Theophanes, Archbishop of Nicaea

us to accomplish. For we too have bitter persecutors, ^A both invisible and visible, enemies and foes, who daily disturb, harass, and agitate us, and prevent us from carrying out the commands and ordinances of Christ. Let us not, therefore, grow soft, I beseech you, nor grow weary; let us not yield to their struggles, but let us stand against them generously and with a manly spirit, and let us gird ourselves in Christ Jesus our Lord, that we may attain eternal glory, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

ANNO DOMINI MCCCXLVIII.

THEOPHANES NICAEUS ARCHIEPISCOPUS.

EDITOR'S ADMONITION.

Theophanes III, Archbishop of Nicaea, flourished around the year 1347, long after the outbreak of the schism, as P. Lequien well teaches (Oriens Christian., vol. I, p. 652), and not in the eighth century, as D. Consalvus Ponce de Leon attempted to prove. He was the first to publish some of the works of Theophanes of Nicaea in 1590, at Rome, in Greek and Latin, and he collected not a few testimonies of the ancients, which ought to be referred to Theophanes, the most courageous martyr under the Emperor Theophilus, the impious iconoclast, and not to Theophanes of Nicaea.

The author of these epistles suggests throughout that Nicaea is occupied by the infidels, so that he cannot, or can scarcely, reach his see. He complains that his sheep are being vexed beyond measure, and, bringing forward the example of Job, he urges them to endure even the greatest tribulations with patience. In one place, he refutes the heresy of the Palamites, which finally arose in the fourteenth century. These things all correspond to the age to which we assign Theophanes, but they are opposed, conversely, to the opinion of Consalvus Ponce de Leon.

The writing style of Theophanes is simple and humble, although it lacks no nobility. In the first epistle, he announces his promotion to his flock, and because that flock is situated in a captive and oppressed city, which he cannot access, he particularly commends patience and fortitude of mind in temptations. He then shows that heretics must be diligently avoided, and he refutes the Palamites. The second epistle is devoted almost entirely to unfolding the same subject. To this is added a thanksgiving for the fact that he was delivered from plague and from death. The third epistle is used almost in its entirety for explaining sacred doctrine and commending ecclesiastical discipline. The author, addressing the priests subject to him, discourses copiously on the incarnation of the Lord, on the regeneration of the faithful, and on the divine sacraments. He then commends the spiritual power of priests with most beautiful words, acknowledges transubstantiation, and discourses at length on the priestly life, namely, what a priest must do and what a priest must avoid.

This Roman edition is so rare that it is almost unknown to, or unseen by, all bibliographers. Besides the three epistles and the oration printed here, there exist by the same Theophanes, in manuscripts:

PREFACE. Six books against the Jews (Paris and Oxford). Allatius, in *On the Photian Synod*, p. 541, praises the eighth book of Theophanes against the Jews. Five books on the light which struck the eyes of the apostles on the mountain (Tabor). Three books against the Latins. One book on the Trinity. One book on the Blessed Virgin and the Incarnation. The last four are preserved in the Bodleian codices. B..... 12 Sept. 1861. J.-B. M.

THE EXTANT WORKS OF THEOPHANES, ARCHBISHOP OF NICAEA, NOW FIRST EDITED IN GREEK AND LATIN FROM THE VATICAN LIBRARY BY D. CONSALVO PONCE DE LEON, WHO ALSO ADDED ANNOTATIONS AND VARIOUS READINGS FROM THE COLLATION OF ANOTHER CODEX. By the authority and approval of the Superiors. Rome, at the shop of Francesco Zannetti, 1590, in-12.

To the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord, Lord Bernardo de Roias, Bishop of Pamplona, D. Consalvus Ponce de Leon offers greetings.

How much I owe to the most pious memory of your uncle, Christopher de Roias, Archbishop of Seville, you best of all know, Bernardo, most illustrious bishop; and I, unless I were to make myself clearly unworthy of this light, will never deny it. For when I was a young man, or rather had scarcely passed the bounds of childhood, and had been made a canon of that same church, that excellent old man, having been assumed to the governance of it, it cannot be said with what indulgence, what grace, with what favor he nurtured, honored, and protected my youth.

Now, your own merits toward me, you who at that very time were managing ecclesiastical affairs on behalf of your uncle (for you were governing with doctrine, illuminating with morals, and setting examples with your own life), are truly greater than can or should be circumscribed in a brief letter. But now, as I feared that because of this long pilgrimage of mine, I might not be cast out from the possession of that kindness of yours—which your own humanity promises me as perpetual—but rather that my duties might be interrupted and, as it were, languish, it seemed good to me to testify in a public monument that which I usually do in private letters to you.

Certain other matters were added to these, which urged me to perform at this specific time what I had long promised myself I would do. First, the feast days of the new year now dawning, under which an old custom holds that we should send something as a token of esteem to our patrons. Then, the difficult state of affairs in your diocese. For although, by the kindness of God and the perpetual vigilance of our king—as great and powerful as he is the best and most religious of all kings—universal Spain is everywhere free from the cancer of heresies; yet you have inherited that charge, the borders of which you must defend day and night from the incursions of neighboring enemies, never to be secure, never to blink...

it was entirely necessary for you. We have there the rugged ridges of the Pyrenees, as a kind of bulwark for your flock, nay, for all of Spain, against the madness of the heretical Navarrese. But your virtue and your skill afford us greater confidence. The eternal Emperor of human affairs has decreed that this—as skillful generals are wont to use it—in the most dangerous place on the battle line should be set up as a more certain test. Therefore, in my treasures—that is, in my poor library—among the light baggage of writers and studies, I had nothing at this time, I say, in this wretched and extreme time, with which I could more conveniently arm your arsenal against the most importunate enemies than with the most pious writings of Theophanes, the prelate of the city of Nicaea.

Indeed, those writings teach (as you will see) the Nicaean people what the dignity of the priesthood instituted by God is, and what its excellence is; they prove that the functions of the sacred order reside in those who have been marked with divine characters; they demonstrate with what innocence, purity, and holiness those who are raised to the pinnacle of this supreme dignity ought to be. They, on the contrary, ridicule the sacraments and grant their power to the profane people; they confound the sacraments and the order (εὐταξία) handed down by God. Among them, a man is the more outstanding the more impure he is. You will see Theophanes exhorting his people to maintain Christian constancy and long-suffering in labors and temptations; against them, those blasphemers, unstable, fountains without water, clouds driven by tempests. You will hear Theophanes inviting his own flock to offer thanks to God, the author of all good things, for the cessation of the plague; there are also among them (and oh, would that they were not the greater part of them, and this plague, O wretched age, were only among them) those who worship one Fate and Fortune, offer sacrifices to them, and think that happiness or misfortune depends upon them, ruder even than the beasts themselves. You will hear Theophanes exaggerating the lightness, misery, and transience of human affairs, and persuading his own people to transfer their souls from these to solid, blessed, and eternal goods. They, contrariwise, mind earthly things, love themselves, and walk after the flesh in the concupiscence of uncleanness, lovers of pleasures, indeed, rather than of God. Theophanes teaches that not only the novelties and perverse dogmas of heretics are to be fled, but also their association and sight; but they daily introduce new figments and sects of perdition, denying alone (as the blessed Jude says) our Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

