you ever were—that we are in need of the conversation of friends, no less than those who labor under an incurable disease, in need of some Asclepius or Paean. Do not speak to me of the remedies that are among us, nor, since I myself possess the boxes of these, shall I idly seek out what is available. And I will devise a counter-strategy for the disease, whether by mixing, by anointing, or by applying a poultice. For we do not find even physicians of the body to be sufficient unto themselves against their own ailments, but rather they do the very same thing as eyes: those who see the affairs of others require others in order to see themselves. Therefore, by writing as often as possible, cool the fever that is burning within me, suggest methods of treatment, and everywhere assist one who is suffering. For thus you will achieve what is pleasing to the reason to which you have altogether subordinated yourself, and you will find yourself following those whom you claim to honor, and whom you deem worthy of your consolation; if they are worthy of much and great [consolation], it is because they are worthy of such things; and if of little and small, it is because those who are truly worthy never disregard or reject even such things.
Epistola XLIII. To Lord Hadrian, brother of the Emperor.
C Indeed, your majesty, to whom there is no equal, has relieved me with incredible aid, and my flesh, as it were, has revived and flourished, and grace has sprouted anew in him who affects your soul in wondrous ways, and proclaims grace, as if this mercy existed even before the truth itself, and preceded those ways by which we have learned that all divine paths are circumscribed and concluded. Whence my spirit has dissolved like a spider. And truly, in the words of the divine Job, it is swifter, and according to that of Hosea, consolation has fled from my very eyes, since the children of this merry life—and on account of this, [children] of destruction and ruin—are affected by no paternal love, are bound by no treaty of friendship, and are devoid of all continuity. For it is truly apt to address them with the words of Paul and the Spirit. They have indeed loved all the words of the storm of a deceitful tongue; they have bent their bow, a bitter thing, to shoot the blameless in secret; and indeed they shot and added to the pain of my wounds. But you have taken me up, and did not gladden my enemies over me. But you have put on your zeal as a suit of armor, and you have broken the neck of the powerful, as the divine Amos says, and you have brought misery upon the stronghold of slander, which had established itself further through malice.
A Bringing in those who act as master builders, they laid heavy, immovable stones, having heaped up against us things spoken and unspoken, and casting them before the royal ears. And those who followed them continued to build and raise up all that was done in the city of Achris, even tearing it down to the very foundations. Being one who puts these things to the test—I who am altogether thorough and inquisitive, and who keep away from their ways as if from filth—I was burdensome to them when seen. Therefore, they decided to cast off my honor, rushing in their thirst, and they slandered me to our most powerful emperor and to your most beloved brother, as though I were some mighty and powerful man, bloated with so many lucrative revenues and weighed down by the ways of the world. This they plotted by all means, to cast me out from the boldness of speech toward him, standing upon which as upon a secure bridge, I used to fight against them, forcing them to turn back from their plots—at times with energetic hands, or using the Word, and this in various ways according to the discernment of administration.
C But concerning that Lazarus—for you know him well, though to whom, because of the iniquitous deeds he has craftily planned against me, is he unknown? As that supremely wicked one, who, wishing to become famous from obscure origins, burned down the famous temple of the Ephesian Artemis—using this man as a servant and satellite, they accomplished whatever was for their will, perfecting it through his instrument. He who, among other things, is like a drone that hides its sharp sting deep within; and in this he abounds with quite enough capacity, so that he enters into a profitable partnership with the tax collectors and follows them with fawning zeal, and from them accepts garments—cleaner and freer than his own base craft—and other such amenities, making my reproach his food and luxury. And indeed, observing that everything is more bearable to me than having my name defamed, he nonetheless whets the sharp sword of his tongue against that which is most precious to me. And into the royal ears—oh, how shall I say it?—disgorging the mire of his own soul, he fills with filthy uncleanness him who is sweet in his goodness, and causes him to feel nausea toward the great mercy he has shown us. Recently, he even insisted that he was burned by me, although he never suffered any burning at all from anyone, nor had he any material to give to the fire, nor did he lose anything, any more than drones lose a honeycomb; but
because I was not living in Achris when he says he suffered the arson, he nevertheless fashioned the accusation in this way, and gave form to the formless, and with streams of tears, and beatings of his head upon the ground, and lamentations of unavailing cries, and by means of other hired Bulgarians, he wept to make it known that he had suffered these monstrous things on account of his loyalty to the public weal and for taking up a struggle against the tyranny of the Archbishopric, so as to win over the Emperor's sympathy completely. A Thus it was that this was also entrusted to the leader of the collectors and our lord who rules over us. Our affairs are therefore carried and driven about; while he casts upon us his monstrous schemes, and while he brings to fruition and strengthens those which were thrown out more genuinely; and while he sows the seed of tares into the purity of the rights of the Church, not into thirty or sixty (for neither are we so blessed, nor is his land so meager and sterile), but into a hundred, perhaps, and more. And he rouses everyone against us, this truly faithful and pious man, promising as wages for this insurrection and accusation honey, and a relief from the imposed taxes which is much desired by them. What would he not achieve, possessing the authority to humble this man and exalt that one, and being so powerful with the imperial heart, on account of the leaven of the Pharisees and the hypocrisy B with which he has entirely defiled himself, having within him nothing unleavened of sincerity and truth? “For all this his anger is not turned away, as the holy Isaiah says, but his hand is still raised.” For he is even now sending out Lazarus again, and is considering, with some members of his household, how to revolt. Those whom he has taught what they ought to say, trying to render the imperial grant concerning the village—that kindness of the Emperor—useless to the Church, and our own aid to be empty and of no benefit to us; or rather, to persuade the Emperor with falsehoods, which he calls his own words, to do away with the orders concerning the exchange, and to consider the golden bull C issued for them as nothing but a spider’s web. And he organizes conspiracies, and digs pits, and tells of setting a snare. He says, Who will see him? And everything for us, as for some heretics, has been turned to account. Then is it not terrible, if he remains invulnerable in his wickedness, and adamant, while your goodness wearies in the performance of what is good, and the ruler of this world appears to have more power than the Almighty
For I certainly think so. Therefore A, your soul, which hates wickedness and is vexed by the unbridled passion of that man against us, has remembered our mighty and holy emperor, for the sake of his profound wisdom. On account of this, he will not, at that place, pass sentence upon our misery due to a pre-judgment formed against the prosecutor; but rather, he will keep one of his ears intact for us—as even one of the Greek emperors is celebrated for doing, and as we have been taught by the Gospel, the leader and perfecter of every good thing: "Does our law," it says, "judge a man unless it first hears him and knows what he is doing?" Nor will he surrender the thing he has established to those who are destroying it, by means of firm and undeniable commands. But God, who saves those who are wronged from the hand of one stronger, either directly or through those worthy to work good, and who rewards the good, may He keep for you the rewards for our deliverance more complete in the future, and may He preserve you even now from every injury and harm. B
Epistle XLIV. To Pantechnes, the Emperor’s Physician.
