Against the Remembrance of Injuries

...since by them the most holy way of life [is blasphemed] ^A for imitation, not only among the nations, but also in Christian uprightness. We have indicated, brothers, what kind of evil hypocrisy is, a dire species of perverse lying, a turning away from uprightness, which makes the true man useless, a cheapening of noble virtue. Let us therefore flee from it, we who are the servants of truth, knowing that there is nothing in common between truth and falsehood, to which base hypocrisy is joined as a consort, most fruitful in evils; which it is not even permitted for good Christians to show towards their enemies. For if someone does not speak openly, as the state of affairs requires, against an enemy, nor alleges a justification, ^B and in one word does not reveal the whole truth, betraying himself in all things; this, however, is not the method of hypocrites, but a sagacity generating prudence, according to which someone, laudably and opportunely considering the time, and the person, and the remaining circumstances, will dissimulate and hide what comes into his mouth, but will speak what is useful, while the great teacher God measures, and directs, and arranges his speech for him, and makes him wise according to the economy, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

OF THE SAME: AGAINST THE ACCUSATION OF IMPLACABILITY

Eustathius, Metropolitan of Thessalonica, against those reproaching him with the memory of injuries, if ever he might have recalled a vexation brought upon him from anywhere.

1. «A wise thing is man.» This is the tenet of an ancient Muse, who marveled at textile variety; from that, however, through a slight transformation, it was said: «A most wise thing is the hand of a painter.» And beautiful indeed are both of these, and such as to shine with golden luster where they are inscribed, and to make the front of this work shine from afar. ^C But it is necessary, for the sake of simpler hearers, to add or to note what is artificial in both. For a man is a wise thing, weaving with his hands things according to the rule of art, which he who is an outsider might wish to express; and the hand of a painter is a wise thing, unless perhaps in painting falsely, it lies.

2. Since, therefore, this all-fertile city of ours abounds in painters, not all according to art, but some peradventure even evilly painting the characters of men, and making them useless, and other images, and among them ^D our own, defacing it; I have come, therefore, to transcribe my own [image] accurately according to the archetype...

and this not out of self-love (for what concern would a portrait be to me, if the solid reality were to lie, and yet it reported nothing harmful?), but so that those who paint our likenesses may not, through laziness, fall back into an ignorance of their art—a thing which vexes me above all else; for those who are sufficiently learned in the graphic arts and almost always see things clearly, now indeed are blinded and, through excess of caution, descend into the absurd.

3. But it has utterly overcome me, and led me into this transcription, that not only in this city have those who either paint or describe us brought our image to nothing, according to the Davidic saying, but they have also brought their own most vile image—through which they have not raised us up onto a monument, I say, but have marked us out evilly on a monument—and finally have carried it about into the greatest of cities. ^B Now, the image of those men is this: "A man mindful of injuries, promoted to the present archbishopric of Thessalonica." Upon that image (for one must engage in a little play against their bad art), I first looked and laughed; then, collecting my mind, I also marveled greatly at how the ever-changing time brings forth new things, yet produces not a few things as though in a renewal and according to old likenesses, some of which are worthy of praise, but others of total oblivion. And at the same time, I called to mind those much-talked-of five-hundred-year cycles, the task of which, they say, when they have run their course, is to return to what has passed as to examples, and to produce again those good and evil things upon which the interval of the five hundred years that has elapsed has lingered.

4. Time, therefore, has long since passed, during which other things were also poorly considered; and the prudent, self-protective mind, not easily yielding to those who wish to do harm, was not recorded for good by those who overlook it. And yet, this time has also now shone forth, sketching us in a similar character, because we pay attention to ourselves and take thought, lest we be struck, and we guard ourselves against the nets of slander, and we cleanse ourselves, setting our wings in order, so that if we might, flying above the nets by which we have been tempted, we might be saved.

^C 5. Come then, having ground the colors with which I might be able to transcribe myself into what I truly am (for I am not unaware of having used a mirror in which my character appears, which the soul, in painting the conscience of every man, sets before itself so that it may be seen by others and its moral qualities judged, and thus what is right may be preserved, while errors committed may be corrected), I will make my image here before those present; as for the rest, it is indeed entirely accurate according to those who paint me as a sinner (for behold, I show myself as being from elsewhere quite distorted, and not shining with any good toward a fair appearance); but this "mindfulness of injuries" I utterly erase and take away from this image which the good citizens of this city have raised for me. ^D

^A This part of the lime, which skilled painters have applied to my portrait, must be considered before all else—the part through which that faulty aspect of the image will find its success—namely, that it is not absolutely or necessarily the same thing to express certain terms through composition as it is to explain them again through apposition. For just as expressions taken privately and separately do not always arrive at the same concept when placed together (for surely, a man called a "scribe" individually, and again, one who is "swift" individually, does not necessarily result in a "swift scribe"; nor would one who is simply a "horseman" and individually a "good man" necessarily combine into a "good horseman"), so too, saying "sciomachia" (shadow-boxing) does not lead to the same result as bringing together into one phrase the words "of shadow" and "of battle," and again, "to fight in the shadow." For this latter expression is something fortunate and desirable, while "sciomachus" (shadow-fighter) is consigned to blame, as the proverb knows, equating it to one who "beats the air." ^B Likewise, the "chirodicos" (hand-judgment) denotes the adhesive combination of hand and justice in a blameworthy sense, whereas the person "who has justice in his hands" is designated in a praiseworthy way. In a similar fashion, "sceptrifer" (scepter-bearer) is, in word-composition, a king; but "scepter" taken separately is borne by the crooked and filthy beggar Odysseus in Ithaca. We know "andrapoda" (man-footed) to be servile persons; but if one speaks with a loose expression, "feet of men," he finds therefrom "runaway" slaves. Someone "bubulcitat" (is busy with oxen) like a farmer; but "he abducts oxen" is one who is plundering. And "philo-" (loving) added to "good" has virtue; but "philocalus" (lover of the beautiful) is understood differently, indicating a malice such that even wise men hesitate to say it. "Good feet" are suitable even for men who act heroically when these words are separated; but joined into one, "callisphyros" (fair-ankled) adorns a woman. ^C If anyone is busy with "sacred ministry," he is suited for sacred things; but "hierodulus" (temple-slave) as a term does not at all befit him. An arrogant man does a "fervid work"; a brave man "works fervidly" according to the position. It seems the same thing is said through "artiepes" (well-spoken) and "speaking perfected things"; but he who uses the separated form, "speaking things perfectly," understands it as praiseworthy, whereas he blames "artiepes" as being fraudulent. Now, the authors of such a method, by whom diversity in the resolution of words and, again, in their composition is observed, do not lead "striker of a father" to the same meaning as "he who strikes a father"; for the "striker of a father" exists in a state of malice, just like "father-beater," while one might strike a father perhaps in ignorance. Nor do they bring "himatiopolam" (garment-seller) and "he who sells a garment" to the same meaning, as if reducing "himatiopolam" to an art, while judging him who has done this once as "selling a garment."

7. I say, therefore, that this is how "males-memoriam" (mindfulness of injury) in a single word and "meminisse mali" (to remember evil) in the division of the expression differ from one another. For one would never say "males-memoriam" with good speech,

^A nor would one who remembers evil be praised by anyone. But for a person to remember evil is not necessarily subject to blame. And this is evident from certain attempts of the following kind. The end of all malice regarding morality is indeed to wish to do harm to the human soul and to want to leap upon it for the sake of causing harm, from which it also gets its name; yet one does not always have the power to accomplish what one proposes. For of people who are more diligent and educated, ^B malice does not even dare to make an approach at the beginning, its spirit-fearing weapons subsiding, as the soldier [fighting] against it is covered in armor. But against others it rushes in with shamelessness, and perhaps even engages in close combat; yet it is repelled by the weapons of holiness, sometimes very quickly, sometimes after a wound—or wounds—which right reason, or at least those who have faith, has healed by pouring over them gentle medicines toward a cure.

8. Thus also is the memory of evil. For since it is malice, and the worst of evils, it has destroyed many—those who have long since been prostrated in the open field (for no one could ever measure those who lie outside of books, and those heaped up like a pile of sand)—infiltrating them with snares, and creeping into the soul, and having hidden its approach, it has drained away all its vital strength; and having withered it toward death, it has both taken away the body and cast it, beyond the body, into chaos. For one would not say that remembering evil harms the soul, or in some other way exercises the outer limbs; indeed, after envy, or even in accordance with it, the soul is even deprived of the body; just as someone who intended to commit theft ^C does not allow the owner of the house to live in peace, but having set fire to the house, even carries him off.

9. Such is the memory of evil, as is every vice, biting those it meets like a dog, unless they frighten it off; but turning completely to flight if someone stands up against it. But he stands against it in every way who despises his whole life, ^D neither enduring to be carried softly along the current, nor driving the rudders wherever they might happen to will, nor, when matters flow with an adverse course, violently snatching at success and struggling against a good voyage; but rather, referring all the ropes and every art of life to the great pilot, God, as a gift obtained from Him, he has the duality of choice, if God wills, and he himself will have a share, attaining the things by which he ascends according to Him, using His own good things; but if He does not will, he slips away as a changed will has judged.

10. And so one can either harbor memories of injury, if one chooses, or be free of such memories, if one prefers. But to remember evil with study, and proposal, and choice, and desire, and diligence, and if it is possible to say anything of the sort, the person who is not entirely evil has the strength [to resist]. By nature, however, no one who is perfect in humanity, and rich in memory and recollection, could do so. For through a thousand incidents, memories of evils penetrate into the soul, while the good man, as is fitting, prays that a memory of evil does not arise into his heart, though he is not able to oppose any effective remedy that might repel such a visitation.

^A 11. Therefore, if it is possible to repel the war of holding a grudge, if one were to seriously arm oneself for this, yet to not remember evil—or, from whatever source, some injury—no one, even if he wished, could fully succeed. Why then do we censure the holding of a grudge in one who is reflecting on a misfortune from which he suffered some evil? And this is despite knowing that a thick partition wall already stands between holding a grudge and simply remembering evil or injury. Furthermore, why is it that a person who is suspicious, fearful, and cautious regarding an evil which he has not yet suffered, but which lies in the future, is not reckoned a sinner, yet one who reflects on an injury that he has experienced, and does so according to a certain turn of fortune, is painted in the colors of a sinner? And yet, both are generated by the imagination of the soul, just as if by a mother. For both foresight regarding the future and the recollection of the past belong to this. But for the same reason one remembers benefits, one also has a memory of injuries. He remembers both with his soul. Therefore, one would have to take away from the soul the faculty that remembers these things, and thus transform it into something inanimate.

12. But if someone, wishing to appear clever, says in contradiction that, just as the memory of having received a benefit is accompanied by the return of the benefit, so too should the memory of having suffered evil be followed by things that are retributive, and that from thence the record of evil and the memory of evil run together, such a person speaks absurdities without a doubt, and certainly does not know how to accurately observe the discretion or rule from which those things that are of virtue are tested and those of depravity are condemned: he does not penetrate the matter deeply. Truly, just as there are pregnant mothers, so there are certain qualities. Therefore, the memory of benefits, which is a good quality, generates other similar things, just as grace begets grace; but the other consists in the will alone, when the one who has been benefited is empty-handed in his own affairs. Sometimes, however, there is a certain sterile beneficence, such as that of the ungrateful, the execrable, and the Judaizers. And indeed, in such cases, the first is to return the benefit; the second consists in the will, when it cannot pass over into action. Finally, the third is neither to do nor to will, but instead to inflict harm upon the benefactor, as did Iscariot.

13. Such then are the things pertaining to beneficence: that which either brings to light, or is seen only in the seed, or is altogether sterile, or if it ever does give birth, produces a false pregnancy, or in some other way feigns true gestation. But wrongdoing also has its own logic, just as beneficence does; one kind, through the memory of evil, incites the one who suffered to effective vengeance; and this very thing, as if pregnant, brings forth with violence the retribution of evil from the one who suffered it. Another kind remembers and desires vengeance, ^D but when unable to do harm, it halts the desire in the

^A will and suppresses the bile, restraining the waves so that it does not seethe into ungovernable wrath. And so, by analogy, just as there is a second rank for the man who has done good by deed—the one who stops at the will to do good—so too corresponds the second rank for the one who remembers an injury and carries it to effect, namely, the one who desires to harm but still abstains. There remains also a third in this category, just as in the matters of well-doing there is the blameworthy and accursed sort (who neither performs good deeds nor desires them, but looks for opportunities to do the opposite), so too in matters of injury, there is the one otherwise praiseworthy and worthy of prayers, who after an injury has been suffered, neither performs deeds of vengeance nor desires to do so; but if he perchance remembers it, he opposes the evil with a rampart, and if any scent of malice remains, he casts it into oblivion, banishing the very recollection from his mind.

14. If, therefore, these things are so (and they surely cannot be otherwise), he who remembers evil ^B is proven not to walk in the straight path of truth, as he leads himself to the same position as the sin of retaliation. For it is manifest that just as he who has taken up the memory of a benefit does not necessarily do good in every way, neither has he who has remembered an injury already slipped into the abyss of retaliation.

15. Let us summarize the essence of this topic: the remembering of someone who does good and, conversely, the remembering of one who does harm, stand in opposition. Likewise, well-doing (which some think is the result of a good memory) and evil-doing (which the wise consider the fruit of stored-up memory of evil) are distinguished by an irreconcilable ^C antithesis. To these are also added the desire to do good without having the capacity to do so, and on the other side, the desire to retaliate without having the means; these also stand in a contrary relationship. In the category of the good, the first is to remember well-doing, the second is to do good thereby, and the third is the benevolent mind, even if the hands are unable to join in. Of the other faction, which is considered in opposition, the first is to remember an injury painfully; the second, immediately following, is to perform some hurtful act out of that memory; and to these two is added the intention to do so without, however, attaining the intention in any way. And thus, of the degrees on both sides, the higher ones—the one desirable for those who progress in virtue, and the other, which the prudent man prays to avoid, choosing the lowest step rather than to ascend, whence one must fall to ruin—are clear. Yet the foundations of these are in reverse. To cast a benefit out of memory, to be ungrateful, and to be so ^D bitterly fixed against a benefactor that one desires to gnaw his very flesh—this, which at the bottom of the ladder of the praiseworthy category lies in the place of the base, is truly most depraved and detestable to the first and greatest Teacher, from whose discipleship he who became infected with this, the Iscariot, fell away. On the other hand, indeed, to endure the memory of an injury, yet to abstain from the retribution of evil, to which it tends, like some dregs of the worst category of remembering an injury, and by this very memory to...