With these, therefore, and with similar spiritual weapons (just as your blessed ancestors, the shepherds of the churches, did), you will render vain the onsets of the opposing parties, roaring and howling around you and your flock. Indeed, you will endeavor to render them vain all the more as you recognize that the most imminent danger to the Church is at hand. For there is no one so miserably blinded who does not see, who does not grieve, and who does not deplore the evils that hang over the whole world from the disasters of unhappy France. Yet do believe, I pray, that the remedy for them, while it is situated primarily in celestial and divine protection, is also, in good measure, placed in the hands of you to whom the salvation of the Christian people has been committed. For who is so much a stranger to divine Scripture, the decrees of councils, the writings of the Fathers, ancient histories, and daily experiments, as not to know that if the ministers of the Christian Gospel are worthy in their life, excellent in doctrine, approved in innocence, and manifest in holiness, they will profit the people of Christ greatly? On the contrary, if they be wanting in their duty, forgetful of their office, if no specimen of doctrine and probity appear in them, they are the most devouring moths and rusts, which, adhering to the innermost vitals of public affairs, slowly indeed and without murmur, but at length inhumanly corrode and tear them apart. They are indeed the walls and bulwarks of this holy city; but what if they become collapsing and ruinous, and inclined toward their own profit and utility? Those dogs of this fold, what if they are sleepy and mute, nay (what is to be lamented), most rapacious wolves, brutalized by the skins of their own sheep, their maws and claws stained with their blood? They are the vanguard and main body of our army; what if they perform the duty of deserters and scouts? They are usually the medicine for present evils, the preservation of future ones; shall they therefore offer us poison instead of an antidote, and bring mortality and plague within our walls? They ought to be defenders of the good and the Catholics, and enemies of the impious and the perfidious; shall they, on the contrary, be cruel stepmothers to the good and Catholics, while being indulgent and soft nurses to the impious and perfidious? Finally, those fathers, doctors, and friends, what if at length you experience them to be unmerciful parents, false prophets, and sworn enemies? What (I say) if we see that they exchange temporal concerns for eternal, falsehood for truth, the caducous for the solid, the deceptive for the certain, the private for the public, the human for the divine, to the deplorable scandal of the Christian world?

But these things indeed, most excellent prelate, are for others, not for me—for others, not for you. We have long had the opuscula of Theophanes from the Vatican library of the supreme pontiffs. But since they were greatly corrupted in many places, we have until now delayed their edition. Now, however, having at last obtained another, much more correct copy, transcribed from the archetype of the archimandrite of Messina, and rendered by us into Latin, we send them to you, augmented by brief notes. We were led to present the Greek itself alongside the Latin (which you see is for the most part omitted in this kind of writing) with the intention that readers should not be defrauded of the true and genuine mind of Theophanes, if by chance we have less than perfectly attained it in some place. For this I affirm without any pretense or lie: that we dictated these things with an overly rushing pen, and with eyes for the most part too exhausted. Now regarding our author, I have this to report to you: In the times of the iconoclast Emperor Theophilus, who succeeded his father Michael—whom the Greek historians call *traulos* and *balbus*—there lived two brothers, Theodore and Theophanes, famous for their defense of the holy icons against an impious and sacrilegious prince. Both of them, having had their foreheads branded with marks by his order (a punishment which the Emperor Constantine had forbidden by law as impious and insulting to divine beauty, in the likeness of which the human face is fashioned—*Cod. Theod.*, lib. ix, tit. 40, *De poenis*), and for that reason commonly called *Graptoi*, and having suffered various other torments, and at length having been driven into exile, did not relent in the constant ardor of their confession. There was also the great Methodius, of the same age (which contributes not a little to their glory) and a companion in faith, ^A of Constantinople...

whom the same most impious tyrant ordered to be shut up alive in a tomb—a torture that was not infrequent in that age. There exist certain iambics which Theodore and Theophanes, having been carried off to the island where Methodius was living under the earth, wrote to him, as well as those which he in turn wrote back to them. If you are not inconvenienced, I pray you read them, for they are most elegant and are appended after this epistle. ^A When Theophilus had died, under Theodora and her son Michael (whom authors call [pneuston]), a truce was indeed granted to the Church, though not peace, and a lull, not tranquility. Theophanes, therefore, at that time together with his brother Theodore, as well as Methodius and very many other enemies of the iconoclasts, was recalled from exile and treated honorably by the Augusta, and even received at a brilliant banquet.

And thus far I have related those things to you which are written by Greek historians from the year of salvation eight hundred and twenty up to eight hundred and fifty. The Roman Martyrologies and the Greek Menologies add that Theophanes, having returned from exile, was created bishop of the city of Nicaea. And I, certainly, do not doubt their reliability. For the writer of the Life of Theophanes, published first by Lipomanus and then by Surius, teaches us this, and the Greek authors Michael Glycas and Constantine Manasses committed it to writing. Their testimonies, because you may read them placed separately by me, I shall omit here. But as for the rest, which pertain to the more particular knowledge of the life of this man, you will easily understand them both from the aforementioned authors and from him whom I also named the Metaphrast, lest I detain you with further detail. ^B Therefore, I have no doubt that our Theophanes is the very one of whom we have spoken.

But since two passages in his work appear to press so hard that he might be judged much more recent, and not without cause, I ought not skip over them for you. Both are found in the epistle to the Nicæans concerning the contempt of human affairs. The first is at the very beginning, where he laments that Nicaea was captured and reduced to the power of the enemy. The second is at the end, where (as preserved in the Vatican manuscript) he makes mention of the heretics Barlaam and Acyndinus. But Barlaam and Acyndinus emerged under the Roman Pontiff John XXI, or XXII if you prefer, and the Emperors Michael Andronicus Palaeologus of the East and Henry of Luxembourg, or Louis the Bavarian, of the West, around the year of Christ one thousand three hundred and twenty. The impiety of these men at that time (the very same, indeed, which is opposed by our Theophanes) was suppressed. But at that same age, namely by the year of Christ one thousand three hundred, the Scythian nation invaded the East more severely under the leadership of Othman, whose son Orchannes, not long after, finally gained possession of Nicaea itself, exhausted by a long-term siege. ^C And so these matters appear to agree with each other in such a way that it would seem more likely that our Theophanes lived in that age. However, I am not yet persuaded to depart from my prior opinion. For the mention of Acyndinus and Barlaam is missing from the Messanian codex, a copy of which we have had for this edition through the agency of Metellus Andenius, a learned and upright man. And certainly, the reliability of the Messanian book has been stronger for me than the Vatican one; for it is clear that it offers much greater antiquity, since it is easy to infer that the Vatican copy was written under Nicholas V from certain pages of Perottus which are held to be at the beginning of the booklet. Furthermore, the heresy of Barlaam and Acyndinus was not new; for it took much, indeed almost everything, from ancient heretics, as I shall demonstrate in the notes of that place. How many of the deliriums of heretics noted by Ignatius, who lived in the time of the Apostles—which the succeeding centuries attributed to Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, and Eutyches as their architects?

Now, the assault on Nicaea does not entirely differ from the age of the earlier Theophanes. For long before Emperor Theophilus, all of Asia was so infested by the Saracens that it could have happened (for there were various and almost instantaneous changes of affairs in the Eastern Empire even then) that Nicaea was reduced to their power for some time. Certainly in the second year of Leo the Isaurian, which was the year of Christ seven hundred and five, Thrace—nay, the very seat of the empire—was besieged for two years by Suleyman, Umar, and Izithen. ^D At which time also Mardasanes, raiding from the Gates of Othe to Nicaea and Nicomedia, as the authors have noted by name, devastated all of Bithynia. But also in the tenth year of the same Conon, Amer (thus the Agarenes called their emperors) and one Mabias besieged Nicaea for a long time with one hundred thousand soldiers; it was finally liberated, the situation being desperate, by the aid of the guardian saints, who, seen through the demolitions of the walls, terrified the enemies.

Under the empire of Michael Balbus there was an even greater flood of barbarians; for they, setting sail from the shores of our Betic Ocean (at the time when there reigned among us Alfonso surnamed the Great, son of Ramiro, grandson of Ordonius, father of Garcia), easily occupied Crete, and shortly thereafter conquered Sicily, Calabria, and a good part of Italy; finally crossing into Asia, and joined by others of their own kind, they fought often in Greece or with Theophilus himself, and finally at the Phrygian town of Amorium, not without success.