Great grace be to the Word, because He has brought forth for us such sons, who precisely preserve His archetype and wondrous image, just as you have been found to be by me, my dearest friend; especially in these most unhappy and wicked days, which bring forth horrid monsters, such as Empedocles writes were those bull-headed faces. You, indeed, advance for our sake into peril and the highest struggle with the greatest alacrity, and with great decorum you bring forward the mutual compensation of rational midwifery and nurture, even if in the end you were not of assistance to me. C
Those dogs, driven on by the fierce onset of fate, who greedily devoured me and tore me apart in my entirety, no differently than those who devoured their own master, Actaeon. We write these things in a somewhat tumultuous manner regarding their harsh barking, so that perhaps the emperor himself may hear it; perhaps he will read these letters. For it will be the work of God, who is the Father of all truth, to lead the emperor’s mind and thought with His own light toward these things, and to dispel the darkness of falsehood that has been cast upon them, and to arrange both the events and the works that have been foreseen. For thus the arm of the sinner shall be crushed, and the righteous man shall proceed with equal zeal. But now, truly, as their hand is so effective that whatever they wish and whatever they command for themselves, they demand D and...
of other iniquity. You, however, use against them the darts of the tongue, which, having received from the Word, you possess to shake off at the right time; and shoot the Ethiopians, my Antilochus, who stand before your Nestor. [EPIST. XLV.]
To the philosopher, Master John.
I have not, therefore, in vain preferred my own—or rather, God’s—John above all philosophers. For he was so far from being one of those who now pose as philosophers, that he easily made plain by his deeds how much he differed from them, and observed this with a twofold right of reason and with all his efforts. For in them we see nothing studied so much as hatred of one's brother, and from this, a progress into hatred of God; but to him, the lover of God, the love of one's brother was presented as a mirror. Indeed, for a long time now, you have neither looked upon us nor aided us in our most pressing needs, ever since you saw us suffering from calamities and struggling against the spite of slanderers (whose knees have loosened, and will yet loosen, the knees of many a noble man; for its power is greatest), you showed regard for the first Word; and as one suffering yourself, you brought all zeal to those capable of dissolving these calamities, for the sake of our release from them, and you pleaded for our wretchedness; and you accomplished all that was required of you. He did not characterize this wisdom alone—of which he clearly possessed the foundation of philosophy—but he also strengthened it with words so as to bear easily the attack of those who lay burdens upon us; words, pray, sweeter than honey, and more persuasive than any geometric necessity? For it is not the case for him not to show the wise man as complete, perfected in both deed and word; but he himself, being ethereal, or even celestial, flew, having fitted on wings of an eagle (which eagle, I think, is the greater Word, and King of all who are lifted on high), but “destroy” [(78)] one or two—even if you should hear yet more of those who blaspheme against us, the enemies of truth, and who shoot from a place of darkness, and with the shadow of falsehood, those who are upright in heart—do not weary of giving your tongue to the Word and God, who is the ally of truth; but be a gentle fighter, and gird your sword upon your thigh, and the productive power of your mind; and pierce the enemies, while to us, ever offering more stably the favor of those kings who are rivals in kindness, look for the rewards from the Lord, who does good to the good, by whom you may also be guarded in all[in goodness, and righteousness, and truth, in which the fruit of the Spirit is matured. A
EPISTLE XLVI
To Lord John Peribleptenos.A crooked and bent piece of wood, O good John, is never straight; and it is certain that it is none the better, since it has not become worse. For the enemy is the same, and he has not changed—or rather, he has used his temper more freely against those beasts which, from being at a loss, grow more savage and, as it were, rave; and clearly, he who is wicked is possessed by a demon when he brings a dire weapon of death upon anyone. Therefore, one must only invoke and call upon that Power which can repel and cast down the might of demons. For that Power, having rebuked the legion of this man, will grant us wayfarers the ability to tread the path of this life free from terrors. But if He should also send the burden of this man upon the swine, and drive the Bulgarians, over whom he is set, down the appropriate cliff into rocky ravines, this is no problem; let us only travel our own way unhindered and have our steps directed by God. By Whom you yourself may be led toward every good, leaping over the snares of the evil one. B
EPISTLE XLVII
To his disciple Pantechnes, Lord Michael the physician.I do not know, my son, Lord Michael, whether I should rejoice with you or feel sorrow at your entry into the imperial court. For the glory of the deeds of many grants us the first place; but the truth of the situation [grants us] the second, as it ought not to have been. But since what has been done cannot be undone, and it is not permitted to dissolve or omit it, there is now need of prudent skill, so that you may manage what has come to pass with the greatest dexterity. C And this would come to pass if we were to attend to all things as if living among scorpions, and were to submit ourselves as lowly and humble to those who are truly, or are thought to be, in a higher station. For prejudice is a terrible thing, and hard to pry loose, as you yourselves might say, especially if it is nurtured and becomes frequent in a malicious and deceitful man. But keep in your mind what I say: "Stranger, get out from under the feet of tyrants, lest the scepter and the counsel of a god be of no avail to you." So much for that. D Do not, however, feel indignant at the ordeal, but, slipping out of your own self as much as you can, descend even to the lowest of positions, be gentle to all, associate with others in a mild and respectful manner, and show zeal and care to the sick who are in your hands. And may God...
Variæ lectiones et notæ (79) Homer, Iliad, A [I], 28, "stemma" is read, not "skemma."
surpass you, if I am any good at conjecture and capable of drawing inferences. May your tongue be auspicious. And may the Lord keep you, unharmed and free from all hurt and malice. A
EPISSTLE XLVIII. To the Bulgarians whom he instructed.
My soul faints with the burning desire with which I am afire for the tabernacles of God; and for this reason I would have used wings, if it were possible, for the journey thither and the enjoyment of the things I desire. B But indeed, I seem to hear my loins, weak as they are, crying out: "Wait, O wretch, on your bed." Do you, therefore, my own, announce to those who are mine and not mine, as if from my own mouth. Bear with my weakness for a short time, which will soon lay me, heavy as I am, low, but will unburden you who are burdened; and do not, by using force of malice towards the laying down of your load, miss the mark of your purpose—for it is not opportune—and gain for yourselves the reputation of being bad men; for that follows. And this is heavier than any other burden, at least for those who are called by the name of the good Christ, by whom they are thought to be fashioned and refashioned. C
EPISTLE XLIX. To the Emperor of the Duke of Attalia, Lord John Attaliates.