^A abstain from wrongdoing, or to wish to abstain from wrongdoing, is excellent, and pleasing to God, and a wiper-out of sins, for it also wipes away from the soul that which is revenging where it ought not. The cause of this occurrence is that, on the one hand, to be utterly forgetful of well-doing is shifted toward the higher-ranking good things—inasmuch as it is unspeakable, and for this reason it is hated, and is written down as wickedness; but, on the other hand, to cast far away the revenging spirit, and to wish not to remember at all if one has suffered any evil, or if one should perchance remember, to shut off entry into the soul to the revenging act of malice—this is entirely contrary to the two aforementioned sins, and avoids the clique that aligns with them. And by assigning those to the demon, it makes itself familiar to God, and having been refined into a virtue, light and winged, it flies toward the Most High.

16. ^B And the matter has this nature, just as a philosopher knows the rule. For there is an opposite to these two—the forgetfulness of doing good, and, again, the oblivion of doing evil—since the one, being wicked, has fallen under the good and happy category, and therefore the other, being divine, has entered into the other, wicked, series. And in a way, he who has not wished to understand how to do good is, according to the Psalmist, considered a thorn sprung up amidst an abundant harvest, namely, in the series of benefactions. But he who does not return evil for evil is judged a rose, which, avoiding the thorns of the memory of evil, presents an innocent good. Therefore, it may justly be said that they walk, that good body, the order of benefactions, with an evil foot, namely, of ingratitude; but this evil, the memory of evil, with a good foot, according to the malice of one hesitating to walk toward villainy. Or, to speak otherwise: just as wickedness is grafted onto virtues, so too are moral failings onto virtue. For to remember him who has done good, and to make a return of good in deed, and furthermore even to wish to give back a benefaction, are aligned with virtue. But a wicked human intention has grafted onto these beautiful trees a very wicked plant, ingratitude, which the forgetting of benefactions is accustomed to produce.

17. ^C And thus, one wickedness is grafted onto these aligned virtues, and another, heavy, is the memory of injuries, and the maltreatment resulting therefrom. But these three evils, lined up together at the door, as they say, are likened to one virtue, namely, the not wishing at all to remember an injury; to which good I myself dedicate my own self. And thus I would neither be found having returned evil for evil to anyone (this being the worst thing), nor indeed wishing it but, through incapacity, merely delaying the revenge; which latter state wishes to suggest a pretense of virtue to those who do not look deeply.

18. ^D But if someone has to say this common thing, "Whence, then, is this manifest?" first of all, let him examine the life we have lived, in which he would not be able to find anyone who has suffered anything from us for the sake of revenge. Then, let him also apply his attention to our recent misfortunes, in which no one has heard us uttering anything to the injury of the devilish tongue that slanders us.

^A I know indeed that they inquire inquisitively into things they perfectly well know. But if they are speaking these things truly out of zeal, as is said, let them come to us peacefully for instruction, and we shall explain to them by what evils we were fettered that we did not speak out, at least against him who is able to injure us in matters of justice.

^B 19. Having thus established what has been said, in a way that I think cannot easily be gainsaid, I shall speak also of these things in a more concise and clearer manner, showing that it is not the same thing to remember evil and to be resentful of a good deed. Someone remembers: therefore he is good. The memory of an injury comes to someone: therefore the man is resentful. Who says the first? Who says the second? Let them bring themselves into the middle, so that they may be openly laughed at. Someone remembers a magnificent house; therefore he is an architect of those things which he remembers. He has the memory of a ship, skillfully steered and thus safely rescued from the surrounding waves; therefore that man is a most excellent pilot of memory. Someone remembers the oppressive Phalaris; therefore, because he remembers, he commits tyranny. Someone remembers a man who fell down a precipice and was crushed; therefore such a man harms himself. He turns over in his mind that he was once evil, for the things he did wrong, and he is angered at the memory; he is resentful of himself. Those things are not wisdom, but are worthy of a comedy; to which I think this must be added: someone remembers injuries in any way whatever; therefore he is tenacious of hostility.

^C 20. Furthermore, he who defines being resentful simply as the memory of evil or of harassment not only offends the art of rhetoric, by taking away from it a vital part of laudatory speech—the censure (which could not exist if the memory of evils were removed from life)—but he also abolishes legal jurisdiction, scrapes smooth the axes, erases the tablets, and excuses iniquity. For he himself does not wish there to be a memory of evil at all. But some define jurisdiction as nothing other than this: to repel a man when someone else has previously been angered, on account of the memory of the evil that was inflicted; they have spoken in a way that is little enough, but not entirely straying far from the truth.

^D 21. It is proper, therefore, as it seems, for those who judge to simultaneously discern the accuser, and to rise from the seat, and to leave the tribunal and withdraw, or else to charge the man with resentment, because he comes remembering an injury to dissolve the knot of evil according to the arbitration of the law, and to argue peacefully. But if the divine commandment is also set before us, that one struck on the cheek ought to offer the other, and the first blow becomes so heavy that it is impossible to turn the other cheek, and the one struck, seeing and having the memory of what he has suffered, does not turn himself for another blow, but instead groans and laments in his grievous pain; must we say that he is a sinner, as one who knows what he suffers, and is thus resentful? The thing and the definition are ridiculous.

^A Likewise, a man who knows he has been wronged as to a lawful marriage will not forget his wife, who, I suppose, is struck with frenzy, and the manner in which she treated him; wherefore he will also be on his guard, mindful of this throughout his whole life, lest his malicious wife, having returned, should break apart their fair harmony. Nor would a teacher, nor indeed a master of a house, having found their charges—the one a pupil, the other a fosterling—to be wicked, grant them forgiveness for their offenses out of forgetfulness. And certainly they would not themselves, as the color of their memory wears away, be inscribed in the images of the resentful. But rather, the one will be called a zealous husband, the other a good teacher, and the third a prudent steward of those he governs. By exactly the same reasoning, a traveler who finds a bad companion on the road, and is suspicious of the man for that reason, is to be called prudent, not one who remembers evil. Again, a merchant who discovers a partner he has taken on stealing the common good will argue and rebuke him and guard himself; but he is not to be stigmatized for vengeance. We know tomb robbers, and we always hate them, and we avoid them as wicked men, and we do not cease to be such as long as they remain such. If, therefore, anyone wishes to call us resentful, let him dare to say it, and let him say it and be laughed at. ^B This is the explanation also for other iniquities. A neighbor steals: he is suspected. Is he who suspects the thief therefore resentful? Another committed murder, another sacrilege, another fought against God. If they are hated, are they being remembered with resentment? He who thinks this way is reasoning falsely and deceives himself.

^C 23. Furthermore, if the same science and knowledge belong to contraries (and this is entirely true), it would be the same for both receiving a benefit and suffering an evil. He, therefore, who judges that memory must be completely eradicated from the human soul when one has suffered some evil, would at the same time root out also the best plant, the memory of benefits, and will devastate the paradise that is within us; and no one would thereafter be able to perceive, as of an evil endured, so too of a benefit received. For the same knowledge knows both through recollection. If, however, anyone holds that the memory of the one is not to be retained, certainly neither is that of the other. And thus human perfection has failed.

^D 24. Furthermore, remembering evil can be referred to many things; for it is not indivisible. Someone keeps the memory that he was once sick (if indeed sickness is any evil), that he once fell into a raging sea that tried to drag him down to Hades; that he was struck by a sword causing a grievous wound, not one from another, but one caused by his own hand through some accident of fate; that he slid into a deep pit from a stumble; that he was dragged along by a river current. Therefore, those who have suffered such things, whether it be one man or many, certainly, if they remember the evils they have encountered, are not all subject to the accusation of being resentful, unless those who speak ill wish to use the term improperly. Therefore, by analogy, from the same situation, he who remembers that he has suffered some evil from someone is not to be called, perversely, one who remembers evil, but simply one who is mindful, just as he is mindful of the evils he has suffered, so he is also of those which are the contrary. But if indeed he also [seeks] vengeance for…

some ill, and plans to render evil for evil, this, O you people, is what it means to be mindful of wrongs.

^B 25. Furthermore, since the good of memory has been stored up within the storehouse of the soul by God for a thousand benefits—the exposition of which would be a long task—who would so set upon this guarded treasury as to dig up the hidden treasure with the instrument of forgetfulness, in order to drive away the good of memory that flutters on high toward Olympus, and in its place introduce the dross of forgetfulness, which disfigures the beautiful handiwork of God?

26. I, therefore, would be mindful, O God my Savior, always! I have been called to be thus: knowing and knowledgeable, and having learned to discern, and, to say it in a word, to be a human being! May I not be turned into a lethargic person, nor be transformed into some Mamma-couthus or Melitides, or another Coroebus, or into a Polyworus! May I not be so stuffed with a head-cold as to know how to judge nothing, but instead be transformed into a man in spirit, and not belie the rational being. Grant me, along with the memory of things that flow by nature, that I should not be overcome, nor be worn down into malicious vengeance, and becoming, as it were, a lion against my enemies, stimulated by the fiercest movements of the soul—by which anger, kindled, is ignited into a great evil—whether that be a solitary thing, ^C cloaked in some deceit, or balanced between two by an emulous spirit of resistance. Preserve me in the will not to render evil, and teach me to beware and turn away from evils, just as we flee from the face of a snake, lest like vipers they lie in wait, creep in, and secretly drain and kill us.

27. Furthermore, anyone who asserts that one should not at all remember if he has suffered any evil, seems to approve of these things as well: You have been embittered, having been given wormwood to drink; therefore, upon encountering honey, forget that the wormwood was bitter to you. You have been sick, having suffered pain in some member, and you have grieved; but having been restored to health, no longer hold in your mind that the sickness is an evil. I, for my part, would not adhere to such reasoning, nor to all those who are similar (and there are many); but I would use art, fixing my mind upon the things of honey, and pressing out the bitterness in memory with an opposing sweetness. ^D Thus, even when I have been brought to sickness, I will neither rage against it, fighting with shadows, nor will I amputate the pained part of the disease from which the soul was faring poorly, "cutting myself into pieces," as the saying goes. Rather, upon keeping a memory of that former irrational state, I will set against it the pleasure of being healthy, and with the joy of the state, I will drive out the disagreeable. Similarly, in any case, if it should happen that I remember those who are doing evil, having gathered from the treasury of the heart the good things that come from victory and prevailing, I will indeed keep the memory of them at a distance, but I will love the later goods; being counterbalanced by these, and drawing down the scale toward good, that not-good memory will be snatched away to the Harpies. Upon these matters I will examine those who press upon me more sophistically, and who do not pose the proposition concerning the memory of wrongs as a settled matter, but rather as a blind demand,

^A one that would be difficult to have been granted by an expert.

28. The holy and great man who trained and taught me, on the one hand, used to inflict rational blows, without which he who is being led into the path of education could not walk the straight way; but, on the other hand, perhaps (let the truth be told), when anger prompted him, he would regulate his castigations beyond the rule (for it was permitted him). Why, then, shall I not remember above all that discipline, and bless the man, but remember perhaps even that harsher one which, as it seemed to me at the time, was ill-explained and lacking in grace, and convert even that into a grateful memory? And this is not yet the memory of wrongs. It would be a memory of wrongs if I did not remember it with urbane moderation, but, embittered and vengeful, insulted him.

29. We remember (and not I alone, but the entire audience) what evils the supreme and primary teacher, God, has recently allowed to be brought upon us from the Latin land into affliction, and we shall not forget them. What then? Reminded of the affliction, shall we be angry with God? Let someone say so, if it pleases them. I too have the weapons of speech in my hands, and a double-edged sword ^B may be added to it, even unto a brilliant victory. But let the same thought be turned another way: surely God will not forget that the wicked are wicked, and yet He would not be defamed by the haters of the good as one who remembers wrongs. May the mouths of such people be shut. And if, being aware, by way of so-called memory, of what they sin against Him, He brings about affliction, who is so full of audacity as to attribute to Him, from this, the memory of wrongs? Let such a mouth also be barred, just like that which blames the judges, if they themselves, while discerning civil matters, pursue with the memory of justice those who are always wicked and constantly implant their memory in the souls of the court, while those of unsound mind judge the interpreters of the law to be those who remember wrongs; truly counterfeiting a divine matter and name, or corrupting ^C it; neither are they divine men, nor is God Himself, who does not love the often-robbed, judged most correctly.

30. Come then, having attempted even according to a certain fictional law of rhetoric, I will put to shame those who wish to be wise in malice towards me, yet deem me foolish to such an extent in the permutation of names, and unperceptive, and [expect me] perhaps even to thank them, as if they were making me wise in this way—which indeed I do, escaping the notice of those who do not see sharply. For great is the grace that comes to me from God, and I rejoice truly that, though I am assailed with ^D blows, I am no less whole, and exercised in the struggle, I am not crushed; and proceeding on the straight road and tempted, whether by the setting of stumbling blocks, or when someone, according to the proverb, strikes with a horn, I am not wounded, and by stones cast as a stumbling block, I am not cast down; and encountering the opening of pits, whether those gaping wide and deep, or those hidden, so that that which is a slippery way appears to lie open wide, I soar lightly over them. For He Himself...

^A lifting me up, and giving instruction concerning me to His own angel, that great and most powerful king of ours, He guards me in all His ways. But if, in the pits that lie open as has been described, either lions are lying in wait, or sharp stakes are fixed, or anything else of such a deadly nature, he nevertheless turns even this hidden evil of the enemies around, caring in every way, or else sparing our weakness, lest we too, having stumbled, should perish or be carried away into blasphemy, and those who rejoice over us should not, according to the proverb, die with laughter, boasting completely ^B. And thus, indeed, I profess thanks—and these entirely to God the Helper. But if any grace desires to pass over even to those who persecute me, no one, I think, who knows how to discern what thankfulness is, and how one who is injured cannot easily offer thanks, will be able to believe it. For it is consistent with charity to groan in secret and to keep silent; but even to pray for those who do harm is indeed divine and possible, especially for good Christians, yet it is not *of necessity* to offer them thanks. And this is indeed of such a sort.