There is added a passage in the same Theophanes in the epistle

περὶ τῆς ἱερωσύνης

we can indeed scarcely marvel at the incredible vicissitudes of human affairs, or (as it behooves a Christian man to speak) at the incomprehensible decrees of divine wisdom. For Greece now lies a putrid corpse of its former beauty, a pitiable ruin, a base mockery of time, the thinnest shadow of a past body, and were it not that books survived, it would be nowhere recognizable on its own soil. I shall not omit (so that every mention of Theophanes in authors may be brought forth) that there lived, during the reign of Leo the Armenian, another Theophanes, a follower of the monastic life, who, having been relegated to Samothrace for the worship of holy images as well, died there famous for miracles. There was also Theophanes the Isaurian, who wove a history from Maximin to the Logothete Nicephorus. Of this man, we have some things not yet published, which were communicated to us by Franciscus Turrianus, a priest of the Society of Jesus, a man venerable in every memory, with whom we had almost daily familiarity during that entire two-year period, before he was translated to the better life. And this third Theophanes, indeed, as with the two prior ones, is called ὁμολογητής [confessor] by authors, that is, afflicted by heretics on account of his confession of the true religion. For he was not called a "confessor" in those blessed times unless he were someone who had undergone torments for the sake of the faith. And hence (as we have observed elsewhere from Antiochus the monk) there is that not infrequent mode of writing among the ancients, when they speak of tyrants and persecutors of the Church: πεποίηκε μάρτυρα, πεποίηκε ὁμολογήτην, that is, he made him a martyr, he made him a confessor; namely, he visited the former with death and the latter with torments. ^A To speak of the oration and those things which ^B pertain to the *Logos* in Theophanes would be in vain, since books of ecclesiastical authors are to be read more for the sake of their judgments and subject matter than for their words. His character is not lowly or depressed, but grave, and one which affects sublimity and rhythm, yet in which you might deservedly desire that syntomic and sharp quality of the Nazianzen. For he is loose and quite often running on to excess, as Chrysostom is in some places. Whence it happens that, through the distraction of his periods, he is implicated in words that do not follow in a straight line, and as Greek critics say in this genre, he is entirely ἀσαφής [unclear]. The words are not sordid, nor indeed obscure, yet they are frequently improper for the reason that they are translated. ^C Of figures, apart from this one metaphor, there are almost none. He is stuffed with the sentences of Sacred Scripture, indeed almost entirely made up of them, especially those which are in the Epistles of Paul, so that in the context, as also in this one of Chrysostom, whom he studiously imitates, you can recognize the disciple. Do you, most excellent Bishop (with whom I have long known the monuments of good writers to be held in the highest place, and our own lucubrations, whatever they may be, not in the lowest), receive kindly the studies which my labors have produced for you in these pre-Christmas days. And if I know that these are approved by you, I shall consider that I have made the greatest profit from this little work. May the most shining morning star, the child Jesus (most reverend Father), by whose most happy rising the dark shadows of sins have been repelled, illuminate your mind perpetually. May He be to you, in that ship of your office at whose helm you stand, a certain ^D Helice, through which you may at last be able to lead the people whom you govern with heavenly power to the port of eternal salvation. Rome, in the monastery of the Preachers of Saint Mary above Minerva, December 20, in the year of human salvation 1589.

THEOPHANIS METROPOLITAE NICAENI EPISTOLAE

1. Theophanes, Metropolitan of Nicaea, Epistle to the Nicenes, teaching what manner of person the true Christian ought to be, a contemner of all present things, whether sad or joyful; and toward the end, enjoining that one should turn away altogether from the company of heretics.

^A Sent while he was still a candidate for this city.

EPISTLE I

You who dwell in or reside in Nicaea, once a happy and most illustrious of cities, but now—O the judgments of God!—captive and enslaved, or rather, you who dwell in what is truly but its phantom, possessing the recognition of it only by name and inscription, as is usually the case with statues; and all the rest of you who are called by the name of Christ, may grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. You ought to know, beloved brethren, that by the good pleasure and grace of the almighty God, who in accordance with His own purpose calls the things that are not as though they were, by the common consent of our most holy master the ecumenical patriarch and his divine and holy synod, I, the least of all, was promoted by decree to be a candidate, and, so to speak, a betrothed to the holy Church of God that is among you. Wherefore I first grant to you the peace and love in Christ, which we have received as a kind of ancestral inheritance from our Savior God Himself; and I ask that you also share in it with me abundantly, as provisions for patience and magnanimity, so that you may be able to console one another in the trials that are always besetting you. But I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from the evil one—for I shall preface this with the glorious and divine voice of Paul, since even he, through me, exhorts you to all these things—that you may conduct yourselves worthily and according to the laws of the Gospel of Christ. For you, beloved, have need of the greatest sobriety and attention, inasmuch as you live among wicked men, the impious and the sinful, so that none might be led astray by constant association and much familiarity with them, either to stumble in the faith or to participate in their wicked deeds. For corrupt communications, he says, corrupt good manners; and the holy Fathers affirm that it is easier to contract wickedness than to impart virtue. Moreover, there are other things besides what has been said, which can tempt and excite ^D to their deceits and malice, so that those who do not watch well over themselves easily waver. First, indeed, the smoothness of pleasure, the thoroughly relaxed and unbridled life, and the ability to fulfill every desire of the flesh without hindrance; in addition to this, there threatens our invisible enemy and adversary, the devil, along with the insidious flesh, having as visible subjects and ministers those whom one might call, if one were to speak so, our friendly foes, who dwell with us and, like certain barren bees, mingle with the apiary of Christ, attempting to rob and plunder the honey of their virtue; with feigned friendship and lying love, they are always persuading them of all that is harmful and

as I said, setting before them pleasure as a bait on the hook of death. ^A This hidden and treacherous warfare, therefore, my beloved, is like a sunken reef, much more difficult and dangerous than that which is manifest and known from afar. For if a man is armed and prepared against the latter, he will be difficult to capture, standing safely and firmly against every trial and assault of the enemy; but against those who, to speak in the evangelical manner, come to you in sheep’s clothing as "Arabic wolves," one could easily be deceived, and fall suddenly upon enemies as if they were friends. For this reason, the author of evils, our enemy and foe, attacked Adam through Eve, the partner of his life and his friend. And through pleasure and the desire for glory, he instilled a most bitter poison into their hearts. For no one, my dearest, can receive greater benefit or harm from any other source than from those with whom he is accustomed to associate, and to live with, and has joined in no small intimacy through frequent conversation. Therefore, the wise governor of our nature always wishes our salvation to be brought about through men, not through angels, although the latter are much more powerful. ^B The cunning evil one knows this full well, and he never ceases to attack us through such persons, having also the flesh to assist him and cooperate with him, which prefers pleasure to utility and honesty. Yet that nature is by no means evil—for nothing of what has been made by God is evil by nature—but it is tickled and driven to frenzy by pleasure. But if anyone should lift himself up a little, and shake off sloth from his soul like a lethargy, he will break and destroy all these varied and grievous things like spiderwebs, having the help from above and grace cooperating with him, which easily clears away all that is arduous and difficult, and makes him a terrible and invincible opponent to the enemies, and reduces to nothing the machines and deceits craftily set in motion by them. ^C For observe: on the one hand, the evil one, through the wicked, places as it were before our eyes the muddy and voluptuous life of drunkenness, fornication, and all other kinds of intemperance; but on the other hand, he tries to hide by that which has been shown up to this point the hardness and labor of the evangelical, or rather angelic, life. But the grace of the Lord opposes this deception excellently; for it shows us the end of the aforementioned ways: "For that way," He says, "is narrow and straitened, leading those who pass through it to eternal life, while the broad and spacious one leads to manifest destruction." Moreover, He aptly signified the present life, which is indeed fleeting and which is gradually being shortened and flowing away, by the name of a way, and He addresses all almost as follows: that they should not relax the alacrity and zeal of the toilsome and narrow struggle of the way by the careful, ^D but should consider the brevity of these things, and weigh that the evils are temporary, and that they will very soon arrive at a restful and blessed life. Nor does the breadth of the way

^A of sin and the satiety of impassioned pleasure deceive the licentious, while they look forward instead to the brief end of this life, to perdition, I say, and to the unquenchable fire and the eternal worm. Moreover, the fraudulent and deceitful serpent, though repelled by the assistance of the Spirit through these arguments, can by no means rest; rather, through opposing engines, he attempts to overthrow the tower of our patience and faith, erecting various snares and temptations against us from many sides, again employing the customary instruments of his own wickedness, which are most apt for accomplishing these ends. And now, indeed, he brings upon us losses and the plundering of our property; at other times, he brings prisons, scourges, insults, injuries, and disgraces; sometimes, too, he brings captivities and threats of violent death, so that, being broken in spirit by these things, we may either be lured into licentiousness or incline toward impiety, which promises us deliverance from all these evils and an abundant supply of present pleasures, if we would exchange piety and virtue for it. But surely we would bear these machinations and siege engines ^B steadily, if we desired to be vigilant, possessing Christ as our shield and most firm and safe bulwark, and being rich in the noble and marvelous examples of the saints—I mean their patience, their endurance, and their resistance against sin even to the shedding of blood. For "some," he says, "were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. xi, 35-38). God permitted this so that the trial of their faith and courage might shine forth most brightly, for them in a greater recompense of blessings and a greater shame and defeat for the devil, but for us and all ^C who descend into the stadium of this life, it serves as an example of patience.