I think that you owe me countless thanks, O most illustrious son in the Lord, because, while you were still in the first stages of tender youth, I brought you to the very divine graces of the Muses, and saved you, and nurtured you. And you yourself could not deny this debt, unless you would show yourself an alien to the Muses. Since, therefore, you acknowledge it, discharge this whole debt for me by dealing with the most holy metropolitan of Side. For he is so much one with me that he does not even seem to be someone else, but he is the same as I am. Therefore, all the power that the good God has given you for doing good, move it all in my favor to do good to this servant of God, who is in all things good and noble. Yes, my most virtuous son, in this way may I reap the fruits of my labors for you; in this way may I receive from you the recompense for your upbringing; and may it be granted to me, upon learning from his D letter how great and what kind of guidance of yours he enjoys, to bless you with my prayers—if nothing else, at least with paternal ones, which have the power to strengthen the houses of children. And as one who always does this, may I find the true Father of the true Word...
and with your letters inform me how many and how great gifts of help he enjoys. He will lift you up with his prayers to the highest blessing, which if nothing else, are at least paternal, and can strengthen the home and seat of children with sacred foundations. Exhibiting this so exactly, I shall easily find you, who surely observe the true Father of the true Word without crime and without distinction. A
Epistle L: To Bryennius, Duke of Dyrrachium.
Although that gift of small fish is tiny and minimal for the height of your majesty, the Mother of the Word herself sends it, for it brings with it something enigmatic and symbolic, and something superior to and more sublime than many things. For it is fitting that she who gave birth to the Word, who made all things in wisdom, should in no way be involved in the darkness of imprudence and ignorance. Indeed, those things which were sent by you reveal a preliminary disposition toward virtue. From this, and through this, whatever moisture the soul has—and whatever is nurtured in these waters under heaven, in which Leviathan is known to be terrifying under the authority of the prince—you have drawn out with the hook of reason, which leads itself around and circles on all sides. That which was seasoning in salt waters, and which it is already decreed and determined that we bear within ourselves, you have liquefied and seasoned with the dressing of salt, and have shown it to be dry and very light. B The number of these is, for its part, a symbol of the perfection that is in good things, since it is a sprout of the denarius, the most perfect and final of all numbers. But may you live in this way, and may you ever lead such a life, fixing your eyes only upon God, who descended from on high into this our weak humility, and again flew back to the sublime summit of the ether, that he might draw up those whom he had taken with him, as he himself had promised. For he cares little or nothing for the prince of this world, and recognizes even the great misery and poverty of him, even if he boasts with a proud neck that he has a kingdom, and promises that he will give all things if they pursue him with true adoration. And indeed, he himself—the giver of every good thing—is and has been wholly cheerful and joyful, but not indeed of the ministerial order and cohort of God. In which, sowing carnal things, he will reap spiritual things, as the divine Apostle has spoken. You too, bring God into your house, and insist that he remain there. By whom, at the last, may you be freed from danger of body and defilements of soul. C
Epistle LI.
To write a longer letter to your affection, most illustrious brother and lord, the occasion and urgency of the present time by no means allows me, yet you will recognize this not with pain or difficulty, but by these very brief letters. But indeed, you will not mock these as having been written with a many-lined order, and as nowhere delighting the soul of a friend. How then are you, who are worthy to enjoy the gift of salvation and to be affected by no pain, both in body and in soul? For you will bear the tumultuous whispers of these letters no differently than the swarms of drones, D who look upon the honey of the peaceful disposition of your mind; or do you not even pretend to this, that even if there is a buzzing, you keep your own sweet treasure untouched and undiminished? This, indeed, we wish.
and we pray; but as for our own affairs, know that these are a heap of sorrows which our sins are accumulating A, acting as a tax collector for the steward. But the great shepherd Christ encourages us with the kinder hopes; under his shepherding, no one shall be in need of any good thing, and he will make one to lie down upon the pastures of rest and the waters of life. By him may you also be kept safe, preserved from the wolves that attack suddenly, and superior to every injury.
Epist. LII. To the noble lady who visited him when he was ill.
You are always renewing by your works the incarnation of God among men, and you demonstrate that while He is acting in you in a human manner, your own humanity is in Him B, as it were, consecrated by the very covering of God. You encounter everyone for the sake of piety, and you deem that you have truly visited me in your soul, and that you are, as it were, inebriated and overwhelmed by the benefit and the utility of your kindness. And me, who have always been yours, now especially when I was almost dead, you have made to revive, and you yourself have restored me to life. For which, what greater thing could I pray for and ask of you than that you should never cease manifesting this divine mystery within yourself, so that this very thing may be for you both a happy prize and an excellent reward? C
Epist. LIII. To Macrembolites, the Archon of Prespa.
We have not yet been purely freed from that most grievous illness, my most illustrious son in the Lord; nevertheless, the voice of the canons, which commands us to the holy synod—a voice that is altogether Christ's—raises me from my bed, and gives me strength for movement, and permits me to carry my pallet. Receive us, therefore, that with Him who works such wonders—for such is our assembly here—we may appear at Prespa, and that we may embrace you, and cling to you, D and enjoy your filial disposition. But see that you do not leave the ecclesiastical official sent for the collection of necessities without cooperation, lest you show yourselves to be truly like cicadas, mocking the festive acts with your singing, and lest we be pressed by hunger and famine in the very heat of their saturation and drunkenness. As for the other hollows of the earth into which you might go, so that you might escape the savage arrows of their words—to which even you yourself do not yet, even today, dare to expose and present yourself, you who truly only insist upon the traces of reason—others, indeed, who have already experienced those things, announce that they are infected with poisonous bitterness, whom even now, if you desert and abandon them as if they were deserving of such things and accustomed to them, you stand as though sprinkled and adorned with flowers. For this is indeed innate in you, and has grown together with your very nature.
Epist. LIV. To the Master of Petitions.
You, indeed, towards us, what the Mycenaeans felt towards Orestes,
you do; and we are so hated by you that we are not even worthy of being addressed. But I am so far from thinking anything unusual towards you, that I both address you, and joke with you in the usual way—though these are short things, yet they are such that they might be judged more as oracles than common remarks. A furnace is lit against you with jests about your slowness, and you yourself supply not only brushwood and tow, nor even the teardrops of the pine, B but a foreign and strange Naphtha is brought to you, and with this you water and sprinkle the furnace; so much do you desire to see the flame raised higher. Therefore, if you release Tornikios—whom I hold as the husband of my sister—from the military service he had offered, you will have thrown the whole Nile into the flame that is already rising. But if you refuse, you have diverted to yourself the source of the wondrous Naphtha from the Babylonian hills. Have I spoken in riddles? Or is there no need of an Oedipus for you? I think not. For in other things, who is more sharp-witted than you? And you might understand your own affairs even better than others. But may you be kept safe from other evils, and from the terrible beast of sloth; whether willingly—which I do not believe—or unwillingly, you have been captured by it. And may I always hear of you being exalted from glory to glory.