31. But the course of rhetorical fiction promised to me is of this kind. Let it be assumed that there is a path concealing the dire predators of the human race, and that some person traveling that way, unsuspecting, falls among the brigands and suffers such ^C grievous things, in which is included the breaking of his most vital limbs. If then, one of those—not being a benefactor, but having taken up the fallen one with pity—should lift him up and receive him with other marks of consideration, by which he restores to wholeness the broken man (for nothing prevents the predator himself from knowing the remedies by which such wounds are cured), and the one being cured then brings forward words of thanks, and with these at the same time rewards the one who struck him, and finally, being recalled to the state in which he was, supplicates God in prayer, promises the best things, and casting himself sincerely before the feet of the healer, embraces his feet and kisses them: that such a man should forget the evils ^D which he suffered, and indeed delete them from the tablet of his soul, bearing written only the soothing relief, I do not think—and not I alone, but anyone else whatsoever. For I say that, first of all, during each healing of the body, and then also whenever he happens to chance upon the one who healed him, and during the remainder of his recollection, the memory of that act of malice, which he has carried away with him, would run ahead. Especially, indeed, in cases where the members were festering together and dissolving, and were so permeated by fever, the memory of the injury would be mingled with the memory of the cure. But even when a man is restored to a good state of nature, not even thus will he be able to forget what he suffered. And perhaps, meeting at some time or other that robber-Asclepius, he will greet him gladly, will embrace him, will lavish him with streams of praise, and will even entreat him to come to him as a guest. And he will come, and he will enjoy the gracious favor and be treated with hospitality. And he will in turn provide hospitality and receive it. But if, in the meantime, one [might treat] a benevolent host, who had been sick and...

then restored to health, who this guest was and from where he came, that sophist would not be so terrible as not to betray, by the things he says, a memory of that past evil. He would certainly say: "This guest was once most hateful to me when he descended and invited the ferryman of the underworld to carry me down; already having moved one foot, I, heavy with disease, had boarded the skiff. But in the end, having become mild toward me, having lifted the burden, and having entreated the ferryman Charon out of respect for the land and the sun, of which he was preparing to deprive me before my time, he brought me back to the state in which I now am; and for this reason I hold this good man in benevolence." If the host says these things, and is thus disposed (for it is assumed that he is so), would he be nursing a grudge?

32. Behold, let him who wishes proceed against me in the ring of reasoning. But the wrestling arena shall have a soft foundation of dust, so that, if by chance one is thrown down, he may rebound ^B sound, and rising, may wipe it off and stand, not harmed by the fall. For I say (and who would contradict it?) that one who sincerely gives thanks cannot be called mindful of injuries. Therefore, the memory of evil is not simply the recollection of a bad deed, but the recollection of revenge, either present or impending—may God avert both from us, and not only from us, but from every upright Christian! But if anyone objects, saying: "Behold, even here, those who seemed to be malicious robbers are doing good things, calling out to you now, 'Hail, Rabbi,' bowing down, or, as someone might say, humbled like crabs, begging for mercy, pleading for forgiveness"; let him first learn from us, since these so-called wise men have often sworn this and, having found us easy and pliable to bending, ^C shortly thereafter surrounded us with worse sophisms. They indeed said: "Behold, we who wounded you are now healing you," and they record many things against the calumniator; but a short time later, having rushed upon us while we were off our guard, they inflicted more numerous and more grievous wounds, and ones not even curable. And the thieving and plundering devil, whom they had pushed out through a small opening—barely allowing him to depart—they openly introduced back again for a new return through the great door.

33. Next, let those who are liars mindful against us, yet who deprive us of the good memory—that beautiful gift of nature—consider that I have often declaimed, not altogether foolishly, against their crafty adorations, like certain ^D assaults of bulls gore-prodding the bellies of the unwary, and I have shown their false genuflections to be like the arts of wrestlers, men attempting to entwine their legs around both of yours and to throw down the one against whom they are plotting. But as to what "to sympathize" and "to forgive" might mean among such people who are always like this, I suspect something else. For to sympathize and to forgive could not be, for them, to undergo something with someone and with someone

^A to yield in some respect. But I would not wish to undergo such things, nor would I wish to yield in this way, because no other man of sound mind would either. For who, being prudent, would choose to undergo with someone the instability of opinion, or to yield—which is the same as to say, to be carried along with someone—toward things that any sensible person detests? Thus, being wary regarding that simple practice of sympathizing and forgiving, and distinguishing the confusion of similar terms and judging correctly, I determine, according to my own discernment, that I should, by a good will, concede; and according to a good passion, I embrace and desire, by natural inclination, to sympathize; and being invited to yield and to endure, I would be prepared to do so, and indeed I would endure as much as I am able, and I would not be reproached for thus not conceding and sympathizing. And of these things, the good men of this city are my witnesses, to whom, as they often exhorted me toward good paths and honorable deeds, I have both yielded and sympathized; and for the most part, not according to my ability, but, to speak apostolically, ^B even to excess. And so, in this way, I yield and I sympathize; but to clarify these terms for the opportune moment, I join in rushing and I suffer together with those who, strictly speaking, are rushing and suffering when it is necessary; but to yield and to sympathize otherwise, as the many desire, I refuse. For it should not happen to me to suffer with them, and to yield with them to many things that are not fitting! But may it happen to me, on the contrary, to suffer well, and to traverse the way according to God, and not to consent to evils, nor to sympathize with those wicked men; among which acts is numbered that of pressing without cause upon those upon whom one must not, and plotting to bind one if he happens to be righteous, because he is troublesome to those who do not manage their affairs well.

34.

and speaking more simply for the sake of clarity, without that artificial concealment which one who is mocking his hearers might contrive. ^B 35. But if any man accuses us of such roughness, I shall ask that man: How shall we ever dare to smile with the serene radiance of joy, when we see men who would misinterpret our smile as unseemly guffawing or Corybantic dancing, being ridiculous themselves and knowing no difference between a smile, a sneer, a guffaw, and laughter—between which, by their very definitions, there is the widest possible distance? And how shall I be urbane, according to a gracious and wise charm, concerning the type of discourse that ought to be chosen, which is sharp, such as is handed down not only by him who wrote that wine is the "blood of the grape," but also by the rich and sweet orator David, he who sang that "hail is cast forth like morsels," and that "snow is spread like wool," and that "mist is scattered like ashes," ^C fashioning a face for the cold that troubles the countenances of travelers? For I omit for the present many other sweet things, with which the holy and divine Scripture speaks in riddles, as when it says that "honey came forth from the eater," and that a certain spear of a warrior is "as thick as the weavers' beam," and that "stars walk in the house," where the coverings of the roof are so sparse that to those looking in from within, the movement of the stars at the very height appears. To these must be added thorns growing in the hand of a drunkard, and that "fathers have eaten sour grapes, but their children's teeth are set on edge." Where, then, I have dared to produce such things—even if I could have spoken with moderation—the urbanity of the metropolitan appears to misled ears to be a certain speech neither dithyrambic nor deadly (would that it were!), but heavy with wine, like the songs sung among the bacchanals.

36. I confess to you, brethren, that I wish to shape my words in such a way, for men who listen carelessly, that even if I had to speak before a divine king, I would have had no need to take caution lest I speak at random, nor to refrain from speaking casually. ^D Yet I know myself, both under the old and under the present sacred reign, to have spoken in such a grave assembly that I moved those who heard me and won them over. But with these deaf ones of ours (for I do not wish to call them cunning), nothing of the sort happens; rather they stand about, craftily meditating if by any chance they might catch us in something—ignoble, as they say, miserable phalanxes, plotting against a poor fly, to see if they might seize it should it draw near. Why, then, O wise listeners and spectators, do you find fault if an old man, not entirely divorced from reason, seeing heroic figures coming forth on the stage—some old man like Priam, and the Atridae, the kings opposed to him, and some Ulysses, and another by the name of Ajax,

^A he interprets to those standing by, namely, that these things are not true, but are antics of a poetic stage, or, to put it more solemnly, shadows of truth. He demonstrates that the figure appearing as Priam is a man of base origin, and perhaps even a slave; that the sons of Atreus are fish-mongers, yet skillful at prattling on the stage with such pretense and ease as to represent royal persons; that some individual, perhaps sprung from a brothel, and well-schooled in market-place chatter and jocular trifling, represents the person of the eloquent Ulysses; while Ajax, the figure appearing great, and as someone said, colossal, is in reality small and weak, but having stepped into high buskins, or walking on stilts, is thus raised above the floor and rendered aloft, and so overshadows the braggart. What wonder, then, if such biting things cause distress? For am I not the one who, by interpretation through accurate understanding, judges those small theatrical things among us, unveiling those which are indeed great to the sight but very small from another perspective, manifesting hypocrisy, and explaining appearances, so that each person may appear according to the truth and be perfectly known, and not mock the viewers as if, being one person, he is represented to the multitude as another?

^B 37. For, apart from other stage-acting, do not most people, under the mask of friendship, appear saddened externally if they see someone afflicted, while internally they applaud, exult, dance, and showing feigned pity, become burdened for those who mourn—not because they are truly affected, but because they are still alive and are not strangled? They do not lend money to help one fallen into poverty, but impose upon him the weight of the interest born from it, so that he miserably dies of hunger. And thus, under the guise of compassion, drawing to themselves what is needy and, as it were, embracing it with charity, they then cruelly slaughter it through deception, not honoring or blessing those they meet. Afterwards, having progressed a little and slipped from view, they curse them most viciously, simulating by their appearance a friendly man, but in their deeds depicting rabid dogs. Why should I not mention something more grave? Do they not lift their tongues to heaven, calling to witness the heavenly God—and this not for the demonstration of truth, but for the hiding of those things which they wickedly contemplate? I, finding such bad hypocrites, and convicting them in the act of the theft of truth, and showing them to appear one way but to exist otherwise within—and this not once, but today and tomorrow and the day after and the following days, I might almost say, perpetually—and thus always myself remembering that some are evil, I am irrationally inscribed as a model of someone who keeps a record of injuries. And I have not spoken the wiser things, by which most, putting their hand to the plow of good work, but twisting it, furrow warped lines and, sowing unsown seed, are for the most part despised by me, although sometimes they are admonished with a thin voice as to what they do. And straightway I, teaching that not only...

I am useless for anything, but I also perceive the fruit from a good conversation—that I am called mindful of evil. Many such things I now pass over in silence, as if reserving a place for charity again. For it would be a shame for anyone to promise true friendship to men for whom it has become a detestable thing to be loved: were this not the case, and were one to wait until that pledge vanished for them, there would be no hesitation for a wise man to allow himself to be trampled by such people. ^A

38. But, that we might leave this aside and draw our discourse toward what has already been decently stated, and be done with the previous subjects, I desire to be taught by those who know and to learn how, mindful of the royal mercy, I could not immediately also recall the circumstances for which the ambrosia of mercy rained down upon me from God and from the divine king. How, indeed, could I not turn both these things over in my mind: that those who were supposedly my own shot their arrows at me, though I was unarmed, and how God, protecting me, snatched me away unharmed, and blunted the tongues that delighted in hurling missiles, turning them backward? ^B I, for my part, say that it is impossible for anyone who is sensible and mindful of the royal good done to me not to remember, at the same time and on the other hand, the wickednesses on account of which the good descended upon me. If someone wishes to contend against this, I would wish for him to be exiled in northern Thrace, to hear the echo that wandered there among other places, which resounds against us, from which we were astonished as if by thunder: and he would know what kind of things we, merely mentioning, have unworthily been given a name for. For because we are mindful of having been vexed, by this very fact we are called "mindful of evil." ^C But in this way I, sifting through the shadows and dissipating the phantasms of those who falsely sign themselves with virtue, and manifesting those who appear to be lovers of the brethren so that they might pretend to be good, and striving to bring the detestable births of mutual accord to abort, and relegating the lie to the demons, as one having his mind toward the God of truth, and managing other things according to a similar order, and never forgetting, but remembering to make the evil better, am cast down where the detestable mindful of evil ought to be cast into a pit.

39. Yet I have the great Elias, who walked the heavens, and according to Paul, who was all fire, ^D because he burned with the fire of indignation according to the spirit, and brought down fire from heaven, and was carried up as fire, speaking on my behalf, and otherwise representing my own affairs; in that, being mindful of evil deeds, I not only advise this altogether by word of counsel and by law, but also openly rebuke, suspecting indeed that I must be hated, according to the saying of the wise writer of proverbs, because I reprove the wise—and yet I do not omit to speak in this way. For he slaughtered those priests whom shame had claimed; yet he was not enrolled in the book of the mindful of evil, but

^A he was a most ardent zealot. Phinehas also pierced ^B if anyone should happen to be wicked; and he who pierced is praised, nor was he mindful of evil, but this was attributed to him out of divine zeal: the earth gaped and swallowed the wicked, avenging those who remembered them because of their wickedness, and those who held the memory [of them] were not reproved. But we, fleeing only the Jezabels who are against us, and thus scarcely obtaining salvation, and remembering to avoid evil, are reputed to be mindful of evil!

40. There is indeed a certain memory of evil that we move, as it were by our own machinations, by exciting what lies within our own desires; but there is also a certain memory of evil that is not entirely and always in us, but which nature keeps deposited in its own storehouses, reviving it whenever something happens to occur. Thus, someone who has experienced evil may have forgotten it; but having met the one who caused the grief, and being recalled to memory by the thought, as is natural, he renews what had already grown old in his memory, or revives what was in some way dead. And this, indeed, should not be called being mindful of evil. For how could he be mindful of evil who, while receiving the memory of the evil, nevertheless remains quiet regarding retaliation? But if, on the contrary, he were to be provoked to vengeance by a past injury, meditating evil, this would absolutely be, without doubt, to be mindful of evil. Therefore, what nature does here is irreprehensible, and does not fall into malice, but is ordered into a reflective impulse. But what we initiate is ^C the memory of evil, and that indeed sometimes by natural consequence, yet not of that kind which concerns one living in virtue and dedicated to the better life. By "natural" in these matters, I mean that which is a repelling of malice; which even the ancients explain, saying that the ox strikes with its horn if someone provokes it, the horse with its hoof, the eagle wounds with its curved talons, the scorpion with its sting, the elephant with its trunk, the lion with its sharp teeth. And thus, such things are indeed natural, as is defending oneself against a past injury. But I do not emulate these; ^D rather, because of the great example of Him who, while suffering injury, does not curse, and being affected by evil, is not animated [by it], and because of all other things of this order, I abstain from rendering evil for evil. However, those who are more honorable devise a graver defense through modesty, indulgence, mansuetude, and patience. For what greater defense could there be than divine vindication, which involves Him who is called Lord, who punishes those who surround Him without cause?