2. But what need is there to speak of these things? For the Lord himself endured for our sake things far greater from the ungrateful Jews, as it is permitted for all to hear from the holy Gospels that narrate it. For there was nothing at all that pertained to disgrace, or that could bring any pain, which they did not leave unattempted and unstirred against him; at one time concocting false testimonies, at another mocking and deriding, and in addition to these, abundantly inflicting insults and scourges; and sometimes striking that divine and ^D tremendous head with reeds, and sometimes putting on a crown of thorns.

^A for the sake of causing me pain and insult. But upon that divine face, which shone more brightly than the rays of the sun on Tabor with the uncreated glory and grace of the divinity—which the foremost of the apostles were unable to gaze upon clearly—they poured out such ignominy and wanton insolence that it was offered up to those wicked men for spitting and buffeting. And finally, they hung Him naked on the cross in the midst of wicked men. And not even then were they sated of their madness and fury, but even there they offered with mockery to that divine mouth, from which proceeded words sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, according to the Prophet, bile and vinegar. Nor indeed did they abate their wrath after His death, but with a spear they pierced His life-giving side, from whence came forth the purgation of the whole world and the blood and water that bestows life upon the entire universe.

3. Considering all these things, therefore, beloved, let us flee from the pleasures of the flesh as if they were deadly poisons, and let us vigorously endure the trials that are brought upon us, so that we may become partners in the sufferings of Christ, and through this, partners in His glory; if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him. ^B For just as from the mouth of a harlot-woman honey seems to drip, yet afterward it is found to be more bitter than gall for those who have partaken of it, so also from all the carnal pleasures of life—whether you call it drunkenness, or luxury, or sloth and all intemperance, and obscenity of speech and vain-talk, rapacity and injustice, pride and haughtiness, and if anything else is opposed to the sound doctrine—it seems at first to bring a certain sweetness and pleasure on the surface, but afterward it produces results more bitter than gall. But any discipline and tribulation, for the present, does not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. For this reason there is need of patience. For if we endure, He says, we shall also reign. I exhort you ^C therefore, brethren, to keep watch if there are any who attempt to introduce contentions and scandals into the Church of Christ, and to sow, like some evil weed, that vain-sounding heresy which is far removed from the doctrine of the Spirit. These men, therefore, must be driven out by you from the flock of Christ like wolves; for they are not disposed any better, if not even worse, than the perfidious Jews, who raged against the deified and gracious face of the Lord. For those men offered insult to the face itself as if to the face of a mere man, although the magnitude of the crime reached to the divinity ^D.

^A of the Word, who was at once God and man, and who bore these things. But these new offenders against the divinity shamefacedly call that uncreated glory of the divinity, which glorified that blessed face, a "veil" [(5)]. These things, moreover, are more abominable and more ignominious than those Jewish spittings and insults. And just as those men, thinking of course to construct the dogma of the monarchy, admitted neither distinction nor the Son in any way, so too these men, pretending the simplicity of the divine nature, and imagining that they can terrify simple people by this, attempt to remove entirely [(6)] the difference between the divine substance and action ^B from the midst, ^C making action altogether God ^D and man, who bore it.

*Venerable men. Near (it is said) have some come to no longer endure to confess that Christ is God, but rather an instrument and tool of the Divinity, and a man who is the bearer of God; for almost everyone is made such that they think it is no longer to be borne to confess Christ as God, but rather as an instrument and tool of the Deity, and a man bearing God.* The same man, in an epistle to the monks which begins, *Some arrived*, inculcates this in many places, and frequently elsewhere. But more expressly in the 7th and 11th anathemas. Would that we possessed the writings of Pope Celestine, who also turned the Ephesian synod from Greek into Latin, and sent it to the churches of the East and West, and refuted that heresy himself. Would that we had the writings of Sixtus III, who accomplished this very thing; and also of Eusebius of Dorylaeum, who was the scourge of the Nestorians, and famous for the persecution which he suffered not long after at the hands of the Nestorians themselves in the Ephesian synod, and who afterward was the first of all to expose Eutyches! For he also, with his writings, opposed Nestorius. But the works of Theodore of Ancyra, and before them the book of Atticus of Constantinople, which he wrote to the titles of Arcadius, forestalling the heresy of Nestorius, then a presbyter of Antioch, to the great harm of the Christian cause, have perished. Even from these, surely, we would have an instructed arsenal for recognizing the old errors of the Nestorians and for refuting the new Nestorians (since this age also nourishes such monsters). They were able to call [Christ's flesh] or speak according to Nestorius (as we have said), who admitted no union between humanity and divinity, but called humanity a sort of guest of the divinity; or [to speak] with other heretics who asserted that the body of Christ was neither true nor consubstantial with us, but phantastic, deceptive, imaginary (for Augustine uses all these words), and therefore these men were able to call the flesh of Christ a veil, as if by it the divinity were merely cloaked, which they said alone existed truly in Christ. The most ancient of our writers attribute this error to various people. Irenaeus, while leaving the author silent, opposes it in one place, but later attributes it to the Ebionites. Tertullian, in a book dedicated to refuting this heresy, [writes] against Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus, and Saturninus; and therefore he makes the title of the book, *On the Flesh of Christ against four heresies*, and again he fights strenuously against this delirium against Marcion. Philastrius also makes the same Marcion the author. Later authors, namely Augustine, in the book *On Heresies*, and in those things which he writes against the Manichaeans, agitates against this error in opposition to them. Likewise Theodoret in his *Fables*, and Vincentius, cap. 20, and Damascenus, in his book *On Heresies*, and Idacius, against Varimadus, lib. 3. Leo also, the first of that name, in sermon 4, *On the Nativity*, and 4 *On the Epiphany*, and elsewhere, opposes this heresy as if it were the Manichaeans'. Afterward, it was stirred up in part again by Eutyches, an abbot of Constantinople, as Flavian of Constantinople relates in his first epistle.

^A Indeed, they think that the divine nature has neither life, nor wisdom, nor power in any way; or if it does, that this is created—as if it were openly said that it is at variance with itself, and that it in no way admits the simplicity of its own nature to communication of glory, but transmits it to creatures (7). These men, therefore, as has been said, should be driven far from the fold of Christ like some evil beasts; For no evil beast, says Isaiah, shall go up upon it (Isa. XXXV, 8). For such men, he says, do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly (Rom. XVI, 18), and by good words and empty deceits deceive the hearts of the simple. ^B May the Lord, who comforts the humble, also comfort your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word. Pray also for us, brethren, that the work committed to us may always progress toward the increase of the Lord’s work; may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, brethren. Amen.