LETTER LV.
To the Emperor’s physician, Lord Niketas. C Many things compel me to betake myself to your tents, which you, like a new Israel, while wandering in the desert on your account, have constructed. But two overflowing rivers entirely block my steps to them. The first is sufficiently known and common: namely, the turning of the head, which, filling up with cold rheum, stirs up frequent catarrhs and coughs, and inspires in me a fear, not in vain, that it will tear my chest with various diseases. For what would not happen to me if I spent the whole time under the open sky, when, even while lying hidden in caves and under the cover of a den, I am in such a state? The other is the deep pool of the neighboring river, which the true Greek calls D Axios, but the new and barbarian tongue calls Bardarios. For this stream, swollen by the snow melted from many mountains, is so puffed up that neither one on foot nor one riding a horse can ford or cross it. For it is not provided with a bridge, because the taxes and tributes collected for it are squandered ill. Only a little skiff, fashioned to a height of one cubit, is passable. This little skiff provides the river with a third name from me, and I most worthily call it Acheron, which the children of the poets fable to flow into the vast marsh of the underworld. And indeed all those who sail on it, they say, are separated from the dead by the thickness of a finger—and this is their broad and long partition. But those who have embarked in this little skiff, towardsthe one-finger-width boundary of the lower life. For this reason, I am sending you my brother, whom neither stream restrains from coming to you; for he is no longer troubled by the one, and he never fears the other. And he is quite lighthearted now, as he is borne on the wings of his longing for you. He is not one who is ashamed to call a boat a boat 88, as we "ancients" and boors do, who are untasted of the wisdom, or rather the sophistry, of these present days; but he considers it a merchant ship of a thousand talents, and he sails more boldly than when he walks on dry land. I have sent him to you from my home A to yours (for this is how I judge our affairs), that he may fulfill for you all the need for my own presence, and that in my place he may enjoy your affection and your wise soul (for whose sake I, like Tiresias calling out in Hades, appear to be the only one who is truly wise 90, while the others flit as shadows, wandering in the meadow of Night in the horror of darkness B). For I consider this to be what is blessed for many, and not a demon 89; may he be kept by our wise and good God, above all harm and corruption.
Epistola LVI. To the Lord Nicolaus Callicles.
But you, provide me with effective antidotes for the illnesses that assail me, and do not pour your God-given panacea—and, to sum it up, that [medicine] compounded of viper flesh—lavishly into the jars. For in Thessalonica I hope that these jars will be filled for me, but in the Churches (these are certain regions and seats of our archbishopric) I fear they will be completely poured out and emptied; and from both [situations] comes a paralysis and a C slackening of the nerves for me. Shall I, then, call in vain upon my Asclepius in such a great disturbance? This, at least, is not in vain; but watch that no one says I am babbling in vain, weaving riddles. I must explain my need more clearly; I shall do this, so listen: we have a small house in which we dwell and store our necessities. Some of those in the household of our all-venerated master are attempting to occupy and fill this [house]. Prevent this for me, and forestall such a filling. For it is a terrible thing if, while others find rest in our quarters, we ourselves must wander about at the doors of strangers. The place is the Churches; if it D is not kept unmolested, be well aware that it will be emptied. Stop this emptying for me yourself. And the manner of the stopping is this: do not say anything about the place, neither more nor less. But when mine are in the place, whether as being near to being harassed, or as being harassed...
not sparing any effort or word A on our behalf, nor any deed. I have told you my affairs; grant me also to tell others what is worthy of the hopes you hold, which the Word, appointing you, plants firmly within me. My brother greets you, yet he hails from Taenarum, whence the way leads to the underworld [(92)], led as it were by consumption. For his guidance, I beseech a stumble from God.
EPISODE LVII. To the same.
B I will appear to you a source of injury and an annoying collector, if I constantly presume to take something from you. Yesterday, indeed, I urgently requested for our companions who are there that you grant some favor, and I truly obtained it (for I have not learned to sow upon rocks); again, I importune your rich-soiled field, and I cast down a request. It is this: that some of the books of Galen [(93)] be lent to us, not so much for practical medical use (for I am not ripe for the learning of the works of the craft), but for the knowledge and formulation of their dogmas. Whether, therefore, you possess single volumes or commentaries on Hippocrates, know that we wish to harvest these from you. So that neither some winged and fleeting thought, nor rock and unyielding hardness of soul, nor the thorns of obstacles, might render in vain the labor I have put into the seed, by projecting concerns over technical works onto the interpretations of books. But rather, O good earth, bear fruit for me thirty-fold and sixty-fold; and if we should receive the treatise on the dogmas of Hippocrates and Plato, we shall consider you to have borne fruit for us a hundred-fold. He who shall bring my fruit to you shall be introduced to your love by the most honorable Myrnaeus, whom may the Father of self-love keep and preserve sincere and unadulterated, entangled in no deceits.
EPISODE LVIII. To the Bishop of Citrus.
D Thus do you provide for me in the best way, most holy brother and master, and I shall have no care for the chaff, possessing as I do the wheat. For this stay here in these parts seemed to me for a time to be well-managed and according to the laws of reason. But, as it turned out, the thoughts [(94)] of men are timid and wretched; and it would be better for me to go up to the city, and there deem my body worthy of treatment, and those with
to provide my own body with some medical care, and to repel those who are with me further from the danger of the heat here—from which none among them now derive any benefit, and especially my brother, whom I hold as the remaining spark of soothing consolation. For since he was removed from the air of Achris, and because he is deprived of the very thin and delicate wine found there, as well as other healthier nourishment, he is in a bad way physically and has fared very poorly; having come to the last extremity of anorexia, struggling with headaches, and suffering from a swollen belly. As for the remedy, since the time gives us no room to use any other, we are using oxysaccharum, and even this sparingly, although we could use other things. But he finds every medical food distasteful. For this reason, I am constantly troubled by laments, and with furrowed brows, I bear a heavy cloud of sorrow, O noble man of God; and I consider this protracted persistence and dwelling in these places to be the principal cause, and I judge that it B should be shorter rather than deserved. For if it were ordained by God for us to suffer, we would have suffered wherever we were. Nevertheless, do you yourself appease Him for us. For He knows how to transgress iniquity, and to submerge sins in the sea—that sea which Micah once knew, whether it be that of baptism, or that of repentance, or that of His own mercies. Since C He gives to others also the power to be a means of salvation, if He Himself would pour this out upon us, He will save our infirmity, having submerged whatever in us is both spiritual and bodily disease—the Egyptian and hostile yoke—into the deep. Do not, therefore, be slow in spirit, but open the bolts of heaven.
EPISTLE LIX. To the President and Proximus Pantechnes.