41. But behold, they say, even you, looking at us, turn away from your usual manner of conversation; and if you were speaking, you fall silent, and if you were previously inclined toward cheerfulness, you retreat into yourself and stiffen your countenance. Therefore, you are mindful of evil. No, my good man, but I am being careful, I am taking precautions, I am employing strategy, lest some word preceding, or some gesture naively distorted, or some glance

^A should stir up trouble for me again. Yet for these things I am not the one to be blamed, but you, because of whom I am so cautious and fearful and suspicious, or even distrustful, shrinking back as if from the scorching rays of the sun or the lightning flashes of many.

^B 42. I say further, that there is a remembrance of evil that is without passion, or which is the same thing, free from grief; and if this is so, it is also foreign to the concept of grudge-bearing, if indeed no one who bears a grudge is free from grief, whenever one remembers the wrongdoing of someone. If, then, someone remembers a hurt without passion, how could that person be a grudge-bearer? I know many remembrances of evil which are even accompanied by laughter, and such things would not be brought into the category of grudge-bearing, since they gladden and refresh the one who has suffered, and stand only there, not resulting in revenge.

43. I am drawn to use even a fable against the matters proposed. A crab, always moving sideways—both toward the right and toward the reverse—and seeing its own offspring born of it holding to the path sideways in this manner, behaved terribly, indignant and pressing accusations upon its own children, because they were moving so crookedly and never knew the road straight ahead. ^C This fable laughs at anyone who encourages others to correct those things in which he himself is always a sinner. And this laughter extends to our own situation. For those who are of the side that blames us, by bringing forth the memory of certain injuries, and by always speaking of this, and by being visibly fallen into the very act of grudge-bearing, then dare to write this to us: "Why are you blathering, man? You wound, and blood flows from the wound, and there is a deep gash in the one who has been hurt; and that person merely cries out, and you wonder that he does not strike back in revenge, just as he might be able to! But you complain, and call him a grudge-bearer, as if wishing to cross-examine nature, if, according to its own law, it urges the one in pain to lament. But if someone who has been struck by a wound steals away from you for the future, and turns aside, what is new in this? Not even a donkey would stumble twice at the same spot. ^D And this proverb applies to many other beasts, which suspect and then avoid a preceding evil. How then could a man, possessing reason, keep outside of this, having been harassed in some way, and not once, but many times? I think that it would not be the act of sound reason to remain abundant in the same passion, and to remain insensitive to everything, and always prepared to be offended. If, however, the cause of the evil obstacle—a pit, perhaps, or a stone—should be removed—the one set apart at the side of the path, or even lifted away elsewhere—and the one who has been filled and heaped over should be leveled out, then indeed neither man nor any other animal would fear the place of stumbling, but would entrust himself to the journey with security.

44. Give me, therefore, both of you, a clear walkway; take away the snares, remove the stumbling blocks, fill in the pits to make them solid; and thus the judgment from God will leave you, and the fear and dread of the path will leave me. God, who knows all things, understands, and those who are learned in our affairs know, that

no evil from us has ever reached anyone. Nor, I think, could those who speak ill of us bring forward any deed as evidence; but if they must build upon the foundations laid by us, they have set the roof of malice according to the rationale of their own remembrance of injuries. Why then do they not philosophically complain now that we are "mindful of evils," when we remember that we have encountered men who are mindful of evils, imputing the proper evil to ourselves? ^B

45. Once more I declare, with confidence, that the remembrance of an evil is not the same thing as being mindful of an evil; but that the former is a virtue and perfection of nature, preserving in the soul that which lingers from passions or persistent thoughts—whence the etymology of the word "memory" is derived—whereas I consider the "remembrance of injuries" [mnessikakia] to be a depravity of a pugnacious and destructive soul. Therefore, he who has suffered evil, as I well know, remembers it, and likewise he who has at some time received a benefit. But the "remembrance of injuries" I neither recognize as my work, nor do I desire it, just as I do not desire to be pugnacious and combative, since I am conscious of what kind of Master I, however inept, have been enrolled as a disciple of—namely, the peaceful and meek One, who guides those who desire it toward humanity. If, however, there is any distinction in me of affection between this person and that, between one and another, and between the many and the many, it is not possible that the matter be found otherwise in anyone at all. ^C

46. We humans participate with one another in all things for the use of life, and yet not in the same way for everyone; but for a stranger it will suffice to point out with a finger the directness of the road, whereas to an acquaintance one must add a pleasant conversation, accompany him a little graciously, and even cut off and offer a morsel of bread, if it is at hand. And if someone were more known, [our] fellowship would extend even to a common table. But he who is closely joined by the bond of friendship will stand above all these things, not only sharing other things with his beloved friend, but also possessing knowledge of the friend's mysteries. And to speak of the sharing of a life is a small thing; it is, rather, his very companionship and adoption. And these things are nothing new, if also a father, surrounded by a flock of children, does not suspend the same scales for all, but inclines them this way or that, as the desire of the soul impels him, and, as seems fit to him, measures the natural equilibrium with the scale of charity. ^D

47. Why, then, do you depict the one who ignites a flame for the burning [of a house] as a vigorous man, but register as a wrongdoer him who lights a lamp for the sake of protection? Why do you instruct the honest teacher otherwise? Why do you pervert the leveling-line? Why do you ruin the plumb-line? Why do you distort the rule? Why do you move against the perpendicular? Why do you blame the just yoke? And why do you, each one of you, wish to measure me and me alone among men, before...

^A you propose a scale and barter for the yokes of friendship that are in me? And you yourselves are tossed up and down, as chance may have it; but you command me to reconcile myself to an equality of inclination, where it is not possible to find anything among you that is established in sameness. For if, perchance, your scales keep level for a brief moment, yet no sooner does one see it with a mere touch of the eyes than the opposite of your friendship lords it over our balance, and, weighted down, renders it useless and seeking where it might find rest. And a great charge is leveled against us, that we do not apply ourselves toward uprightness with both the highly renowned of this city and the more lowly, but that we deal with them in a confused and indiscriminate manner. But we have nothing to correct here in our own judgment. The reason is the Euripus that surrounds us and the ever-turning weathercock. For no sooner has one of our citizens declared someone honorable today, than on the morrow that same man is written down as dishonorable and is forthwith abandoned. A rich man now speaks proudly, and a little later, as a great pauper, he knocks at the door of mercy. A noble ^B at this present point in time is, in a short while, cursed as having sprung from an ignoble stock, so that he is to be held in contempt, and a slave, as they say, appears in place of a free man. Someone is for a time witnessed to as being possessed of virtue; yet in a short time he is denounced as a villain, just as if he were covered by the shadow of a dream. To what opinions or wills, then, shall we turn our minds, when they are thus split into extremes? I wish to love those who are praised; but before they can be settled in my mind, they are cast out.

48. And so, since there is such wandering and turning in others, I am accused of suffering this myself; and being burdened by the evil, I am criticized for remembering evil; and in some way I appear like the moon, whom, according to the fable, her mother blamed because, when seeking a beautifully woven robe, she could not remain in one size so as to suit what she wanted, but, being full for a little while, for the remainder of the time she changed into infinite magnitudes of brightness. And I say to my own people, perhaps, also: Stand firm in one defined thing; enclose yourselves in one piece, indivisibly and immutably; and thus require something defined ^D of us. But until you turn about like shifting tides and turn and turn again at every wind, allow us to rest, to be burdened, and to keep in memory the evil we see, and to be grieved, and to restrain our affability; for confidence itself, that we are loved, holds a certain reservation.

49. I confess, brethren (and I wish you were also true, for it is difficult), that I acknowledge having a gloomy look when I chance upon simple encounters, whenever I happen upon beasts, fearing lest they might leap upon me. I shrink even from speech, lest I awaken sleeping enemies. To speak plainly, I am not the same as I was yesterday toward those who plot evil, whether we speak or whether we are silent. I have been changed—not, indeed, toward all, but toward some at least, whether they be friendly end of page 448; next page continues with “or well-meaning, or whether we act together, or whether we follow along, or whether some other...”

^A or behave as though they are helpful, or accompany us, or perform any other act of love and harmony; they prepare themselves for the opposite, as if by design. I hesitate to open all the gates of my heart, fearing an ambush. I am wary of simplicity on account of the tortuous. I do not dare to bare my face, because of some wasp or hornet, or even the bee itself, sweet in other respects, but stinging with its barb. I withdraw my hands when they are torn by those who reach out to greet them. I hide the honey, too, because of the treacherous flies. I do not display sweetness where the recompense is bitter. And this, I think, also has a certain rationale: instead of manna, gall was once offered to our greatest Lord. Tell me, therefore, if after such gall, manna was subsequently rained upon those bile-filled men, if one might call them such. But you would not be able to say this, nor to blaspheme by holding a grudge against God, because He did not continue to provide manna indefinitely. Far be this sin! Most of all, therefore, consider that He Himself knew they would remain evil; they, for their part, were not changing for the better. Hence, the bread of angels is kept in the heavens, while to those to whom the common dispenser of good things grants it in measure, those who previously delighted in it now reasonably go without. ^B

50. I am led to inquire about the Iscariot disciple, whether he is saved or not. And I think I already hear a declaration murmured in response, that this man is not saved. And I add: how, then, did this come about? Yet, the sting of repentance entered him and pricked him, and indeed he did what he judged to be right, although he was blind while laboring and bringing forth, not, however, perfectly, remaining yet sterile, so that he did not show forth the condemnation of his own sinfulness. What then? The treasurer, who was himself chosen among the disciples, was cast into perdition, and does he presume to argue with God regarding retribution? But behold, you yourselves solve for me the knot of this difficulty. For you say, deservedly, that he who asked—if indeed he was the one who was betraying the Master—and heard the words, "You have said it," and thus manifested his own treachery, and yet did not change his mind, but even loved what was detestable, remained sterile of virtue and was shown to be a tree outwardly well-grown, and one that promises noble fruits, but one that is truly unfulfilled regarding fertility and deserving to be struck by the axe and cast into the fire for burning. ^C

51. If, however, someone naturally objects to these things by saying, "But we, if anything burdensome has happened, as you yourself think, have healed that with honors, processions, bows of the head, and honest greetings, by all of which friendship is characterized; therefore, the consequence of holding a grudge is that toward us you do not have the same disposition as you once did; we, indeed, in accordance with this instruction, if anything burdensome has been perpetrated according to our opinion, neither ourselves into the depths of demonstration... ^D

nor do we permit that you should strip yourselves for such an arduous struggle. Let the matter lie, either as we both know—I, that is to say, and you—or as we suppose. ^A And I, weighing against your favors the returns from me up to the present moment, I ask: What do I lack in comparison with those of our rank? Do I not embrace you by circling my hands over you as if in a servile bond? Do I not bow my head and neck? Do I not address you with gentleness? Do I not seal my words with righteous prayers? What, then, is the debt left for me to pay in excess? If, however, ^B you are still not pleased with processions and you are burdened by triumphal pomps, it is timely for me to say that I have been with you for so long, and yet you do not know me. Do you not remember how a thousand times I have declaimed against those who are thus crazy for honors? Do you not recall how often I have spoken to an audience, in which I said that he who ponders his final end rejoices in vain at numerous public processions—he for whom, if it should happen, he is lifted high upon a funeral bier, yet neither perceives those by whom he is honored, nor, perhaps, is overwhelmed by the insults of many who are permitted, as they approach the deathbed, to strike the one lying there upon the cheek, to handle his nose injuriously with their fingers, and perhaps even to trample upon him maliciously? We know many such things regarding the wicked who, even after death, nursing a heavy and inveterate anger, are not ashamed to harass the senseless dust.

52. Whoever, therefore, revolves such thoughts in his heart (and truly he who recognizes himself as mortal, and does not play the tyrant by presuming to think things beyond a human being, does surely revolve them), ^C how could he accept honorific triumphs and the masks of glory, set up for a brief moment of time as an idol, and then dissolved again, so that not even a shadow remains without substance? I, for my part, loathe such turbulent displays for other reasons as well: when the weather is clear, because of the great amount of dust which the earth, being broken into fine particles when disturbed by many feet, sends up against one’s very face and the sacred vestments, which I prefer to keep pure and free from offense; and I am zealous to be thus disposed and unmolested. But when at some point the dust cloud ^D is mixed into mud and becomes watery, in such a way that not only the head but also the whole body is beset by snares, then I do not wish even by my dearest friends to be coerced into an burdensome procession. For those whom God has necessarily appointed to go before or follow after are sufficient. What, therefore, is so very burdensome if I reinforce this will of mine, resisting that which is not mine? That I judge the most profound adorations of such fleeting things, performed without any reason, to be unworthy, I confess and prove. The reason is not only that many consecrate divine things to men in this way, where it is not appropriate, but also because I have experienced that many such things are done among men in a mocking and deceitful manner. Even before this experience, I had been taught regarding that genuflection before Christ the Savior which was done in mockery, because of which those perverse adorers are condemned.