II. The same author’s didactic epistle to all the Christians pastored by him, concerning patience and long-suffering.

Theophanes, the least servant of Jesus Christ, presiding by sacerdotal grace and divine mercy ^C over the holy Church in Nicaea, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to all those who are called by Christ, who exist in diverse ages, families, fortunes, ways of life, and stations, but who have obtained equal faith and the same hope and intent in religion, inhabiting Nicaea and Prusa, and all the surrounding region as far as the sea (8), and to those numbered and inscribed in our spiritual fold, beloved in the Holy Spirit, children of our humility: grace to you, ^D (7) *To creatures emits.* Whatever good exists in created beings proceeds from the one God by participation; for any being is the purer, the more it participates in that supercelestial purity; the more innocent, the more it participates in innocence; the holier, the more it participates in holiness; and likewise concerning other kinds of virtues. God himself is indeed the Idea and archetype of goodness, or rather, goodness itself, as the most ancient theologians have spoken; He is most perfect in every thing and form: nay more, as Dionysius says, for that reason He is in every thing and form, not perfect as if He were something super-added, and pre-perfect in any given thing and form. Chrysostom significantly, in his sermon on the Nativity of the Saviour, as yet unedited (which we have in manuscript, among many other works of this Father, which, God willing, we shall soon publish), calls God: as one who overflows, abounds, and surpasses the excellencies of all creatures: "All things (says Damascenus, lib. 1, cap. 19) desire the divine nature and exist in it; the divine nature itself grants being to all things according to the nature of each; for it is the essence of those things that are, the life of those things that live, and the reason of those things that use reason, and the intelligence of those things that intellectually exist," which he has borrowed in nearly the same words from the great Dionysius, capp. 2, 4, 8, *De divinis nominibus*. Therefore, as Damascenus himself speaks, in individual things according to the capacity of each, that super-blessed radiance shines forth, immortal, infinite, eternal. Since these things are so, it would certainly be impious to despoil (as those do whom our author opposes) life itself—from which all things live—of true life; to despoil science itself—from which those who know have knowledge—of science; and goodness itself—through which all good things are good—of goodness. And therefore, to claim that He is void of these because He communicates them to others, especially when one of these divine properties themselves and the most excellent is the communication of Himself. Yet He communicates Himself in such a way that what He gives to others, He does not take away from Himself. He communicates Himself to us (in this sense, says Dionysius) having suffered nothing. With these, then, we end as guests, and we shall be content to have touched upon them lightly.

(8) *As far as the sea.* The copy has *paralious* in both cases, with an extra line, which is how proper names are usually marked. But since no town by this name can be found in the topography of all Bithynia, we rightly believe that "paralios" is the substratum.

LETTER II

May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you, for the fair navigation of this present life according to God, and one free from waves and turmoil, and for the enjoyment and ineffable joy of the future immortality, which God prepared before the foundation of the world for those who love Him in truth, and who well keep His commandments and ordinances.

^A 1. I give thanks to my God always concerning you, beloved, hearing of your faith, guarded in the power of God, sincere and unshaken among those who oppose the Gospel of Christ, and of your patience with thanksgiving in various temptations and afflictions, from which you shall receive the unfading crown at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, ^B who shall come to glorify His own faithful servants with ineffable and divine glory, and to render vengeance in a flame of fire to those who do not know Him, nor obey those who preach His Gospel. I remember you all always in my prayers, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may grant you to be strengthened according to the inward man, and to be armed with the armor of faith and hope, that you may not grow weary until your last breath, against the afflictions and temptations brought upon you every day, both from demons and from perverse and wicked men.

^C For I wish you to know, beloved, that just as food and drink are the means of sustaining this our present sensible life—for it is in no way possible for anyone to live without these—so, in a proper and genuine sense, does every virtue constitute the life according to God (for without it, it is impossible for anyone to live in the spirit according to the inward man), but above all others, patience and steadfastness in afflictions. For just as gold, the more it is brought to the fire, is purified, becoming more ^D tested and brighter, so also the soul, struggling in temptations and dangers, becomes purer and brighter than the sun. And if you wish, come, let us set before you, as an example of what has been said, the most steadfast and great Job. For he, before the temptation, was adorned with every kind of virtue, as he himself testifies concerning himself, or rather the divine Scripture, and God speaking to us through it. For chastity and purity of the flesh and holiness were familiar and of the utmost concern to him. And this, even though he lived before the old law, when there was no reason to observe such things as there is in the evangelical precision; for he did not even attend with curious eyes to the faces of women: "I have made a covenant," he says, "with my eyes, that I should not think upon a virgin" [*]. If, however, in regard to virgins and free women...

^A his eyes were so self-controlled and chastened, and if to him even in thought and gaze fornication was forbidden, then surely the filth and pollution of adultery could not have found any passage at all into his soul. And therefore he boasts so confidently in these things, because he strongly curses the most dire evils upon himself, if he had not led his life against these things with great caution and restraint. Wherefore he says: "If my heart has followed after another man's wife, or if I have lain in wait at her doors, then may my wife also please another, and my children be humbled". As if saying through these things that everyone ought to judge foreign matters by his own affairs, just as the Lord says: "As you wish that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise". For if it seems very burdensome and intolerable to you that your wife should follow the love of another man, neither do you attempt to overturn another man's marriage; and such were the chastenings of this just man. But ^B concerning justice and the protection of the oppressed and the helpless, hear what he says: "I was clothed with justice, and I put on judgment as a doubly-folded garment. For I rescued the poor from the hand of the powerful, and I helped the orphan who had no helper. And I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame. I was a father of the helpless, and I searched out the judgment which I did not know. And I crushed the jaws of the unjust; out of their teeth I snatched away the spoil". But the just man was also above receiving bribes or gifts in judgments, for he says: "If I have touched gifts with my hands, may I sow, and let others eat". And he was indeed clothed with justice, as he says, like a garment, adorning him much more brilliantly than the royal purple; and he also did not neglect almsgiving, the most kingly of virtues, and hospitality—or rather, he cared for them most especially. For what does he say? "If I have eaten my morsel alone, and did not share it with the orphan: for from my youth I raised them up as a father". And again: "If I despised the naked perishing, and did not clothe him. And if the helpless did not bless me, and their ^C shoulders were not warmed by the shearing of my sheep, let this and that happen to me". And again: "My door was open to every comer, or if I sent the infirm away from my door with an empty bosom".

constet. At clarum est eum librum, prout nos Latinum habemus, multum differre a textu Græco. Hieronymus eam quam in Biblis habemus, versionem (nam et aliam fecit juxta Septuaginta) ex Hebraico, Arabico, et Syro elaboravit, nihil vero minus, quam ex Græco. Si quid igitur offenderit lector, quod in Latina Vulgata vel non exstet, vel aliter habeatur, consulenda illi erunt Græca, quæ Theophanes secutus est, et quæ nos vertimus. Sed et illud hoc loco lectorem scire oportuerit, epistolam hanc, quæ tota in patientiæ commendatione et Jobi historia versatur, bona ex parte Chrysostomi imitationibus constare: singula nos, prout recurrunt, adnotare noluimus, ne capita notarum et earum numeros innumeros laceremus. Itaque consultius duximus, ad finem ea omnia quæ a Chrysostomo (ut diximus) mutuatus est Theophanes, unico scholio aggerere. ^D (11) Molas iniquorum. In Vaticano et Messanensi desunt huic periodo quæ sequuntur verba, ἐκ μέσου τῶν ὀδόντων, etc., quæ adjunximus ex Jobi textu, cap. xxix. (12) Seminent. Vaticanus σπεῖραι μστ. Messanensis σπείραιμι. (15) Principem maxime decet. Non dubito quin locum hunc aliter vertendum judicent multi, nempe principatum obtinentem, præclarissimum, ceteris virtutibus præstantem. Verum nos ita reddidimus, quod videremus Jobum a Theophane regem alias sæpe vocari, quocirca huc allusum hoc loco credimus.