You are the cause of the commotion for me. For since some people felt that everything that is in me is entirely good and noble in every respect, they did not cease disturbing this tranquility of mine, and D like those knocking at a door, they stirred up my sloth toward the completion of matters, so that eventually, being roused and moved, I might refer them to your brilliance. I, however, since I am otherwise sluggish, and at the same time firmly convinced that you are not capable of as much as the many think, I hesitated at first to comply with them. But as they bring force to bear, I yield, and I promise them letters to your brilliance. Of such a sort is also the man who entrusts this present letter of my humility to you. He even asserts that he is a kinsman of that most philosophical and all-wise Smyrnean. If, therefore, there is opportunity for you to benefit this man in some way, glory to Him who gives the power to benefit; but if not, even so, let it be to him as it is, but your own part is in any case blameless, for you are one who is all things to all men.
wishing for good things, you lack the power to match your wish. A
EPIST. LX
We desire to know how you are, most brilliant son in the Lord; not because it will be pleasant for us to learn of it (for we know how readily things are—and why, indeed, should they not be in a good state?), but so that we may be sorry in a more moderate way, if your affairs are in a more moderate state than we conceive. But if you yourself also desire to know our state, I will give you your own affairs as a canon and rule, by looking at which you will not be ignorant of how we are. For if your affairs are situated in the midst of evils, know that ours are placed at the highest peak of evils. If, however, yours also are situated at the summit of misfortune, know that our head, too, hides among the clouds and is fixed in the heavens. But do you want me to give you a rule? We lie beneath the eyebrows of fortune, and toward whatever side they turn, we are borne, inclined in that direction; but wherever they incline, the one who is always with us, the Lord, knows. May the Lord deliver us from this, He who proclaimed release to those captives among the dead, B and may He keep even you safe from every weariness and difficulty of affairs. For as He announces redemption and liberation to those who are worn by the yoke of slavery among the dead, so He will also protect you yourself from every weariness and difficulty of affairs.
LETTER LXI
To the same.
That you may know the events of our affairs, my brother will provide for you abundantly, most brilliant son in the Lord, if indeed you should need someone to inform you more fully about this matter. But do not make these things known to others, as one who has already long since discerned all these things, unless someone perhaps speaks of them in this way now. Indeed, you already know what sort of things these all are; but as to how great they are, you are entirely ignorant. For it is not fitting for you to be ignorant of this either, who know all things thoroughly—how, namely, all things are now increasing and rising to a greater state of misfortune and evils, just as I, with my own affairs, ponder yours. But in all things C I invoke the Lord as helper, by whom may you be kept, having been lifted up by prosperous fortune and unhindered by any failing.
Letter LXII
To the same.
Do not be surprised if I use Laconian brevity with you. But if you are surprised, ask the letter-carrier, and you will learn the whole cause of this Laconism; for he is the very one who, having just shown himself to us as if winged and girded for the journey, requested these letters. But now, farewell, and be of good and cheerful mind, and may neither the disease of sadness take hold of you, nor may you have need of any medicines, even such as those which your tongue has celebrated as medicines of charity. D
EPIST. LXIII
To the illustrious Lord Constantine Ducas.
If the strength of my body and the fortunate timeliness of the season, most honorable lord and greatest protector, allowed my humility to undertake a journey,
humility, I would have quickly repaired to your Eminence to pay you the homage that is my due. Now, however—since I am not permitted by those I mentioned before, nor can I even cross the threshold of my own room—I use the present letter as a mediator for my homage. A Yet you will certainly receive it through this letter just as you would have through my own person, since I am the one and the same person toward you, whether I bring it in that way or bring it to you in this way. That you will receive it in this manner, I am clearly convinced; or rather, you have already received it, and you regard me with favor, as is your custom, and henceforth you ask wherein I stand in need. Shall I then tell you my need, or would I perhaps be ashamed, if, when you have taken charge of the affairs of the Vardarios, and I myself have a property in the Vardarios, I were to stir you to a more humane assistance of it? B For you act as a mediator for my infirmity, always encouraging others who are able to assist me. This, then, is what fairness requires; but since we are wont to add wings to those who already run swiftly by our promptings, I too bring to you a kind of winging for this very purpose, directed toward the request that you take care of my people there, as your own servants. And show to all that you possess both a paternal inheritance and a kind disposition toward the archbishop; but you yourself have made this many times greater, so that God, to whom you show favor in all that you grant me, may reward you many times over with the paternal glory, and may render you more blessed in all good things, keeping you superior to every harm and wickedness.
EPISTLE LXIV
To the Same
Even if we take the liberty of sending you a few little fish, C not worthy of your greatness, my most venerable master and greatest protector, nevertheless, knowing that you are discerning and very pious in matters of God—since you emulate both these paternal qualities—and that, on the one hand, you will reason that we have no authority over the lake in our region, and, on the other hand, you will accept these small offerings as a blessing from our Lady and Mother of God, the Theotokos. For how great would any blessing be, if one were to place it? It is for this reason that we have taken the confidence to send them. If, therefore, the archbishop understands your situation well, you will show it by receiving these things gladly; but if, on the other hand, he does not, I shall attribute this to my sins. Nevertheless, I am confident that it will be as I first said, and that you will receive these as a blessing of the Virgin Bride of God. And may she be your guardian throughout your life, preserving you superior to every wickedness and harm.
Variæ lectiones et notæ. (96) Vide supra epist. 55.
Epistola LXV. To the Magister, Lord John Pantechnes.