^A Perhaps it will not be out of place to relate to you the argument upon which I first conceived such a thought, gathering it by experience, which we know to be the preamble of all writing. There were two wise masters, and both were men, the one appointed for my instruction, and the other useful because of our acquaintance. And everything was common to them both—what belonged at home and what was abroad, and, in a word, the whole commerce of life. Then the time of the vintage arrived; and according to the custom of each, they went out together from our greatest of cities to some fields—not very far away, but at a moderate distance from the Megalopolis, like suburbs. One of these properties had fallen to the elder by paternal inheritance, while the other had come to my teacher by reason of affinity. The position of each was opposite the other, on this side and that of a road paved with marble stones, above which a holy shrine to the most valiant martyr George stands even to this day. Before it, to the east, stood a marble column of white color, the capital of which, like a marble tablet, offered a face radiating with the splendor of the sun, upon which a venerable type of the cross was inscribed. And from this, the place took its name, ^B Pinacium. That column, having yielded to a long period of time, became shaky on all sides and fell (nor is the time distant), and having been broken, it stands no longer erect; the cross upon its top fell with it, yet the name is preserved thence upon the place and it is called Pinacidium. This name is now empty of its object, since the work has been gathered into a ruin, like a certain tumulus, and preserves something like the type of a cenotaph. To this place both wise men came, and they sat down upon the stone-paved ground upon pebbles, which had been heaped together there; and, having settled under a fig tree whose shadow was cast wide and was such that it could comfortably cover those who discoursed beneath it, they conversed with one another, for the most part alone, as if to philosophize spontaneously or to describe the paths of life. Yet their philosophical urbanity desired to sing something graceful, mocking those who were being carried along the roads ^C on business, and who were spinning this thread of life, as if to be educated. Of that herd of travelers who heard the witty remarks, the more respectable, seeing the two men conversing, were silent and offered greetings, and thus passed by in honor; but those who were fervent with youth replied with a light murmur, and the grace of their speech produced for them certain pleasantries—facetious, indeed, but not without a certain rusticity, such as an unrefined and rustic life is wont to produce. Many truly, declining toward the predatory, blasphemed even themselves, just as dregs murmur while boiling inside; and from this there was laughter for the wise men, stronger indeed than a mere smile, but not trailing any vituperation behind it. There came upon them then a youth of no ignoble birth, having already had a small taste of letters, ^D while ready to study others, and striving mightily to perfect this happy course. And he was bold, for, as Homer says, youth overcame him against his elder—

^A And he, having mingled a sweet cheerfulness with an absinthe-like spirit, conceived the idea of having the grammarian lifted gently upon the arms of a noble man; and immediately, at a nod, he is raised, and the rod is brought down three times upon his buttocks. To that extent did the great leader measure his retaliation. Yet shame covered his face, replacing his natural beauty and rosy complexion with the redness of a blush. And when the good old man had risen, after having thus shamed the impudent wit, and had crossed the paved floor, drawing near to his own place, accompanied by my teacher—who was casting pitying eyes upon the youth—he, not opening his lips in the slightest, appearing like a man who did not understand what had been done, took up a station at the rustic wooden door, such as greeted the wise Odysseus when he returned home.

Thence the boy binds himself with his hands clasped before his chest. And first, he stands downcast, ready to shed tears; then he humbly brings his head toward the ground, not moved by fear to suffering, but by a refined wit. He speaks things pitiable as is the custom (these were the scene), and my teacher speaks along with him, but with a sincere heart; and both persuade the wise man, who thinks on good things, the holy man in simplicity, the youth in a sweetness hidden deep within. And when he was appeased on both sides, and nodded mercy, and gave the sign for the youth lying upon the ground to rise, and in the refinement of the boy's active skill: ^C fixing his head vertically to the ground, and arching his back still more, and turning himself like a flexible bow, then lifting his feet on high, just like him who was described gesticulating with his legs in place of his hands, and thus rising from lying head-first, and sustaining himself upright, he casts his backside against the wondrous old man, and falling violently, and seizing him into the rustic little house, he lays him on his back, and falls upon him in the same manner. And he strikes with his own belly the other's supine body, leading his head out from that man's feet, while he himself grasps his head like a pair of tongs. Meanwhile, there was no laughter anywhere, but all were anxiously astonished that such a boy should have mocked such a man, and they hoped for a punishing correction. But when that hero was gently poured out over the boyish cleverness, and the cloud that—as is natural—had run before his face vanished, broken by sweet hilarity, the surrounding crowd exulted, they themselves rejoiced, and they released the boy.

54. Who, then, will guarantee that we also might not be mocked by such acts of worship? ^D Moreover, if anyone should doubt as to what in the world must be done for the future if all things are suspect for us, this doubt is resolved 54 thus, brothers: do what I do, and do not strive more than I do for yourselves. But when you pray to God and His saints, then it is indeed permitted to you, if you are able

^A to prostrate yourselves wholly upon the ground, and thus draw down the divine mercy from above; but as for us, leave us to be human, and to be honored in a human way, if it is at all appropriate. But if, even after saying these things regarding the blameless memory of evils, I am still suspected of harboring a grudge—because, being mindful, I do not yield to you everything you wish, I nevertheless shall not recede from such an opinion.

55. I say again, resuming, that not even if I were to hear of a thousand evils from somewhere, would I ever be persuaded to admit ^B that it is the same thing—to speak concisely—to nurse a grudge as it is, conversely, to remember an evil. I posit that the former is a trait of a camel and all such creatures, and of a man who lies about the divine creation, according to which he was formed to do good; but for my part, I remember simply if any evil, whether accidental or consequent, has befallen me. And in some way, things of such memory terminate for me at an animal imagination, immediately ceasing with a single vision. For I know very well that he acts like a demon, and carries within himself the eternal evil, he who is never a benefactor, who is always an enemy: that man who, if he has once suffered anything troublesome, having taken this opportunity, injures the one who might have been able to harm him a little, throughout his life.

56. Therefore, I know that to nurse a grudge is to render ^C retribution after an injury, which is the way of those who take revenge, and otherwise, as the sweet and holy king suggests, to render evil to those who render evil; but to remember an evil simply, has nature as its advocate, or companion, and marks an alert soul. I have been injured: I shall remember it at some time. This is a concern of nature. Having remembered, I shall not harm; this is decent and pleasing to God. But if I am wary of that which harmed me, when it falls before my eyes, this pertains to prudence and vigilance, and is not outside of sense. For if to sleep under every stone seems fearful to those who are cautious (for it is not, of course, absolutely true that every stone hides a scorpion), ^D all the more would anyone be wary of a stone from which some scorpions have either come forth or raised their heads; to which stones, certainly, no one would approach with bare feet, nor would he sleep there, even if those who lack wisdom might opine that one should reach out and touch such stones in rememberance of evil. Not only, therefore, am I not ashamed to say that I remember an evil, if I have suffered any, but in many cases I even desire to be like this, lest perhaps, being unguardedly vexed again, I might not prevail, but perish, laughed at as one who is entirely without foresight.

57. What do you teach me, good sir, things I am not naturally suited to learn? Why do you wish to lead me where it is not possible to advance? Why do you bend me when I am straight? Why do you distort one who lives openly into one who is duplicitous? I cannot concede that I shall be altogether forgetful; nay, I even blame him who thinks otherwise. And according to my judgment, he is a terrible and cunning enemy who, having often laid traps in memory, but also in open...

^A action against one provoked—even if it be no great matter—subsequently wishes that him who was abused should forget what he suffered at his hands; effectively devouring love, and not wishing to be content with having sought for a time a covenant and peace, and not suffering vengeance. For it is evident that such a man puts forward a claim that no one would agree is acceptable.

58. ^B O enemy (though I speak, I well know, only to the memory of the matter, and I do not rend the thought with resentment), O enemy, then, of the things before these: I do not reject an agreement, but I strive to be on my guard, and not already, as you might say, do I harbor resentment. But if I must according to some technical rule give a name to myself, I am a "guardian against evil," or, to speak more easily, I am timid, cautious, having my mind firmly fixed within for my own safety. I even, in a certain way, honor him who has attempted to show himself an enemy and terrifying to me; for I am now on guard against the man, as was foretold, and I count him as something great, and thus I take heed to myself in a scriptural manner, and preserve myself, lest at some time someone, like a true enemy, having again set a trap, should say that he prevailed against me. I am not, O brother, a man altogether of the crowd, nor of the common sort, but I possess some dignity among men, so that one might consider it among those who well know my circumstances. But ^C to say everything in one word, I am my own master. Furthermore, if envy wishes to creep upon one who is in possession, who will persuade me not to suspect such an incursion, and that, too, in those very matters where he has already crept toward me in guile, not once, nor twice? Not certainly, even if someone should cast the charge of resentment in my teeth a hundred times would I desist from avoiding envy, from that envy which has not yet manifested itself, but especially from that which has most openly appeared.

59. I know also this, ^D that resentment is entirely a vice, and the worst of vices, and it cannot be contradicted; but as for him who remembers the fact of having been previously vexed in a peaceful and passionless way—I desire to know in what rank of depravity such a "wise man," as he may be called, is placed, and to what sort of vice the name is subject, so that I myself, if I am able, might offer violence to nature and thrust aside this faculty of memory, which as it remembers the good, so also it remembers the evil, and again the evil as the good. Here also it must be distinguished: he who remembers the good which he has found somewhere will offer a good requital, grace returning grace for grace; and this is the mark of a man endowed with virtue. But he who remembers the evil, or the vexation received from someone, if he lives honestly, will stop at this point, and will proceed to nothing further than to guard himself, until he has tested the friendly harmony through long experience, or has decided to flee from the enemy. This is what certainly saved the blessed David from the wretched Saul—not that he was at all resentful (for the Prophet was most meek), but that he guarded himself from the evil with more foresight.

^A Such, then, as has been said, is he who remembers evil, being a man who is diligent and safe and rich in prudence, and who himself also looks before and behind, whether he infers future things from those that have passed, or imagines them via suspicion. But he who remembers evil otherwise, for the sake of vengeance—whether one [offense] alone, or even various ones—this, in truth, is that which is diabolical; this man is a grudge-holder, ^B sheerly that, and far different from him who remembers evil in another way, according to the natural perfection of the soul. Is, then, the true grudge-holder not also removed from [being] a malicious person? For that one takes pleasure in doing evil, and the grudge-holder could not be one who does not take pleasure in harboring a grudge. What then, pray, I ask, you who are perhaps wavering: could those who initiate evils against an innocent man escape being called malicious? I do not think so. And if this is so, such men could not be exempt from harboring a grudge either. Why then do they attribute their own traits to others? And perhaps they themselves even say, in a popular manner, to the one who is thus falsely accused, that "ours are yours," and we, laughing, shall marvel.

61. It remains for me to speak, O dear audience, concerning the structure of memory of evil.

62. True friendship also, at some point, knows something of the envy of the devil and a certain injury, and from that, consequently, a memory of it, yet in no way did grudge-holding find an entrance there; but the stumbling-block of human nature shook the structure of friendship and damaged it; however, the rule of charity sustained what had been shaken and consolidated it into something firm. For as soon as the friend was reminded that he had veered into some evil, he immediately returned and docked at the harbor of companionship. And behold, this memory of evil has appeared as the recall of good.

63. It is also possible to remember evil with indignation.

regarding what is done to another; and indeed many of the wise feel this way almost always. For if they learn that some good person has suffered something unjust, they detest this evil and are weighed down against the unjust person, and they do not walk with such a person; but if by chance a divergence in the road brings them to a meeting, they avoid it, and to such a degree do they defend themselves against the evil by way of indignation, while harming no one, that they are justified. If these are ^B grudge-bearers, let our wise men judge, in whose view the recollection of evil and the holding of a grudge are one and the same. Even the one who sets forth a confession remembers evil. Let them dare, therefore, to relegate that person also to the status of a grudge-bearer; let them blame those who are sponsors of souls for this same [alleged] malice, and let them arm themselves thus against confession itself. For he who restores souls, while remembering past evils, works for their salvation and is not a grudge-bearer. For otherwise, while benefiting others, he himself would be harmed, and while procuring salvation for others, he would be reaping destruction, remembering the evil only so that with the remedy of repentance he may evacuate the poison of the evils. Therefore, such a one is not a grudge-bearer, O you who in all things are mindful of good.

64. It is also possible to find a historical memory of evil, ^C from which, as if from a mother, proceed certain items of knowledge and writings, recording things done by these or those who have been written about in books. If, therefore, historians remember evils but are not reviled as grudge-bearers, nor is a writer who stirs up such memories branded with the shame of grudge-bearing, why then is it necessary to jest, those who bring the simple memory of evil into the category of grudge-bearing? *If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20).* If they have persecuted me, you say, O Lord and Savior, then you remember evil, if indeed every persecution is reckoned as a vexation, and he who remembers such evil is a grudge-bearer. But perhaps God understands this by way of opposition, and it can be explained. But if even David, singing of some, that they spoke evil against him, and that they surrounded him with words of hatred, and waged war against him without cause, ^D were perhaps to be blamed as a grudge-bearer, insofar as he remembers that he was harmed, he himself will be justified with the Spirit, and will clear himself of those by whom he is reproached.

65. We say, however, that neither a father, nor a teacher, nor a shepherd will be able—the one to convert children, the second disciples, and the third his flock—toward the good end appropriate to each, if he does not also remember the evils which the children, or the disciples, or the sheep commit, and which the presiding ones—the father, the teacher, the shepherd—detect. If, therefore, I myself am, in part, a father according to the spirit, and in part a teacher without metaphor, and now also a shepherd—such as God mandates to be future leaders of his sacred flocks—it is reasonable for me also to have a memory of certain evils which, according to probability, those who are under divine fatherhood, who are under the Lord’s discipline, who are under...

apostolic custody live their lives. Why then do I remove the material from which doctrinal sermons flow? For it is manifest that it is not always given to such teachers to deliver panegyrics and to exalt their disciples with praises; but there is a time when they are compelled to rebuke iniquities, by which they themselves feel their souls pricked, and they lower themselves into the theater of instruction. Thus, the most splendid sun that arose from Cappadocia, Basil; thus the bright morning star that arose with him, Gregory; and likewise no less the gold-flowing John; and so too any other whoever proclaims divine things—those whom they saw proceeding rightly in the way of the Lord, they would bless, and from there inspire confidence for future contests, just as trainers standing by those struggling celebrate the praises of victory. ^B And while those were walking rightly, they would bless them; but if ever they saw them disposed basely, and rendering useless the efficacy of the trainers, and thus afflicting the souls of their teachers, they could not offer themselves to such people in a manner of blessing, but would rebuke, would pour out reproof, would bring into the field of censure the sins they had committed, and would triumph over them—and this not with a memory of wrongs, but for the sake of reform, if by chance, being made ashamed, they might walk uprightly. But if they also stung them with what they said (and they would sting them surely more, if they were to correct them with blows), this too was for instruction, not, however, as something malicious for the sake of vengeance, so that it might be inscribed as a memory of wrong.

^C 66. We must consider, therefore, if I am to be arranged in this order, I who am mindful of the good, the end of which is praise, and also of the evil, the end of which is rebuke; I have indeed those who are praised on account of their good work, but I also have those who are treated otherwise, on account of evil, not held in hatred. And to the former I am reckoned as pleasant because of the praise, but to the latter as biting, because I have nothing to praise, unless I also load them with a burden and appear to be doing evil. Nevertheless, I shall not cease to be disposed in this way, before I despair of their correction. Then I shall sit silent and mute, not caring how anyone might characterize me, if anyone, as they wish, points me out as being under the passion of a memory of wrongs, or of an irascible temperament, and harsh, and unyielding. For where there is no necessity for those who are hearing to apply themselves, for the sake of discipline, to the teacher having a right mind, to distribute the true word—even if he is in evil deeds, which does not hinder education unto virtues, according to this: "What they tell you, the priests, do," and what follows—much less would a wise teacher cling to such people, and, with the elder contradicting, become voluptuous.