^A Nay, he did not even require the debt from his debtors; rather, he would tear up the very certificates of their debts. "For I had," he says, "a bond against someone, and I tore it up, and gave back nothing, having received nothing from the debtor." And being such a man, if it ever happened that he committed a sin involuntarily, he was not neglectful even regarding the confession of these things, but he laid everything open, and not before only one person, but before many; such was his adherence to the evangelical precision, ^B having lived before the Gospel and the Law. For he says: "But if, having sinned involuntarily, I hid my sin—for I was not ashamed of the crowd of the throng, so as not to confess before them." And the soul of the righteous man was so far superior to holding a grudge, ^C that he never rejoiced even at the misfortunes of his enemies, but was minded toward them just as those who love them. For he says: "But if I also became one who rejoiced at the fall of my enemies, and my heart said, 'Well done,' then let my ear hear my curse." And who would not admire his compassion and mercy towards those enduring evil? "For," he says, "I wept for every impotent person, and I groaned seeing a man in distress." Furthermore, being very wealthy, he did not pride himself greatly on this, nor did he trust in the power of his own wealth, which is what most [people] now... ^D

suffer, of whom the divine apostle Paul writes to Timothy: "Charge the rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who gives us all things richly for enjoyment" (1 Tim. VI, 17). For the righteous man himself says: "If I have put my trust in precious stone, or if I have rejoiced because much wealth came to me" (Job XXXI, 24-25). And a little further on: "If also, when I put my hand to my mouth, I kissed it" (Job XXXI, 27)—that is, if I praised my own deeds with pride and boasting, reckoning my [own] wisdom to be everything, and not the divine power and providence, and for this reason kissing my hands according to the custom of the many—this too, ^A I reckon, will be accounted the greatest transgression.

2. Such, beloved, were the accomplishments of the righteous man before the trial and the calamities. He adorned his own life with such virtues, being wrapped in much wealth and power and glory, and yet he did not use these for licentious pleasures, rapine, and immoderate desires, which is what most people suffer. And what is to be wondered at, as I have often said, is that [he lived] before the Gospel and the Law, when he could see no such example, but rather the very opposite—he saw everyone walking in the contrary way and busily performing every kind of wickedness; nor had he received any instruction at all, nor was he among those who heard the divine Scriptures, since they were not yet written and delivered. Being such a man, he falls into such calamities—not just one, but ^B successive trials, such that, of the many who have suffered and been afflicted since the world began, no such calamity has ever befallen any one of them. For he lost not only his wealth, his herds of animals, all his other property, and finally the choir of his seven wonderful children in the very flower of their age, to a bitter death, and all these things at once, so that he could not even properly mourn for each one because of the continuous succession of evils—for, he says, "While this one was still speaking, another messenger came, and while this one was still speaking, another, from there bringing news of the calamities" (Job I, 16)—not only did he suffer these things, but his very body, which was all that remained to him, is struck with an all-encompassing blow. For ^C he says that from his head to his feet, he is incurable, and full of pains, and sits naked on a dunghill, whereas a little while before he was powerful and a king. And when he saw his own body swarming with corruption and worms...

and full of an unbearable stench: “For he took,” he says, “a potsherd, ^A that he might scrape the matter, and he himself sat upon a dunghill outside the city.” And again he says: “My body is covered in the putrefaction of worms, and I scrape off the clods of earth from the matter.” These things were not enough for the devil, nor is he satisfied with the misfortune of the just man, but he moves every stone, as the saying goes, so that he might overturn that adamant-like tower and bring it down with his own machinations.

Wherefore, even now he rouses the wife, who first laments her own misfortunes and urges him toward blasphemy. But you all know how the groans and tears of a woman, arising especially from a common misfortune and the loss of children, know how to break and dissolve the resolve of a man’s soul, and how from this it is naturally the case that he easily persuades the mind of the man to everything she herself wishes. Wherefore, first of all, the devil attempted to cut through and tear apart the hope of this man, in which alone the vessel of his soul was rocking and holding fast ^B in the sea of misfortunes and in the tempest. For he knows that the good of patience consists of hope; for he says: “Until when will you endure?” saying: “Behold, I will wait for a short time yet, expecting the hope of my salvation.” Then he brings on the misfortunes, so that, through the calling to mind of these things, he might disturb the magnanimous and steadfast spirit of that noble man: “For behold,” she says, “your memorial has vanished from the earth, the sons and daughters of my womb, the pangs and labors which I endured in vain with sorrow. But you yourself sit in the putrefaction of worms, spending the night in the open air, and I, a wanderer and a servant, going from place to place, and from house to house, awaiting the sun, when it will set, so that I might rest from my labors and the pains that now encompass me.” By these words, the wicked one, thinking that he had already made the ^C just man's soul easy to capture through the person presented as his wife (as once he did by the first parent through Adam), offers the poison: “Speak,” he says, “a word to the Lord, and die.” For if, he says, you are unwilling to blaspheme for any other reason, at least do so that you may die and be…

^A delivered from these painful temptations. Now the devil openly revealed for what reason he had brought the myriad temptations upon him, and what it was that he was striving for, namely, to bring a blasphemous word against God. “For I said,” he states, “everything I brought upon him, I brought so that he might blaspheme.” Therefore, since this did not happen, not only did he suffer no harm from such great temptations, but he was also proclaimed a great victor and a crowned athlete, and all the more so in that the things he suffered were greater and more grievous. For having looked at her, it says, he spoke to her, that is to say, looking at her with anger and indignation he said: “Why have you spoken like one of the foolish women? If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure the evil?” But the contriver of evils does not stop ^B his plot even here; instead, he turns to another path and attacks him with other bitter things, no less painful than the former, if not even more so. For from this side he stirs up his friends, and from that side his servants and slaves against the athlete; these, not only failing to compassionate and console him—as is proper and fitting for friends to do—but actually reproaching him for his misfortunes, and thereby not only failing to soothe his pain with words of commiseration, as skilled physicians are wont to do, but rather chafing and afflicting him like executioners. To them he also said: “You are unjust physicians.” And for this reason, suffering, he said: “Those who were afraid for me have rushed upon me.” And again: “You have attacked me without mercy; did I request anything from you? Or do I stand in need of your power?” as if to say: My affliction exceeds your powers, nor are you able to deliver me from my pains; for my situation has need of God alone. Since, therefore, you cannot heal, do not strike me cruelly with reproachful words. And again: “How long will you vex my soul, and wear me down with words and speak against me? And without any shame you press upon me and exalt yourselves over me, ^C mocking me.” And the servants, lowly and vile, mocking and deriding and spitting upon him, did not cease to incessantly reproach him for his calamities. For he says: “How was I once comforted in my sorrows, but now the infirm mock me?” And again: “They have detested me, keeping their distance; but they have not refrained from spitting in my face.” And again: “Brothers, acquaintances, and neighbors have despised me.” ^D

^A The slaves and the dishonored, and men of no account, never ceased to mock and sneer at him and to spit upon him, as they constantly touted his calamities. For he says: “As I comforted the suffering, so now the least of men have laughed me to scorn.” And again: “They have detested me, standing far off; and they did not refrain from spitting before my face.” And the brothers, again, and acquaintances and neighbors looked upon me as a complete stranger. For he says: “My brothers have departed from me, recognizing strangers rather than me; and my friends have become merciless; those nearest to me did not recognize me, and those who knew my name have assaulted me. I called the neighbors of my house, my handmaidens, I was an alien before them. I called my servant, and he did not obey.” And again: “Those who saw me detested me; and those whom I had loved have risen up against me.” I know that you all have been grieved out of sympathy by these words and the lamentations ^B of the righteous man. If, therefore, we, upon hearing things that happened long ago, are so crushed and troubled in our hearts, consider what the righteous man himself suffered while enduring and bearing these things. But he did not even take his food without pain, because of the great stench; for he says: “I see my food as a foul smell.” And not even when sleeping was he delivered from his pains, because while there is for all who are tempted a small respite, the evil one disturbed him in dreams, frightening and troubling him. Wherefore, also thinking that these terrifying things were being brought upon him from God, he said: “Thou dost frighten me with dreams, and by visions Thou dost confound me.” Hence the terrors of the day were followed by the temptations of the night, for he says: “If I lie down, I say, When is it day? But when I rise, again, When is it evening? And I become full of pains from evening until morning.”