What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He has rendered unto me? A He led me through the watery depths as safely as if it were dry land. He commanded the storm, and it settled into a gentle breeze of tranquility. He preserved me from the long-standing squalor of my illness and girded me with strength and power, so that these things might be a wonder to those who come after us, even as I know it happened to those around Hezekiah, and those who dwell by the river Chobar, where the inspector and contemplator of great things, Ezekiel, prophesied—that is, when the spirit of life and regeneration was renewed in dead bones. Not to mention the instances of my own John: the mother-in-law of Peter, the son of the nobleman, the man with dropsy, B and the paralytic—all brought from the burning heat of fever into a joyous recreation of life, restored from disease to strength, and from the dissolution and relaxation of their limbs, assembled into a firm and fitting structure. Thanks, therefore, to Him who restores us to life and salvation freely, and does not deal with us according to our iniquities, but overlooks sins and passes over the charges of our faults. For to me, most illustrious lord, when I boarded the ship (it was the day on which I was expecting the return of my illness), there befell an event beyond all expectation: nausea, salivation, and the accompanying vomiting, and every discharge, and a humor drawn out, poured forth as raw and inconsistent fluid, and at the end, a portion of bile. C When these afflictions ceased for a little while, the same things came again, except that the bile was then more copious, and at the very exit, the humor was much sharper. For I suspected the sure sign of a quartan fever, such as I have been accustomed to suffer, which indeed was ejected along with the humor and bile like phlegm. And thus I was accused by a vain fear. Again the day of departure arrived, and I, poor wretch, shuddered at everything with sick apprehension; but God was the same and no other, and all the evil vanished, and its place was found no more. Now I set myself before you in Thessalonica, safe and sound, having been released from that which struck me D with a grave illness. And this was, indeed, that which the learned adage proclaims, that there is some benefit even in bile (97). In the future, I shall even chat with you playfully about this, since the vast swelling of the waves now relaxes into a serene state of air with a gratified course, and the tumultuous disturbance into peace. And my body, with the drainings of the stomach's afflictions, now grows more robust and recovers strength. But so much for these things. Yet all the regions in which Achris is situated bristle with fear. And the area of Mocrus (which is a part of Achris) has been plundered by the servant and apostate. And Bagora (a great mountain, and one situated between the Bulgarian and Dyrrhachian mountains) is held by the rebel. And to say it in sum, in every way, the situation is wretchedly established. But we take heart in God and in the struggles of the most excellent emperor, that this lizard—if nothing else—might be warmed by the rays of the emperor’s kindnesses; thus, it shall strike its head, and there will be no place for it to hide. For the most noble *sebastos* and *protostrator*, Lord Michael, has been sent by the emperor, for the purpose of gathering men and drawing them up against this pestilence. And
collects, and indeed will attack him, and will invade his territory. And the God who protects us will come, and will not delay. And the servant Jeroboam, setting himself to apostasy during the times of Solomon, will achieve nothing more than to have plotted evil. But that he should crave the kingdom—O earth and sun!—and [the lack of] nobility of the kingdom, and the height of an authority beyond compare; he will not even be deemed worthy to be the servant of the king. As for me, as soon as I reached Thessalonica, if I had found a Daedalus anywhere, I would have attached wings to myself and flown away, and kept still at Achrida. But I had neither a Daedalus, nor a friend to share in my need. So, having hired some animals B, I am now departing.
EPIS. LXVI. To the Bishop of Citrus.
It is possible both to write and not to love, and not to write and yet to love, most honorable brother and master: the former, using the leaven of the Pharisees, which we have been taught is hypocrisy; the latter, distracted by the business which the great power of this life, which is against us, brings upon us who are lighter weight. Do not, therefore, demand of me in argument the not-writing, but deem it just, rather, to enjoy the greater good—that of love—and to extend the lesser, and the hand of prayer, to those who are in danger of being overwhelmed from every side. For as if the other burdens were not enough for the weakness of my soul, the death of my brother has been added—a brother who hung upon my own breath, and who was in everything truly my equal, and who would even, they say, cast himself into fire and against swords C that I might live in ease and freedom from grief. Deprived of him, I could not express in words of how much help I am in need. May the greater and better part of this, therefore, most honorable one, be made up to me by your prayers, always being offered more abundantly than usual. Perhaps they might even be offered for a little while. For perhaps we shall follow the most excellent brother on the same journey. For we perceive the body flowing away into utter weakness, and about to suffer what the joined assistance is meant to do; unless indeed at that very time we shall need the aforementioned assistance, so that the adversary may not find too many things in us, nor very great ones, from which point he might add those who are like me to his own portion, but that we may be found servants D of the unapproachable Master,
so that we might be guided toward the afterlife without hindrance, just as the right hand of the Father strikes away all those who wish to drag us down. A In Him, this pirate found nothing; by Him, we are also
EPISTLE LXVII.
To the Bishop of Debre.
Again on the death of his brother.
My most upright brother, most honorable fellow-bishop, having been taken up by the Lord, has truly attained blessedness in that very assumption. But we are left behind in this valley of sadness and tears, in these tabernacles of gloom and dense darkness, in these horrific valleys of those who weep and lament, exposed to all the swirling gusts of this region of sadness, calamity, and misfortune. We indeed now lament our brother with the plaintive wailing that nature itself seems to demand, according to the old Adam; but immediately we look toward the Word, the restorer of all nature, the second Adam and the prior God, who also ordained the laws of mourning for us. B In Him we trust, that He who has taken up the brother who was born to us will not, for the remainder, leave us helpless, but will surely grant strength to us in our weakness, in ways that He knows, He who even before strengthened us during the labors I had undertaken on account of my brother. But do you also request this very thing from Him on our behalf, that you might most speedily traverse the province that has fallen to you, and consider with an equitable mind the sheep of the flock which you have undertaken to rule.
EPISTLE LXVIII.
To Constantine, Duke of Berrhoea, son of the Sebastocrator.
On the same subject.
When I saw my brother diffused with great joy as he departed from us, and signaling the gladness of his rejoicing soul with a radiant countenance, a great astonishment seized me at the unusual spectacle, and for a certain interval of time, I softened and digested my own astonishment within myself. But after I had by then regained the full power of my mind and reason, I asked my brother the cause of such great hilarity, and I revealed to him that I had been so D astonished. He, however, said that he was more astonished himself that I had been struck with such astonishment. “For do you not see,” he said, “that I hope to see the Honorable One? And this hope has opened a fountain of joy within my heart, the veins of which leap forth even to my very face.” Upon hearing these things, my lips trembled, and I nodded my head slightly, as those who are lost in reminiscence do. Then, embracing my brother, I blessed him, that he would enjoy such a vision, and...
...and [the] nectar will be filled. Thus you draw all men to yourself with that truly golden chain of kindness. Do not cease, then, to bind them to it always, so that you may be able to draw in yet more. For to exhort them not to be undone is to show that one perceives your magnanimous nature, and nurtures hopes in you that are noble and grand. A
LETTER LXIX. To the Chartophylax, Lord Nicephorus.
Because my body is suffering from failing health, most holy master, it is fitting that these letters should be brief; for I wish only to seek the aid of your prayers. Pour these out now especially for those who request them, you who always desire and pray for all good things for us.
LETTER LXX. To Palaeologus.
Through your most great support, my most worshipful master, we have now obtained a moderate measure of peace, together with those very few who have been left behind for the Church in Achrida. For you were prepared to accomplish something by charming our exactor for the sake of our weakness; B whence we do not cease to offer whatever we have to your peerless goodness: towards God, prayers, as we are His ministers; towards men, thanks and praise; and even if to you the praise seems of little moment due to your awareness of human weakness, which the Word has wrought, yet do not cease to soothe this wilderness of lamentation for us with your ever-wondrous deeds on our behalf. For so do I account your deeds on behalf of our Church as a temple, by which the designs of the exactors of each time are blunted. For were you not established as our helper, there would be nothing to prevent us from being consumed by the beasts C which this wilderness breeds in their numbers, living and growing fat on the allowance from above, which our sins have brought upon us. For so, too, will the just Judge and Giver of rewards weave more crowns for you on the day of retribution, keeping you here also beyond every injury and malice.