67. Let me be a lion, either raising or lowering my eyebrow, and not a pleasant seducer after the manner of the lyric Siren. Let me be called austere and rigid, and not sluggish and enervated. Let me appear supercilious in gravity,

^A and not covered in mucus and slime due to a rustic puerility and simplicity. I hate the multiform Proteus. I love uniformity according to God. I loathe the many-fancied Empusa. I emulate what is simple and uncompounded in man. Let me not be reckoned a sphere, according to those who are prone to change, whose nature is always to be mobile, but a cube, whose stability is beyond reproach, a quadrilateral. Nature knows no three-headed monsters: how then would it know hundred-headed ones? Nor is the two-faced Janus beyond reproach. May one single countenance be mine throughout, which is also for all others who breathe God. Let me not dance, either according to the Pyrrhic or in the manner of the Corybantes; but let me be rooted, standing firm where it is fitting, a heavenly plant from somewhere in the paradise of the greatest wisdom. ^B There God planted me, whether as fruit-bearing or otherwise stripped of nurturing things, I do not know. Let me stand, therefore, as I have been ordered, and not by becoming up and down, by which I am agitated, make useless those things that are shared with me for assimilation. One thing is the simple people, and another is the holy people. The latter is fixed above, the former downward.

68. What then do you wish to drag me down, who am not naturally inclined to be bent, toward things which the canon does not allow, the canon which carves me into the straight path? Our greatest Lord was also mocked, and those who mocked him are justified still, at least in their own opinions; but they profit nothing, but are ordained with the elect. Nevertheless, when someone from those who are so wicked comes to him purely and renounces prior things, then he receives such a one, ^C doing nothing regarding his prior evil deeds, even if he knows him to be evil. For how would he who gives life from the beginning later pour forth blessings, not such as that rich man of the Gospel loves to fill his soul with, but much greater ones which he shares equally with his own disciples? And thus, him who had turned away entirely from him, provided he returns with his whole soul, he does not cast off as a designer of evils, but receives as his own rightful good. And yet, the Savior destroys in another way anyone who commits fornication away from him.

69. I am a zealot for such examples, even if I speak as one lacking wisdom. With the upright I indeed straighten myself; but if someone is twisted, I do not easily become twisted myself; but I pray that he does not render injury. ^D “But not to know that I have been injured,” that memory which has once inscribed such things does not allow. The proverb grants that one who is bitten should bite back; but the pious discourse does not absolve this, but dissolving this conjunction, “to bite the one who bites,” it closes the mouth of the one bitten, so that by biting back he may not see what kind of repulsive beast he has become. But if the one injured by the bite feels something rabid instilled into him and remains marked from thence, this remaining sign does not indeed generate memory for the sake of rendering the same, but

^A only a written memory, of what the man has suffered.

70. The memory of evil is not, therefore, always and everywhere the worst thing; but whatsoever a man as an avenger draws from it, this, as much as possible, is to be rejected; but whatever recollection simply occurs to a human being, whether anyone can delete it from the soul, I do not know. If anyone by chance reports such a man, let him go to the novelty and wonder and be zealous himself, if he is able; for I would not easily admit, nor consequently wonder, and would be less able to emulate, as I consider that memory is innate to every man for the good, so that the manner of living may be fashioned according to it, but for the evil, so that the depraved may be declined; and thus let man have a choice of the better, and a decline of that which leads to folly: which memory indeed is often instilled into man against his will, against his pleasure, and beyond what is agreeable. For just as to the sight, wherever it is accustomed to be carried about, there is undesirable vision, and to the sense of hearing a detestable hearing, and to the taste is sometimes mixed that which is not lovable, and to the smell is also instilled something very bitter: so too memory loves indeed to be of good things, but it also sometimes insinuates to delicate men things that are not good. For who would prefer to the good and pleasant that which is diametrically opposite? Rightly, therefore, I will neither admit nor wonder, which I spoke of above. ^B

71. In truth, if memory is like a treasury of nature, in which many evils indeed are stored, but many honest things also, and from which both new and old are brought forth, some for the sake of utility thence because of the good, others indeed, bad themselves, yet useful for an example to be sustained in fleeing them, or for exhortation ^C by way of comparison, or for protection and safe-keeping; how could any one, having despoiled this precious natural treasury, carry away the memory of evils alone by itself, unless there were some place in it and a partition wall, dividing in twain the good memories and their opposites, so that some might take away and remove the base things, and thus create a certain emptiness, but leave the good things to remain in their places, so that nature might thus grow rich, being otherwise crippled of the remaining good, and having fallen away from what is entire and solid or full? In which at length is the reason for suffering ostracism. For it cannot be demonstrated that even the memory of evils is not a good, unless someone counterfeits the divine coin. ^D

72. I for my part wished, even according to the recorded "remembrancers" who were allotted as companions to some in wars, so that they might in some way warn them to avoid dangerous things, that there were also for me someone of this sort, who, in time, might remind one forgetting some unavoidable evil,

and thus I might have managed to have a timely memory of the evil. ^A However, for the man who is mindful of wrongs, the desire for memory is otherwise, such as that involving the pinna and the shellfish. For that shell loves the pinnotheres, because, while it is open, it squeezes it with its claws when a small fish passes through it; it irritates it and forces it to draw together, as it were, the palms of the shell, and thus it catches the small fish for food for itself and for the little crab, by which it provides itself with sustenance. So, too, he who is mindful of wrongs loves the one who is mindful, who stirs up his memory against someone when he has forgotten, and rouses, as it were, one who is asleep, for the seizing and destruction of a man. Let such a one who is thus mindful be erased, not only from the tablet of our mind, but from the ranks of the living. “The memory of the just is with everlasting remembrance, to which the just man shall attain.” ^B What then? Is there not also a memory of those who are not just? It is of a different kind, and clearly necessary. And no longer, surely, will one who remembers wicked men be considered mindful of wrongs, since, according to the ordinance of nature, he remembers even those who are not such, as if for the sake of a lesson.

73. But, so that I do not draw out the precise argument for too long, come, let me depict myself through a shadowy sketch, and then I will define for you the mindfulness of wrongs, drawing it in from external things with a slight change. Some one of those who once grieved us in some way lives; I am not embittered. He adorns his own life, and this is well; I do not envy it, but I find it pleasant, hoping that I myself might receive such a good from God. ^C He is healthy; I am not distressed. He is lacking; I supply, if I can. He is in need; I provide as much as I am able. He seeks what is possible; I do not refuse. He speaks; I answer kindly. He strikes; I pray that he might become better. He reviles; I pretend not to hear. He is silent; I am silent. He comes to meet me with a sour look; and how should I not be such also? He asks for sympathy; I give it with heartfelt prayer. He bows his head; I bow in return. I am a master to him, and he to me. He is affable towards me; no less am I towards him. But besides these things, if he seeks also intimate friendship and a common life and a shared board, I hesitate.

74. ^D Supposing, therefore, such a description of the dispositions I hold toward those who harm me, I come to the proposed definition, and I say that the mindfulness of wrongs is the digestion of ancient anger, smoldering effectively, so that at length it may harm the one who is held in resentment. Anger, therefore, remains with the one who is mindful of wrongs, seeking a harmful result. But where there is no hostile memory at all, but only a memory that stirs up the simple imagination of some evil from elsewhere, not for the vexation of anyone, a wise man will, I think, be hesitant to inscribe this into the order of malice; if he does not do this, he will not even place it upon the table of the mindfulness of wrongs.

75. And otherwise it is better...

^A to resound this sword of mine against malice. Bile, or the spirit (or, if one should wish to say so, anger), which does not remain in motion and heat, or which, although not indeed composed, does not set snares or lie in wait, is recorded as pure sin. But when it has been so changed and settled that it can in no way vex him who is already angry, nor agitate and trouble him so that he wishes to vomit it forth, then it could no longer be called bile, nor, a fortiori, would it deserve the name of irascibility or old anger. For where is irascibility, and where is old anger, when it neither remains nor persists? But ^B some rather more striking thoughts are beaten out regarding this same thing: that to remember evil might be said to be like the sudden cooking of bile, but conversely, to hide that old anger, as it were, until it boils over and erupts into action.

76. And thus even those who are blind to matters of faith imagined what, in the end, the depravity of remembering evil might mean. But those who have looked more clearly into the light of truth, and who have taught us to act in this way, as it is had in the Psalms: "If I have rendered to those who rendered evil to me," 11 they clearly define him to be a rememberer of evil who renders evil for evil. And this is indeed so; but you also, O patriarchal sons, children of the great father Isaac, ^C add something of your own, from which rises a philosophical discourse defining the memory of evil. For you say thus: "Lest Joseph remember the evil against us, and render to us in return all the evils which we have done to him." 12 These things, therefore, manifestly demonstrate that the definition of the memory of evil is such as we indicated a little above. And this very thing: "Remember not our old iniquities," 13 suggests something similar to those who are deep in mind. For it can be said to be gathered from this, that everyone who is able not to sense the memory of evil, in such humanity might humbly entreat his fellow man: "Do not remember, I pray, the old sins," namely, for the sake of retribution, as one who remembers evil. And thus it might also be that the memory of evil is the memory of old sins for the sake of similar retribution.

77. It is to be gathered further from the rest, and not, as one might say, transforming thorns into roses, but regarding this ^D discourse: "Do not remember evil, if you have taken up watch." For this discourse judges that he who has met with evils ought not to remember what he has suffered for the purpose of vengeance. And so it is indeed that. But another sentiment from a different door, by which one is prohibited from remembering evil in this age in which one has been educated, itself also manifests a delineation of the memory of evil. I, however, expressing more vividly what follows from this, would say that not even to remember some evil—not simply, but even to remember it bitterly—necessarily offends against righteousness; if indeed David himself, remembering in such a way, is troubled, asking the Lord for a reason 14 why those who afflict him are multiplied; and he prays to be free and sound from them (just as also other...

^A even though one is burdened by an anxious mind and is not easily forgetful of injuries.

^B 78. But if (to say more) it is granted to us to pray to trample upon our enemies, not only the incorporeal but also the corporeal—or, to say the same thing, the invisible and the visible—what is this undefined and imprecise commandment that one ought not to remember evil at all? For it is not unclear that he who prays to be delivered from visible enemies, among whom are those who have done irremediable evils, certainly remembers the wrongdoing. For as soon as the heart has poured forth a prayer for deliverance from such enemies, they immediately come to mind. And behold, this too is a memory of evil that is beyond reproach, not kept silent, nor muttered under the teeth like those who grumble, but expressed more sharply for others to hear.

79. And that which is even more acute than these things: it is sometimes the case that one remembers some evil for the sake of defense, and to speak openly, for the sake of counter-injury; and not even this is entirely brought under the definition of resentment. Such, of course, are those who, by the law of war, necessarily and inevitably—as could not be otherwise—are provoked against one another by cities and by nations, when some have unjustly begun to stir up riots, seditions, and injuries; they firmly remember the evil, and they do not release such a memory before they have exacted vengeance. And this, being frequently kindled again and again, lights the fire of war, which is not to be extinguished until the gift of peace, covering sorrows with forgetfulness, sent down from heaven, tempers such an all-consuming conflagration. ^C

80. Furthermore, if such a memory and the defense corresponding to it is not, without contradiction, resentment, but appears similar to one repelling a beast that is often raging and rushing to destruction, and this as often as the beast rages destructively—why should we want the wretched man, surrounded on all sides by treacherous beasts, to be dull and neglectful, until, unguarded, he fills the mouths of those wishing to devour and satiate themselves with his flesh, when it is necessary to permit the pitiful man to remember and to guard himself, and to seek only to escape the snares in which, having been caught a hundred times, he always dreads the malice?

81. In the argument of this passage, let there stand here again of necessity, besides many others, the man who suffers injury from a wicked partner in a lawful marriage bond. For there is no time when he does not remember the evil of his opponent, and he will take care and set traps until he has either caught the evil one or, before he is caught, has otherwise removed him from life. And surely he himself will in no way be accounted as one who harbors resentment—for how could he be?—since he who has acted in this way is nonetheless justified.

82. Evidently, therefore, it appears from these things that the memory of evil is not to be reduced simply and indefinitely to a retaliation, but to a certain ferocious and biting equilibrium, which is clearly neither necessary nor just for those living in Christ, but which would be praised ^D

^A by him who desires to gouge out an eye for an eye, and break a tooth for a tooth, and tear away a hand for a hand, and other such things; things in which a gentle man would not take pleasure, who, even if he had attempted to take revenge, and then had placed his enemy under the sword, whether by his own hand or by legal process, would be moved in his heart and softened in his nerves, and would release the sin to him who is bowing down for the slaughter.

^B 83. But if an external canon directs the mind, so that when someone has suffered what he has been wickedly done to, then a straight justice might be satisfied—yet I myself would not desire even such a thing; rather, from the definition of "remembrance of wrongs" I shall derive, logically, the distinction of "remembrance of wrongs." For if "remembrance of wrongs" is "not to do wrong in return to one who has done wrong, nor to harm one who has harmed," then it would be the contrary, to "remember wrongs," to wish for someone who has been wronged or harmed, even now to perform in return the same thing upon the one who did it. Let one count, therefore, and enumerate the injustices and damages that I commit against my children, who have shown themselves to be parricides against me, indeed in the name of those most dear to them, indeed in the name of the most holy Trinity, and in the name of our right faith. And not only shall I be corrected, having been convicted of such a deed, but I shall also deliver myself over to suffer everything that is worst.