3. And these things belong to the temptations. But the works of virtue in which he shone before this conflict and these struggles, while he was still flourishing in wealth and all prosperity—even if they were great, as the discourse has already shown before, and manifest accomplishments of evangelical exactitude (for there was for him temperance and holiness of body, preserving purity even to the glance and thought, justice and sympathy, and generous distribution, freedom from holding grudges and long-suffering, and such things)—they did not make him so luminous and illustrious as those manifold ^C and myriad temptations, which, like a torrent, flowed together all at once upon him, yet were not able to shatter the tower of his soul, safely established ^D upon the rock of faith and of love toward God, so that if any complaining word…

^A or blasphemous word against God might be brought forth, nay, rather, he sent forth that blessed and most praiseworthy cry: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass; blessed be the name of the Lord" [*]. Therefore, before the temptations and the calamities, although God Himself bore witness to the devil of his innocence, and called him the best of all men living upon the earth: "For hast thou," He says, "considered in thy mind concerning my servant Job, because there is none like him upon the earth, a man blameless, true, fearing God, abstaining from every evil action?" [*]. The Evil One, however, shamelessly and boldly did not hesitate to disparage the praises of the just man, and to demean the dignity of his virtue and glory: "For," he asks, "doth Job worship the Lord for nought? Hast not thou hedged him about, and all that is within his house?" Yet after those ^B heavy-laden struggles and that patience with thanksgiving, the mouth of the accuser and of the insulting demon was stopped altogether; and thenceforth he had no way at all to contradict, but, covered with shame, he fled, defeated in strength. Likewise, after his endurance of temptations, he was deemed worthy both of the vision of God and of that divine proclamation; for as a victor the Giver of crowns proclaims him, saying to him: "Thinkest thou that I have spoken to thee in any other way than that thou mightest appear righteous?" That is to say: "For what other reason did I allow temptations to come upon thee, and now deigned to hold conversation, if not that thou mightest appear righteous, and that thy righteousness, and way of life, and love toward God might be made manifest to the devil himself, and to all men who shall be until the consummation of the world?" ^C This word was the unfading crown of the athlete’s struggle, adorning and glorifying him eternally. This was the prize of his struggle. This was the reward of his patience. This word immediately dissolved that most painful disease, and restored all his possessions twofold greater than those which he had lost, and from such great destitution, disease, and contempt, suddenly raised him to the greatest glory, wealth, and good health, and rendered him renowned, both in the present life and in the future.

4. Therefore, let us all, beloved, strive to imitate this—the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the healthy and the sick, the joyful and the sorrowful—since the just man overcame all these things, both the pleasant and the unpleasant, and indeed each one in a most perfect and admirable manner, and appeared upright in all. For neither wealth nor poverty, neither disease nor health, neither glory nor disgrace ^D destroyed the wealth of his virtue. But just as pure and unadulterated gold, which neither by fire, nor by water, nor by any other thing loses its own brilliance and radiance, but...

^A remains always the same: so too this noble athlete, purer than gold. And with good reason. For he loved God with his whole soul, and considered that nothing that exists was to be preferred to his love for Him—not wealth, not glory, not wife, not children, not friends, not relatives, not even his own life. Therefore, even when he was stripped of all things at once, he did not lose heart, nor did he say, as the many do, "What is this? Was it for this that I opened my house to every stranger and needy person, that I might see it collapsed? That I might behold it as the tomb of my children? Was it for this that the shoulders of the poor were warmed by the shearing of my sheep? Was it for this that by sacrifices of calves and sheep I served God ^B daily, that my goods might be partly plundered by raiders and partly consumed by fire?" He said nothing of the sort, nor did he ever revolve such things in his mind, but with thanksgivings he blessed the Lord. Him therefore, beloved, as an archetype and image, looking upon as I have said, let us imitate. For it is for this reason that the grace of God willed all his deeds to be consigned to writing—not that he might derive glory from this matter; for he is not in need of praises and our favor, being glorified by God; but that we, first of all, might glorify God who gave him such patience and constancy, and who reciprocated with abundant rewards, both bodily and spiritual; and secondly, that we might not think the divine commandments are beyond human strength. For he too was a man subject to passions ^C just as we are; but since he willed it, he found also the grace of God as a fellow-worker, and accomplished every virtue in excess. Furthermore, that we too might follow in his footsteps, having him as a guide into the straight path of truth and virtue; and then also as a testimony, so that we may not have it to say, when God shall judge all things, that "if we had seen or heard of any one of men having observed these holy commandments and having steadfastly endured tribulations, we would by all means have hastened to imitate him." For this reason the divine Scripture, forestalling this, removes this excuse from our midst, relating in detail all the accomplishments of this just man. Therefore it also says: "Who would grant that my words be written, that they be set in a book for ever, in a pen of iron and lead, or be graven in stones as a testimony?" ^D For our sake were these things written, even as the blessed Paul says: "For whatever was written was written for our instruction, that through the patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope."

Let us, therefore, endure, I beseech you, brethren; for if we endure, says he, we shall also reign with him; and when any temptation comes to anyone, whether the death of a child, or loss of money, or bodily illness, or the contempt of friends or neighbors, or of strangers, let him consider the things of Job, and he will find his own sufferings to be much smaller and less than those of the righteous man, and let him also endure, saying, just as that righteous man said: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so is it done; blessed be the name of the Lord." ^B May the God of peace, of patience, and of consolation establish and strengthen you in the power of his might, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, and may he console your hearts with the joy and gladness of his own grace, so that you may complete this present life smoothly and in a manner pleasing to God, and attain the future eternal goods, by the intercessions of the super-blessed Theotokos and of all the saints, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

III.

Theophanes, the lowest servant of Jesus Christ, presiding by the holy grace of God over the city of the Nicaeans, and—it might be said—also by the command of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, to all most reverent priests and remaining clerics, that is, those examined in the various orders of the holy sanctuary, who are found throughout our entire inheritance and province, ^C beloved in the Holy Spirit as sons of our humility: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

(24) Since it is not easily possible to comprehend the subject matter of this epistle, both on account of the long periods of its oratory and also on account of the variety of its sentiments, it seemed advantageous to the reader if we were to propose its summary and, as it were, a brief outline of it. Theophanes narrates, therefore, that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and that when he himself had deformed that image through sin and lost it, by the mercy of God the image was indeed reformed and, as it were, fashioned anew, while the likeness was recovered; yet it was the admirable celestial wisdom and goodness that provided all these things. For although through the first creation man had been only a partaker of the aforementioned image and likeness, through the second, which was brought about by the Incarnation of the Word, he became a partaker of the divine nature and was made another god, to wit, a brother of the Lord, and consubstantial with Him—nay, even His own member. All these things (having posited the mystery of the Incarnation, by which our nature has been joined to the divine and deified) are provided by the power of two sacraments, to wit, Baptism and the Eucharist. Through baptism we are regenerated and are called sons of God and members of Christ, who is the head of the Church. Through the Eucharist we are joined to the same Christ, and are united into the unity of the faith with the other members, that is to say, the Church. ^D Since, therefore, Christ instituted these two sacraments, and He Himself performed the first, He left, as He ascended to the Father, their use, exercise, and power to the apostles and their successors. It is evident, therefore, from this that priests have the faculty of creating, generating, and making man into God, and a brother of Christ, and His member. If, therefore, the dignity of the priesthood is so great, it can easily be understood from this with what innocence, purity, and holiness the person endowed with the priesthood must be. Moreover, this epistle surpasses in a wonderful way not only the other writings of Theophanes, but can certainly be compared with the most elaborate works of the most ancient and learned writers, as anyone who attentively considers its structure, the weight of its sentiments, and the manner in which the Holy Scripture is explained in it, will easily admit.

(25) Province. Although the administration [of an eparchy] might seem to pertain to secular magistrates, as much as we can gather from the authors, nevertheless, even among our own, [the term] is for an ecclesiastical diocese, and it is not rare for the term to occur in reference to a metropolitan; thus the canon of Sardica [refers to] that is, the president of the province, namely, the metropolitan bishop.

^A And of the life-originating Trinity, may there be an increase for the settling of yourselves and of the unity of the faith in God, and toward every good concord and mutual connection, and for the growth and advancement of the life and faith of the men who are brought to God through you and are in various ways illuminated and sanctified; and a continuous addition and progress of the Church of God [may there be] from those coming over to our blameless faith from an unholy life and destructive error and impiety, through our promptings and teachings.