LETTER LXXI. To the Logothete, Lord Gregory Camaterus.
I am the most blessed of all men now, if, through both my brother and this letter, I have befriended you whom D
A a portion of blessedness has fallen to. And if, according to the Lord, we do good to some very little one, we hope for rewards neither to be grasped by the mind nor expressed in words. But if we should confer benefits upon such great men, to the extent that the dignity and greatness of the Logothete now places you—who long ago sat with the emperor himself, and who hold the office of Protasecretis, B always acting as scribe to the emperors, and especially now, by as much as the emperor is wiser and more refined, so that he even performs the most secret and other matters and his discourses by his own hand—oh, the magnitude and multitude of the rewards, of which I already receive the pledges! And if I did not know that I would weary you with the length of the letter, as you are sufficiently pricked by the letters which you have interpreted with a sting concerning the passions of the soul, utilizing the methods of the Stagirite in another way, I would number for you the pledges by each kind. But now I will mention to you but one. C I was persuaded by the Bardariotae to release the son of the Protostrator, a man most worthy of all honor, and possessing other paternal traits, as well as an inclination toward letters—my own protege. Him, honoring as is worthy of his zeal, I have cast upon them, nor will he leave us—who indeed seem to be something in these matters—untried by his own majesty now that we have come under his hands; but we shall enjoy (them) and will always remember the great things. Is this pledge small to you, or is it not rather the capital of a most profitable transaction? I, for my part, am not even able to contain it; it is so much broader than my own narrowness. D Thus indeed, having gained such great things, for which I have bestowed a benefit upon you, I shall gladly confer another, and I will make known to you my Polyphemus, which is what you asked for through your pure and pearl-like letter. He is, therefore, a man intent on devouring men, always showing me one eye, never looking kindly [alt-version omitted] upon my misfortune, even if he may be gathered towards a more favorable frame of mind, or even if he may be relaxed towards a simpler state, or if I may play with him with jests, should I bring to him even a full ship of Pramnian wine,
Which to me the only offspring of the fragrant vine has given. And in this, as in a bodily wineskin, he still accompanies me, the remaining light of reason, like a remedy casting out all sorrow and sadness. D But he turns his single eye toward me, the indicator of one purpose only. I, however, as if devoted to religion and piety, take care in these very things, observing everything. See, therefore, who it is among me who conducts himself in this way, and where you find him, you will recognize my Polyphemus. You see, I have almost pointed him out to you with my finger. Judge by these things, if I am vainly calling upon my Maiden, and the Ram bound to the tree of release. For I fear lest he arrive before me, having played the guest as he promises. Thus, then, having this, you have done a most kindly deed, having left
A me the charge of injury; for this is that [one], you did not oppress one who was lying down, nor did you insult a dead Hector. And having received this, you enjoy the presence of the emperor, of whose kindness even the enemies are witnesses. Therefore, God also rewards you for your philanthropy, by giving in return a soul-delighting comfort, the sweet Theodore, who is truly a "Chryselius" [Golden-Sun/Gold], having gathered his name from two incomparable things in the world, and who, while fleeing our truly laborious [life], became quite tireless. Or how else could he have been trained in so many arts and in such a way, if he had a nature that was weary and failing? And how could he have joined and united the military and the geometric [arts] into one, which had long been divided by long barriers—following after Archytas, following after Philolaus, following after the Aelian Adrian, following after the Julian who fell away from us? B I knew him, indeed, to be an arithmetician, from the time he dealt with the Bardariotæ; for he would even calculate in the middle of the night. For a certain arithmetical theorem would startle him from sleep, since he did not even sink into slumber. But he could truly say: I sleep, and my heart watcheth. C And he was always scrutinizing something, [observing] how unity might be split into parts—whence he called those ignorant and foolish who claimed that unity lacks measurement and division. He even interpreted cubes, and cube-cubes, for those who did not know them. But I did not yet know him as a geometer. Yet even so, reason demanded that he measure the earth frequently, since it was always slipping somewhat, if indeed he were also a musician. And it is fitting; for the arithmetical is related to the harmonic, since both deal with determined quantity. It could come to pass, if first one would embark upon the exercises, D those that guide the spirit to the bronze pipes, and learn to modulate these according to rhythm, contracting and expanding them—so that by one [action] he fills them, and by the other he empties them. Then he would handle the canons; and, in short, he would be trained in other wind instruments, and in those that are tensioned and pulled by nerves. Then he would hasten even to the much-hymned study of the sphere, or astrology, not only as it being the sister of geometry (for the matter of both is quantity), but also as he himself had practiced beforehand the homonymous "spherical" [science], which he also demonstrated to us on horseback. And indeed, in telling fortunes to women, not at the crossroads like those charlatans and conjurers, but in his workshop, he dignified the learning, and from there he would derive his living.
A Neither shall any treasure, whereresoever in the earth it be buried, escape him, capable as he is of being satiated with treasures, according to that Attic one, the son of Herodes who begat the sophist. And if ever it were necessary to demonstrate some of the many arts he knows, he will not be ignorant of the one that revolves and directs, nor the lord of the horoscope, nor the lord of the house of the moon—from which perhaps his misfortunes will arise. And having learned this, he will avoid the critical day [(7)], and will ward off the malevolent one; and we shall have another Ptolemy, or if you will, an Aratus, especially now, when the state of science is driven by laws. Having observed the solar chariot-driving of the sun as it drives its winged carriage, he will also master the art of the charioteer. And thus he will be, not more in name than in reality, a "Chryselius" (Golden-Sun).
B But if one should ever demand of him that he manifest this clearly, he will yoke to the chariot the mule of the same age as those that carried Priam to the tents of Achilles; which runs like a Harpy, not burdened by flesh, but being light and trim of body—especially if you set as a goal a heap of barley, which she will behold as a new and longed-for spectacle. And at times her very belly will rush up toward the gullet and the joint [(8)]. And if there should also be a strong wind, it will lift her aloft, and this charioteer himself, as being lighter than she, unless he has fastened to himself some weight on the balance, as is customary, it will propel him out of his seat.