^C 84. If I look down at the ground, so as not to fall into stumbling blocks, if I close my mouth, lest that deadly serpent *acontias* still pour into me its lethal venom; if I draw together my eyelids and, as it were, become blind, barely enduring the flashes sparkling upon me from many (for they are certainly not bursting out like lightning bolts, because there is no matter in them for combustion, except only for some dim scorching); if I curve my eyebrows into a bow, not for a jest, but considering myself according to that saying: "Know yourself," and thence keeping my eyebrows joined, and serious toward myself, since by becoming simple-minded I fall into evils; ^D if, stretching out the discerning talent according to my conscience, I place in one scale my friendly feelings, and in the other, whatever is contrary to these, and the inclination turns more toward those things which are of brotherly love than to their opposites; if, remembering my passions, I grow cheerful over the better things, while the rest paint me more gloomily and stain me with pallor; if I welcome familiarly those in whom I have confidence and join right hand to right hands, but toward those in whom I have no confidence I honor the meeting otherwise, through simple communion; if again, on the other hand, he whose bread I ate in need is judged by me to be a benefactor, and is honorably brought forth by my mouth, but the one who, having received ten thousand things from me, turned his heel toward my fall, I cannot prefer and lead before him who nurtured me; if to him who bears weapons against me I approach lifting my hands peacefully, and to him who attacks I offer some benevolence; if to the one blessing me I show a serene face, but the one mocking me I shudder at as a stern master; if I become like those living gravely, so that I may not seem jocular to those who are venerable in this way, but toward those who laugh, I cannot

^A look upon them as truly cheerful, fearing lest they be mocking or grinning with a Sardonic laugh (for I have suffered much even because of such people)—if, then, I appear to be either doing or experiencing such things, let someone change these qualities of my nature, and I shall be changed; for otherwise I would not be able to put aside what is mine, whether it be strictness, or again, caution and timidity.

85. Why, then, do you hinder me from being suspicious of these snares, ^B which I have frequently seen around acts of malice? I do not store them up while remembering how often they have acted wrongly against me; but I leap over them or pass them by, so that they may gape in vain against some other person, but against me they may open their mouth to no effect, as if, according to the proverb, a wolf were thus opening its mouth in vain. The welts from many wounds, which I have sustained, have troubled me, having been struck and wounded by many instruments of war, some at close range, but most striking from a distance. Why, then, do you hesitate for me to go around my welts, and to apply a soothing remedy to each one, easing the pain? If, however, memories accompany these remedies (for it is at once absolutely necessary to remember that here was a shot from a bow, which certain someone drew against me; ^C there a spear lunged forward, through which such-and-such person thrust; over there the malice of a stone, which some famous slinger hurled, stirred itself, so as to strike me; and elsewhere the stroke of a sword, striving to hack into my flesh), and memory of these vexations is thus renewed; what should I do in this situation, a man not lying about the formation of his nature, through which the good of memory has also been implanted in me for the purpose of doing good?

86. A dagger became insolent against me, and it thrust into the flesh, and so it became angry. Why, then, am I blamed for looking at that knife? I do not break it, nor do I in any other way lay a hand upon it; ^D but I remember that it is the evil thing through which a deep wound was inflicted upon me, leaving a broad scar as a mark. A spear struck me; this is perhaps blessed by the enemy, as one that penetrated deep into a wound: but how could the one struck ever forget how that thing was [driven] into him? A flying dart stuck in me; why then, when it is drawn out and not broken, does someone claim that it should not be known by me to be the very dart by which I was struck, and in this way force a man to erase from his soul the intellectual power of a good memory?

87. You do not wish, my friend, for me to remember evil. I also know that, since I do not even wish to live. But I would like to live and preserve the memory that follows. To speak more clearly: for those at the end of life, both these are wretched—to forget a friend, and not to recognize one who has vexed us. But someone living in health would not cast off either. "I struck you," he says; "this is human, and bear it nobly if you apply your mind to divine discourses, and do not strike me back, nor remember the evil." These things are fine for you, brother, thus far; and God Himself will speak with you. To say that one should not even

take into the mind what has been committed is an alienation of man from his nature, and is as it were a transformation, ^A and truly the wrath of God. "I suffered harm, and I kept silent." I did not, however, blot out the memory, because this is not possible, even if one wished it. For could anyone provide a safeguard against dreams, in which a memory of vexation, having been sketched out, can be depicted accurately in the mind of the one who has woken up in the morning? And no man is so capable in matters of wisdom that, when a dream appears, and an image of a vexation already placed in oblivion is presented, and is then related after sunrise, ^B he could rebuke the memory of evil or the dreamer, even if some memory and knowledge emerged from it. For it is not the same thing to be evilly disposed toward someone, and to remember that someone is evil. The former is a work of vengeance, the latter of mere knowledge. It would be the same thing to take away the touchstone from a money-changer as to take away a man's discernment of what is good and what is evil. Therefore, it is a work of spiritual discernment to remember, just as one remembers a kindness for the sake of repayment, so too a vexation—not for vengeance, but so as to avoid evil people.

88. To do evil, God the Savior, I would not wish, but to know the evil one, so as even to escape him, may I be fortunate through You. I know the evil one as a serpent and I will not forget, ^C not so as to resist, but so that I may be far from him. But if ever I have need of an antidote from him, may it reach me late, and may I not even approach the viper itself, except according to a special property of transformation.

89. O laws, you have been forgetful of evil for all time, ^D yet not knowing how to love the wicked because of your inherent humanity! Those punishments of yours are eternal, and no one would dare to reproach the memory of evil! Help us and assist us with reason, when we say that we are indeed without the memory of evil, but we do remember the vexation. For you indeed afflict the wicked, but we only remember, if we have suffered anything from a man who is not good, how we may be delivered. But it is burdensome altogether, not the memory of the evil, but the vengeance.

90. Then, observer of my affairs, I am recorded as suffering evil and I take on a burdensome name; but you, who are groundlessly and irrationally enraged against us, against us who have been most useful, what kind of designation do you deem yourselves worthy of? I will listen first, if anyone dares to speak with confidence, and then I will speak in turn, as the thought of the mind suggests. I see a serpent watching my heel. ^A Will he therefore be so noble against my timid circumspection, he who would remove the suspicion and flight of the soul, where there would be need of helping myself in other ways, whether by my own hand or by inviting assistance? A lion lies in wait for me, and it is entirely necessary to turn another way. Is he therefore great-souled and brave who judges that one ought not to fear, but to approach the beast lying in wait for death? Why indeed do you not say, brother, that he who, after an injury, teaches and instructs those who have done wrong, and thus remembers that he has been harmed, is also "remembering evil"? Are you perhaps altogether hesitant to say this, fearing to lie?

^A Telephus of Mysia was wounded; Achilles, who had wounded him, also healed him. The Mysian remembers the evil; here, alongside the memory, a thought of healing runs concurrently, and it introduces what is for the good. Nor are intermissions of war "rememberings of evil." And indeed, within them there is friendship today, and a little later, the malice of battle. And behold, this friendship during the intermission held a memory of the evil, yet it did not "remember evil" [in the sense of bearing a grudge], nor did it seem to harbor anger; but as they possess this memory, there are also lookouts and every guard against the path of treachery, in expectation of evil.

^B 92. Therefore, if I should know that I have implacable enemies, I will prudently avoid them as evil, and be ever young in this memory. I am not already "remembering evil," but I have always a protective memory of evil, because those men are always evil, not as those who remember evil, but who are truly in this very thing "evil-rememberers." For if this were not so, who would choose to consume himself in the continuous recollection of wickedness, and to be exhausted by anxieties, and to be subjected to the gnashing of teeth, and to devise infernal things, and to belie the human life, and to waste away, and to be consumed by the fire of cares and the decay of schemes, through which one might become fierce or be transformed into a Timon?

^C 93. And yet, if a choice of a cheerful life were proposed to me by a judge, and again on the other hand, [a life] in superfluous thoughts and sorrows, I would pronounce judgment against the bitterness of daily life and the moroseness and contraction of sadness. For of those two, Heraclitus and Democritus, of whom the one was always weeping over human affairs that came to his attention from every side, while the other burst out laughing at human affairs, I would be more on the side of Democritus, because it is in accordance with human nature, by which laughter is a property of man. For weeping is not allotted as a special property to anyone, and it also corrupts the things of nature; hence, it is not naturally loved as something genuine, but occurs, if anywhere, by way of passion, and not very much of one’s own volition.

94. It is not, O men, the act of "remembering evil" to remember a wrong at all, and to say: "This man harassed me, yet may God have mercy upon him as he corrects, and upon me as I am corrected"—which I, in doing, have God on my side; but he who has an insidious plan ^D conjoined with his memory is the one who is entirely "remembering evil." Why do you force the simple and good Jacob to be inscribed among the "evil-rememberers," when, in remembering his brother Esau, he suspects him, and fearing the danger from him, he is cautious and draws back, and cannot forget what kind of person his brother is toward him—namely, heavy with anger and storing up hidden malice in his heart? For if he were to forget, he would not be able to avoid a fall, just as he does not wish to.

95. There is also a memory of evil that is not chosen, but accidental; just as if a kite flying by should recall to mind that it is a beast of prey to the little birds, and thus warns someone

who has once been injured by a weapon or a serpent, that he has suffered some harm at some time from either a serpent or a blow, and turns the man toward caution.

^A 16. If, therefore, you grant these things, why do you alone force me away from considering, and from being anxious, and from fearing for myself—I, who, if indeed I should contemplate taking vengeance on my enemies, would be an enemy to God; but if I decline their vexation, you indeed depict me as one in the way that it might assist you? But he who judges—he indeed will direct me, and will render me firm and safe, and will make me have mind and eyes in my head (this, moreover, is the property of the wise man depicted). I do not, indeed, have the ability to compare myself so as to be accurately depicted according to him; but, as much as is possible, being adumbrated, I do not place in my soul vengeance for the things by which I am vexed, nor is any such action for my life calculated. Moreover, I esteem him who avenges himself as vain and declare him so, condemning him not only as a boaster, thinking himself to be above all those who harass him, but also as one not entirely sensible. For such a one seems not to know that all vengeance ^B does not need to have only an action, but also often finds the opposite passion, and this, for the most part, alone. It is fitting, as someone said, that an aggressor should fare badly. We also know countless numbers who, rushing to vengeance, having achieved nothing great, fell first; and the ruin was too great. Therefore, the sensible man will not stir up much in an obscure matter, nor will he reject from himself the divine help, which loves to avenge those who suffer and do not avenge themselves.

17. Therefore, even when I had reached the time when the wrong things done against me became ^C known to me, and it was possible to speak, and as is natural to look back with hostility, nevertheless I kept silence, having been humbled as if I had become quite deaf. And it was altogether necessary for me to be disposed in such a way, knowing of what Master I am a slave, who does not desire us, who serve him, to advance against those who deride us, but rather desires that we fix the fastenings of our hopes upon his rock, against which no surge will exert its own force. For, to say everything, the common Master would surely be slow to love a servant who avenges himself and does not hang upon his power, just as he who ^D sings the psalms makes clear, that in the name of the Lord he would repel those who were surrounding him. Otherwise, how would he avenge himself—he who revolves in his mind from what blessedness such a one falls, he who, with both hands tied, does not submit himself to those who wish to mock or trample him? The man who is according to God is spoken ill of; and what is this to him, if he only ponders the things of Scripture? He is assailed by insults; what would such vituperation harm him, which cannot pass through to the soul, provided that one hears it protected? He suffers persecution—until when? Certainly not beyond Gades. But if it is even so, the islands of the blessed are reported to be near, and he will find rest in them.

^A 98. We ought to listen to Him who says: “Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you,” and the whole rest, in which is also placed every calumnious and false word brought against one for the sake of God. For have not all these things rained down upon us—a cloud hanging over us, which the vapors of a lowly manner of life and the hatred of outsiders have raised up and condensed into a mass? We have suffered insults, as many as can bring reproach. We have endured persecution which depends upon those who hate us, for whom these present places are found to be not capacious enough, as if we were truly filling them all and making this whole world uninhabitable for the rest. And yet, nothing is more circumscribed than we are. For how little space will one flea occupy, to which the great David likened himself? A word has been uttered even against us, not just this one thing specifically, but everything. For alas! what things we have heard! Most of which cannot even be carried by a tongue that has learned to speak honorable things. But if these things have not been spoken falsely, but according to truth, I have not yet learned a proof of guilt; ^B behold, however, the place of the struggle, and if he who has dared to advance against me as an opponent should be crowned, I would fall away both from the blessedness of God and even from life. But if the word “for my sake” llbracket Matth. v, 11 is appropriate here (for these sufferings are for me for the sake of God, and for the sake of His justice and truth), I do not wish to contend further, lest, by revealing the offensive matters on account of which I stood as an adversary and kindled a fire against myself here, I should perhaps hear, “Behold, he who denies that he remembers evil is overcome, and forced by passion,” this foreign expression, neither noble nor vigorous, a resonance of a tongue singing inhonorable things, and such as knows how to stammer trifles and speak nothing opportune.

99. Thus I do not plan to retaliate, and I observe the importunity and inexperience and early zeal of every such person and matter, ^C judging also this by myself, that they who speak evil of someone not entirely alienated from the conduct of speech seem to have taken their station in a line of reproach. But every such person would be beloved to one who possesses reason, according to that: “Reprove a wise man, and he will love you” llbracket Prov. ix, 25 . I add, however, this also for the sake of accuracy, that where a friend reproves, there the reproof is altogether pleasant, and instructive, and thus corrective; but where it is an enemy who brings forth words of bitter reproach, there the reproof does not bring pleasure with it, because it issues not from a friendly mouth, nor one flowing with honey, ^D but from one belching forth whatever the speaker thinks is evil for the hearer. Nevertheless, such a reproof does not cease to be useful. For just as he who desires a healthy body will even value bitter wormwood more than honey itself, so also he who desires to be healthy in his soul will gather what is useful, just as if from friendly speech, so also from him who speaks as an enemy. And so, just as he finds from a friend what is for his correction—

^A and what leads him straight to virtue, so he finds this also from a hostile person, although the former does so sweetly, but the latter with a bitter sting. For he who is spoken ill of calculates quite correctly that, if the enemy is speaking the truth, the one being maligned gains something salvific, because he walks through it in triumph, and his soul is pricked, and he flees from perseverance in evil, saying even this very thing: "If it has become known in this way," and finding a certain healing from the condemnation in the world. And it is so, indeed, if the enemy is truthful in laying out the evils of the one he hates; but if he lies, this too is a great gain for the man being maligned, and not only because, as we know, he who is falsely attacked by such a wicked testimony suffers blessedness, but also because he is steered straight for the future, considering that, even if he has not actually done the deed, he is being painted as he would appear if he had fallen into the sin. Thinking of vengeance in this way, I would not resort to taking revenge, lest I drive salvation away from myself.