C If, therefore, the desire moves you to see this most proven charioteer, and that wild spectacle which the peoples, who are named for their colors, tame with a most intense battle, and that fame celebrated by all who are zealous for horses, do not hold such a nature in the narrow confinement of our Macedonia; but resolve to go to Larissa. For Thessaly is more suitable for this, and the plain of Pharsalia; in the breadth of which he will display some of these arts and sciences, and others he will use to learn, with a noble associate and companion. But if he advances toward us, he will be stirred by neither other things, nor by geometry itself, to any pursuit of honor. For I am loath even to provide a specimen or image of these, for which there is no place among me. All of them for us, due to the cataclysms of the earlier age, have been swept away by the sea; submerged and buried deep. Let him come to me, therefore, bringing one useful art, if indeed he knows the art of singing and leading choirs, since this is also a part and species of harmony, and not at all zealously cultivated by everyone, because not even by those who are with us. D Therefore, let him either not trouble himself here, or, as if in church, performing with more variety and abundance, and as a leader of the chorus, marking the art with the movements of his fingers, and with the turns and flourishes of other melodies. Test this for me yourself first,
Variæ lectiones et notæ. (7) κληματῆρα. Scrib. κλιματῆρα. (8) συνοδοντας. Scrib. κυνόδοντας.
and should he recognize the artist in you, and you be judged approved, not even then let him venture on the road to the Acherusian marsh, my Lychnidus, unless he has first come to terms with my brother Demetrius regarding the reward for his songs. This will be a half-medimnus of wheat, according to the market price. A For this is the amount that both he who sings and he who hears deserve; the former is worthy to receive it, the latter is well-equipped to give it.
You see to what a place of circumspect gravity and venerable old age I have come, so that I do not hesitate to do you a favor, and that we may rejoice together with the sweet Theodore, for we both are in need of guides for the soul: I, indeed, because of all my misfortunes, and you, because of the absence which stings you with a certain bitter grief; which, as you yourselves say, persists with a longer delay. B Toward this, do not show yourself sickly or difficult, knowing, better than anyone else, that it is happening for the common good, and demonstrates the anxious concern and excessive endurance of toil on the part of our Emperor. For in order to terrify his hostile enemies at close range with fierce dread, he neglects entirely the delights of that city and those kingdoms, and other sweet pleasures. He is harassed by rustic hardships, and is oppressed by injuries, and lies exposed to hard cold and the encroaching rays of the sun, and he passes the adverse seasons of the hours with his dearest companions in the serene regions of the sky. C At the same time, all the regions over which he has presided, he builds up with great majesty and truly imperial splendor. And not only is he the prefect and prince of others, but he is also a moderator of ecclesiastical dignity with supreme excellence. These and a thousand other gifts of your long absence, both fields and cities claim for their own highest benefit, because you are by no means contentious, but rather humane and a lover of brothers. But you will not only feel us to be arduous and difficult because of this departure and absence, but you will especially pray that it be ended, so that at last we may be affected by more and greater benefits. D
EPIS. LXXII. To the Assessor Pantechnes.
You have at last placed the finishing touch, most illustrious son in the Lord, upon the sorrows and harsh calamities which had surrounded me. And I, too, now cease to say that I am pressed and constrained by them, I who have prepared and stored up for myself a most useful medicine by means of the herbs of discourse, which I also know is useful to you, and I shall send it when I have grasped the opportunity. As for now, since I have composed this letter for you by this light, I had no means of taking the medicine from the box, because it is not so simply opened or loose, nor exposed to all, but requires a more diligent hand to be opened. However, as much as I now have the power to accomplish and to attempt for you, so—with the winter having passed, there is surely spring, and all that belongs to the spring. And the Phoenix, the son of the Sun, even when reduced to ashes, rises again, that I may say nothing more divine and more our own.
as one, just as after a harsh winter the sweet spring and all things that belong to spring quickly arrive. Indeed, the phoenix, the son of the sun, after it has been resolved into ashes, rises again happily, so that I may speak nothing more divine about our own selves to you.
EPISODE LXXIII. To Michael Pantechnes, physician to the Emperor.
A You indeed always keep us suspended in a certain expectation, as if you were girded for a journey and eager to visit me, but you always deceive me. Thus do you, who fix your footsteps in the air, despise us who crawl upon the ground. But in truth, having at last shaken off the glue by which you are held constrained to remain there, become our entire consolation. Those harsh terrors, however, which you hold over us, are specters for children, that is, for certain beggarly bishops. But the Archbishop of all Bulgaria, whom as many as see and hear him believe to count out gold coins every day as if by the full measure, and deem to be accumulating them, will in truth consider your presence to be that of a certain beggar who wanders about in a clever circuit, B seeking a bone, not tripods, nor kettles. Even if he receives some small thing, he thinks it sufficient for his needs. Come alone, and your household alone. They who dwell secretly near the Blachernite will be able to relieve you with many riches, even if they offer you a single clove of garlic. May the Lord therefore keep you a conqueror over every unjust fortune.
EPISTLE LXXIV. To the same.
C I rejoice that I do not receive letters from you. For I surely conjecture, as if by a certain sign, that you are overwhelmed with affairs: from which there may be no small profit. If, therefore, I happen to strike the target, and do not shoot my arrows far from it, I undoubtedly possess, on account of those things you are planning, a huge consolation in the midst of the causes of my sadness and grief. But if, as your affairs are, an unfortunate turn of fortune befalls me, then indeed the adversary stands over us on all sides, brandishing his weapons: against whom only God, all-powerful and good, will stand. May you be protected from his wiles and from the many snares of his deceits.
EPISTLE LXXV. To the same.
When I was burning with a great thirst of desire to learn clearly and openly what is happening to you, most illustrious son in the Lord, you sent me obscure drops, and ones as if clouded with mud, with which I cannot in any way relieve that thirst. Therefore, D write to me more clearly as to what affairs you are perhaps distracted by, and whether they are worthy of the hope by which we are nourished.
THEOPHYLACTI EPISTOLAE XXXV
Letter I
To the August Lady Mary
A Augusta, my holy one, since I set out from Achrida for the Queen of Cities, many were the sorrows which my many sins have heaped upon me. But never before have I, wretched as I am, suffered anything like the present event, in that I was unable to render the final and farewell obeisance to your Imperial Highness. For in the past, your serenity used to lighten those sorrows for me—nay, rather, it blotted them out completely, so that not even a trace of them remained, and, what is truly marvelous, they were turned into gladness by your most divine right hand. Thus, that which was said to God by David could be said by me to your Imperial Highness: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy comforts have gladdened my soul." B But now, who is there to lighten this present affliction for my lowliness? Who shall lay lighter burdens upon my infirm strength? Unless, perhaps, by looking to your goodness, I may obtain consolation even in this; for I believe, as is likely, that you will receive this present letter with the same kindness with which you admitted me to that interview, of which I was unwillingly deprived.
Let your Imperial Highness, who has mercy upon me, know that as I was returning from Nicomedia (for the waves of my evils had transported me thither), I strongly and frequently urged the sailors to turn the rudder and set the sails, that they might convey me safely to the island of the Prince, where your Imperial Highness was C residing. But they did not even hear the command of my insistent entreaties, since, I suppose, the roar of the north wind was shrieking more violently in their ears—a wind which, sweeping down from the Great Wall, blew brightly and made the crossing impossible, unless we were to land at Apollonias, and from there seek refuge in the great city. We did indeed escape, nearly brushing the land with our oars in the process. D I desired, in ver