100. But let no one here, wishing to play with sophistry, bring forward the argument that thanks should be openly rendered to those who do evil, ^B if such an evil is thought by those who know how to carry it to be medicinal, a discipline, a benefit, and all such things; nor let him think it worthy to classify the evil which calls our malice to mind as a good, and rename it as if it were truly a good thing; so that it would be necessary to enroll evildoers among the masters, as though they were turning the afflicted person toward virtue—provided, indeed, that he thinks rightly, and directs the vexation toward discipline, reasoning that though he has not performed good acts, he finds those who punish him, saying perhaps also at the right time that deeds find their reasons, and that such a remedy for the diseases of the soul is thereby produced.

101. Let no one, wishing to play and ^C sophistically produce ridiculous arguments, propose such things. For, in the first place, such a man will hear that, if it is a good thing in reality to do evil, why on earth is it that one who does evil, when he is reproached and criticized for this very thing, is reluctant to hear it, and is vexed at the speech, and does not rejoice in learning of his own praise? Rather, he either stops his ears to the reproach, or hears it but belches forth murmurs, ^D feeling that he has been injured because he is an evildoer? And in the second place, he will also hear that, although he who has judged the matter to be possible to dare speaks, he speaks outside the meaning. For we are able to do this and to name an enemy by some other honorable term; and to promote him to the place of a benefactor, and to describe the swelling and redness of blows as a nourishing fatness, flushing with friendly juice; to describe slaps as kisses, blasphemies as benedictions, spittings as the pouring of perfumes, and the pulling of hair as grooming, by which locks of hair flow beautifully. Such metonymies are indeed possible; but I do not know if he who speaks thus by antonomasia will escape the charge of buffoonery, or that of being a scoffer, or of deceiving himself in his thoughts, and so, regarding what is common among men, changing it, and speaking an almost foreign language, and talking in a roundabout and bizarre way. Peradventure, however, upon

^A this ^A he will also be mocked with the phrase: "The tongue has spoken, but the mind is not privy nor in accord." Perhaps he too will be tallied with the one who sports: "Who knows if to live is to die?" and the rest. For is not that also a game, to say "Who knows if to spit is to embrace, and to strike with a rod is a friendly greeting," and all such things with which he who deems evil deeds to be true benefits will boast himself?

102. I could not, therefore, just as I would not call it antonomasia, so neither could I set as a ^B teacher in this very matter one who treats me badly. For no disciplinary vexation of a master is accounted as malice; but that which is done by way of harm is taxed by the name of malice and is not pleasing to God. For all the bitter aspects of schooling are good—the insult, the threats of vexation, the bringing of threats into action, the stern glances, and the rest. For these have been devised not for malice, but for the instruction of virtue. Therefore we run to those who teach in this way, and we exchange the vexations from them for a reward, and willingly we endure the most grievous things. And if we are unwilling to suffer in this way, we run away from those masters who are purely sweet and know not how to be harsh; and we go under others who mix the bitter with the sweet, and thus sowing sorrow, they produce a beautiful harvest for the future. Such, indeed, are those things that pertain to bitter masters, whose end is sweetness. But those who do harm provide bitterness, not however to induce sweet discipline, but to destroy. If, however, someone lives well and without memory of evil, he perceives sweetness according to virtue; now this is according to God, and through God, and from God, and it is the end of the virtue that is in patience. But the one who is bitter has not instructed, but has rather wasted his breath upon himself. ^C

103. Do not, therefore, sophistically set before me, as a teacher, an adversary whose interest it is not to convert [the student] to virtue—whether by words or by deeds, as in the way of instruction—but, just as if some carnivorous beast or a lightning bolt were to consume someone, to remove him from life. I add to these as is appropriate, I think, that if the more diligent have rightly judged and cleverly devised that one should derive benefit even from enemies, we who propose these things extract the fact that sometimes there is also a great benefit to be gained from enmity. For if we shall rank an enemy as a benefactor ^D and enroll him in the place of a master, it will no longer be necessary to declare that it is possible to derive benefit from enemies, but rather that it is natural for some to derive benefits from benefactors and teachers. And thus, a most useful maxim will depart from life, and in its place will be substituted that which, if someone were to hear it, he would scarcely refrain from laughing.

104. I know indeed that someone will interrupt and say that thanks should still be given even to those who act as enemies, if indeed they are useful at all. Now such a person would hear from me that, even if I owe thanks to them—being a sinner and being improved by them toward conversion—yet I certainly do not, by this reasoning, know them to be good, and—

^A they themselves plunge into malice; but malice, through God’s working, is transformed into what is beneficial; whence they could not boast, according to the teachers, that by harming someone they taught him unto good. For the teacher surely may confidently glory in his pupil, and may present as many good things as he has taught, having been harsh; and the disciple will offer homage, and the listeners will call him blessed. But the one who has done evil would not be so glorified for what he has done, just as diseases would not praise themselves for the fact that, while afflicting many, they turn them toward virtue. Therefore, it is not the same thing to teach and thus do good, and to do evil and thus seem to do good. For the former is good in reality, even if the one taught turns out to be incorrigible; but the latter is base, even if the one harmed becomes a saint through his endurance. And the former is an absolute good, while the latter is a work of absolute evil. And if it seems to be in some way a good thing, it only mimics goodness, ^B just as a monkey mimics a human, or the swallow mimics the art of building. Perhaps one should consider as beneficial the one who, in the things that he intends to harm, is of service—to one who strikes with the intent to kill, but instead, through the letting of blood or the cutting of a wound, becomes a healer; one might depict him as a benefactor in the manner of a sketch, but one would not paint him as one entirely. And if one were to happen upon him later, he would avoid him as an enemy, and perhaps even defend himself as best he could. But I myself would not even entertain this thought, unless God himself were to take away my ability to reason. "Forgetfulness of evils," ^C as He commands—he says that a teacher and benefactor is one thing, and the one who is as it were a teacher and as it were a benefactor is another, and that the former are most honorable, while the latter are left to fall short of that prize.

105. Let no one, therefore, contend to gather these and those into one, but let him allow for one to flee—whoever I may be—that which is to be fled, whether after the manner of the one in the desert, whom he loved, or after the manner of the cowardly. Let him allow me to consider and to understand and to know the differences of characters, and what a brother is simply, and what a friend is; which, in our affairs, is fortuitous and easy and variable, but for those who are more diligent is very laborious and unique, according to which also all things are held in common by those who are loved. For it is not possible that every man, nor even every brother, should fortuitously be a friend. But it ought to be so; yet we do not act in this way, but we are sanctified by names alone, ^D just as towards one of the same kin, so also towards one of the same friendship. Therefore, the standard for me is to love the one who does good overwhelmingly, but to endure the one who does evil, as much as possible, and in some way to love him and to pray for him; to check for the most part the malice and to break the force of the indignation, and to intersperse somewhere also prayers on his behalf, and to say: "Lord, do not lay this sin to his account." And indeed, this is understood as friendship toward the evildoer simply. For he might be loved, if, in the things in which he brings evil, he finds the good of prayer. But yet, probing the argument, let one look at such a prayer, lest it contain some weight. [alt-version omitted]

^A For here, "to weigh" seems to be understood as: to ponder, or to balance, or, if I may so say, to set upon the scales. And it would signify: "Lord, do not weigh this sin according to merit, nor dispense it according to proportion; but even if it be necessary that those who are burdensome be restrained, instruct them, and convert them, and strike them with fear as if for the purpose of restraint, and make known to them your power, but not according to that which is equivalent," or, to speak most clearly, "to the point of equal weight."

106. But, as I was saying, let no one wish to go against established custom in things that are called by antonomasia. For if we label the evildoer a benefactor, because we derive some benefit through his patience, and consequently label a friend an enemy, if we have experienced some detriment while he was perhaps not well-advised regarding the rules of friendship, we carry this over by metonymy. But this cannot be said. For we have learned that works are not accustomed to receive their character from their effects. For it is possible for a very wicked beginning to have a good end, even if that end terminates prosperously, and for the most excellent beginning of a not good action, even if it has operated unsuccessfully, to have a bad end. Therefore, the most excellent friend is always excellent, even if some detriment should come to the beloved through him; while the evildoer always earns a wicked appellation so long as he persists in being evil, even if his malice terminates in a benefit by accident. ^B And here I affirm confidently that a friend does not say: "I have harmed you; do not hold it in memory." For he does not acknowledge harm from a friend to be that which comes from intention, even if one suffers the greatest evils from him. A friend never speaks ill of his equal, never blasphemes, does not hate, does not quarrel, does not doubt himself toward his friend, does not concoct slanders, does not accuse. A soul that is not friendly does not even have the skill for such things. But if at any time, having not been well-advised, it wishes to say to the one who has been harassed: "Do not remember, but be a friend always," it is joking in the things it lays up, and says nothing that is secure. For such a person will hear from the one who has been harmed: "Although you may be an acquaintance and familiar, you are not a friend." For every friend, by right reason and rule, is sinless toward the one whom he loves. If, however, he should commit a fault, the offense does not push that person into something irrecoverable. Moreover, such a person will hear that he, too, will be counted according to those enrolled ^C as citizens and classified in the city; for while he is not yet the city's citizen in reality, but is, of course, a stranger; yet when he is inscribed into the society, he becomes a son of the city by adoption, and he is second to the natives, as a sojourner, not sharing equal privileges with the others, unless he should perchance happen to distinguish himself, or honor the succession, or make a contribution; so for you, this shared roof will be agreeable for a time. But if a favorable time should reveal things according to the rule of friendship, then indeed you will be ranked as a true friend, who loves in unanimity; otherwise, one might rightly fear in you that which is untried, and among other reasons, also because, having perhaps learned these things, the former companion, the long-standing, the ever-faithful, pure, and beneficial friend ^D might recoil from a friend who places both himself and the newcomer into one and the same category; and that he not even

allow the treacherous demon, who by nature loves no part of the divine feast, to find any opening, just as he loves neither charity nor its companion, friendship, but instead keeps his mouth agape at all times against such a good. And where God renders aid, pushing back the beast, the wolf departs, snapping at the air in vain. Otherwise, however, he succeeds, sometimes late, when friendship stands firm like a fortified city; at other times, he succeeds more easily, when the foundations of friendship rest upon sand.

107. ^B It is necessary, therefore, to test the spirit of friendship just as one tests other spirits, and not to cling to one who just happens along without putting them to the test, but rather to examine them, and to look around frequently, and to do everything by which a friend may be judged: whether he is steadfast, whether he is true, whether he does not dance merely for show; whether he keeps his lips sealed, so that neither slander nor secrets may fly forth from them; whether he can lightly bear with a friend who is aggrieved against him; whether he loves not for the sake of gain—which is common among the majority—whether he is not overly eager to rush into difficult matters so as to create trouble for his friend; whether he is not suspicious because of past experiences; whether, when friendship has been contracted with others, he has persevered and fared well; whether he is prepared to endure dangers; whether he will provide for his friend, when circumstances demand it, what he needs; whether, knowing of a plot and its machinery, he will reveal it; whether he will provide aid when a friend’s affairs are collapsing; or, in a word, whether he will be to his friend such as he is to himself, according to the saying of the wise man: "another self." ^C Thus I choose to test those who once harmed me, and having put them to the test, if they are found to be such, I join with them and share spiritual things, and I am in them, as I am commanded; and I wish they were in me. Otherwise, I am fearful, I draw back, and I am already perhaps separating myself, and when I approach again, I wish to draw back my feet, just like a cowardly sparrow, which, seeing a grain of wheat, runs a little toward it, and then retreats, lest it fall into a trap.

108. I have suffered many such things; I was lured, deceived, led astray, and misled, thinking I had gained a friendship. Woe is me for the enmity I found! I imagined I had fallen ^D among the roses of friendship; with what thorns, alas, was I pierced—not with thistles, not with buckthorn, not with brambles, but with dog-rose briars that bristle with the sharpest of needles! Many times, a deceitful friendship has boasted over me, and thus I have been educated in exactness. I have hoped for the benefits of friendship a thousand times; and this hope, which is also spoken of by the wise, has proven incomplete for me; and for this reason I fear even the immaturity of works, just as if someone were to fear shadows. And he who said that "hope is the dream of those who are awake," truly would never find anyone to contradict him or to say it better. Yet, having borrowed from that source and having enjoyed the sentiment, I too say that, just as the opening of eyelids after sleep is the way dreams take flight, so the sobering of the soul is the departure and erasure of vain hopes. Therefore, having often dreamt of charity,

and as often as I have come to my senses, and finding what I hoped for as having slipped away, I blotted it out from the tablet of my soul, and I hoped no longer. And from that time even until now, I am afraid of hopes, and I test them, until their shadow, as it is appropriate to say, shall be perfected into something solid; and when that manifestation appears, perfect friendship immediately springs up, and having shone around, it drives away every cloud of suspicion, and the friend speaks freely. ^A Before such a transformation, however, it is necessary for every person to remain in the political state. This state consists, in short, in all people embracing one another and those outside with charity; in communicating in whatever things each may need, in mutually defending and assisting one another; in there being no quarrels, no railing tongues, no perfidious—or more truly, diabolical—denunciation. But I myself am mistaken in having extended a single matter too widely: for the aforementioned goods, and others that were omitted, coalesce into mutual love, by which comes the forgetting of inflicted evil. If this were not my intention—though it is, with God’s help—I would fall from the shadow of the divine wings. ^B If I had sharpened the sword of vengeance, I would certainly not have ascended the steps of the divine priesthood, but rather precipitous mountains and those yawning with abysses! But if, when struck and pierced with pain, I groaned, or uttered, "Woe is me," or "Alas," or such like, and cried out, "Lord, help me," and even added more vehement things: "Demons, why do you attack an innocent man?"—yet such words should not go toward the recording of evil, nor be turned into a crime against me. Any person who would wish such things to be inscribed on his own tablets would be like one who dipped a running quill into water and formed no letter. For I give praise, so far as the remembrance of evil is concerned, that I am the same throughout my life as I am, and I call upon the poet’s sentiment. Whoever is not content with these things, who is troublesome to me and (if God allowed) would proceed to worse things, perhaps he composes ^C prayers and machinations of his own to be referred to the Most High; but no tremor holds me: I know very well that a just prayer ascends to heaven and reaches the ears of God, ^D but the invocation of such a kind moves the ladder in vain; for it will never ascend so far.