1. A pressing necessity, my beloved, along with the desire I have—and indeed to be with you bodily for the whole time, the charge of whom I received from Christ—if it were possible, to offer you daily to drink the rational, guileless milk, to speak with the divine Apostle, as if from a breast providing liberally, or rather to communicate solid food (which we know to be the bread of angels) to you, who, according to Paul, have your senses exercised ^B by habit, so that you might not only grow thereby bit by bit into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, but might also be able to make others partakers of these same goods in a kindly manner, which would be by a measure far better than any other beneficence and gift; [the fact that] this duty and desire of mine has not yet been brought to effect, has come to pass because I have been prevented by various and, at times, other causes that are not trivial and are worthy of being overlooked, as not a few—if not to say all—of you know precisely. ^C For this reason, I decided to send to you through letters, as if by some ferry or pack-animals, the heavenly bread of doctrine; bread, I say, that knows how to strengthen that heart, according to the Prophet, which is inclined to see God Himself and has become pure; which would be the better and higher part of this rational soul of ours, in which we all believe the spark of eternal life remains, having been given through baptism as a kind of earnest of the immortality to come. Therefore, each of you, opening the folds of your mind, as each is able, be filled abundantly with such goods. And may these things be not only a cause of sensible pleasure ^D and of the praises and applause which proceed from it, delighting only the hearing, but may they also confer spiritual nourishment; for they are able to convey benefit into the deeper parts of the soul, and to act as a good resource, putting forth thousand-fold fruits. Let the beginning of our discourse be such.

2. The grace—all-blessed and truly worthy of the divine-seeming priesthood of our own and the heavenly [priesthood]—which is bestowed by God, the divinely wise knowledge, is a divine and supernatural property, coming forth from the divine nature, the eternal source of all things which are truly good, and for us alone...

^A by the grace and munificence of the Benefactor, that our nature might be regenerated, and that we might be changed unto an angelic life and glory, and become partakers of the divine nature, whence it comes to pass for us to become conformed to the image of the Son of God, and in part to be made His body and members. For since the Creator fashioned man as another angel upon the earth, so that—as the greatest in theology, Gregory, says [27]—worship might not be circumscribed ^B to those above, but that there might also be worshippers below, so that all things might be filled with the glory of God; since God also desired that our life should—in accordance with the order and life, the divine status, and the everlasting glory of the angels—likewise be ordered; and just as their life is perennial, lacking every passion and vice, and free from every pain, sorrow, labor, and other calamities, so too our life should be devoid of all these things. So that one life, one way of life, one glory, and one Church might be seen in both, and that for this reason [the] heaven and the earth might become an incorruptible habitation, and one most appropriate for its inhabitants; ^C indeed, rather one temple of God, not made by hands, incorruptible, worthy of His glory, and of those who dwell in it, His true servants, having in the midst of themselves the Creator and Lord of all, who fills all things, and is present to all alike, and presides over all, and abundantly bestows His own good things: "Do I not," He says, "fill heaven and earth?" But after, through our negligence and the envy of the Enemy, we did not keep the first commandment, which was given to us for a test of free will, but instead considered the evil and envious counselor more worthy of trust ^D than the caring and good One, and preferred the perverse counsel to the Lordly and life-giving commandment, we exchanged, alas, immortality for death, incorruptibility for corruption, and our turning unto the earth from which we were created, and that [true] life for this one, which is most full of evils and sorrows and is contemptible. So that we too, no differently than beasts, are generated of carnal conjunction and corruption, and we require corruptible food, and drink, and sleep, and are subject to infinite diseases and as many other evils. Hence it has come to pass that we have been dissociated from the glory of God, and from the fellowship and company of the angels. For what communion is there for mortals with immortals? And we have been condemned to dwell with beasts, whose generation, and life, and corruption we have miserably received, having become their cohabitants and companions. Hence heaven was entirely closed to us, and this world-habitation of ours, which is about us, as well as its inhabitants, [was made] subject to corruption. And these things are indeed so; but the evil did not relax its course...

^A but this wretched nature of ours, as if not having had its fill of calamity, contends to become more disgraceful and worse than those very irrational creatures; using its free will against itself in the contrary way to that which it had received for glory and for perpetual progress toward what is good. And for this reason it is borne away toward unnatural passions, and those alien to its nature, defiling itself daily with mutual slaughters and with the corruption of males, and with other similar sins, which even the nature of irrational animals itself totally ignores as being alien. ^B Beyond these things, having cast off—alas!—both the Creator and Master, and the only good One and Provider for His own works, it departed finally from subjection and from the worship due to Him. And it has adhered to the murderer of men from the beginning, the avenger, the enemy, and the deceitful demon, looking to him and serving him as if he were a kind master and a benefactor, having become in this even more irrational than the irrational creatures themselves, as it is written by Isaiah: "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel has not known me, and my people considered not."

3. But these things are indeed what we are. Yet the good One did not think it right to leave His own creature without help. For this was not [worthy] of God nor of that philanthropy of His toward us. And therefore He rises up to show favor and to requite with benefits ^C just as much as we have miserably contended to be dragged down to the depths of wickedness against Him, whence He imparts His own goodness more abundantly. For He shares a second communion, far more marvelous than the former; for then indeed, when He brought us to being, He imparted to us His own grace, having fashioned us from that point in His own image and likeness; but later, the One who is surpassingly loving to mankind truly becomes man and partakes of our nature, and having taken the body of our humility, from that point on ^D

^B and having deified the nature assumed by Him according to our likeness, He imparts it to us for our participation and communion; so that, just as that One, having first partaken of our nature, became truly man, so also we, having partaken of His deified flesh, may become deified men. And for this reason, we are sons of God by grace, and His brothers according to the flesh, not only having with Him the consubstantiality according to the human element, but also the likeness, according to that which is glorified and deified. And for this reason, we are heirs of His glory and kingdom, which is the end of the [οἰκονομία] (dispensation) of the God-man Word regarding man, and of His benefit toward us which surpasses all mind and speech. But see how His manifold ^C wisdom works such a work truly worthy of God. When He had found His image broken by sin ^D bit. The same Chrysostom, in his Epistle to the Colossians, ch. 2, and elsewhere, has used this word in this signification. The Latins have not only called the incarnation of Christ a "dispensation," as the interpreter does in ch. 1, to the Ephesians, with these words: "In the dispensation of the fullness of times"; and Hilary, lib. XII, De Trinitate, when he says: "But as we have taught in the previous books, heretics seize upon the 'dispensation' of the assumed body to the dishonor of the Divinity"; and below: "Nor will 'dispensation' bring error," and elsewhere; but they have also retained the word "economy" in the same sense. Jerome, in his letter to Pammachius and Oceanus, speaking of Apollinaris, says: "He introduced a halved economy of Christ"; for that reason, obviously, because he denied the divine person of Christ to the human.

Rightly, Theophanes says that the image of God was not abolished by sin, but the likeness was utterly lost; for since the intellectual mind remained in him, which the Creator had made according to His own prototype, the likeness, which consisted in innocence, was indeed lost with the loss of grace, and the image itself, which had remained, was so obscured and deformed that it necessarily stood in need of reformation. Thus does Augustine explain, in lib. 2 of his Retractationes, that sentiment which he had written in this article in lib. 6, De Genesi ad litteram, ch. 27 and 28; so that he might free himself from the error of Origen in his Commentary on the first chapter of Genesis, where he teaches that Adam also lost his "natural" gifts (as they call them). Which heresy Epiphanius exposed and rejected in his letter to John of Jerusalem, translated into Latin by Jerome. Furthermore, concerning the image and likeness, taken in the way we have stated, Bernard writes theologically in Sermon 1, On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in this manner: "I consider the divine image to be that which is, of course, not assumed but inherent and impressed upon the nature itself, and which cannot be divided or severed. For man was made to the image and likeness of God: in the image, he has the freedom of the will and the virtues; in the likeness, he has [original state of innocence]. And the likeness indeed perished, but man passes on in the image; the image, indeed, can be burned in hell itself, but not consumed, scorched, but not destroyed. This, therefore, is not severed, but perhaps it propagates itself, and wherever it may arrive, the soul will be together with it. For the likeness is not so, but either remains in the good, or if the soul has sinned, it is miserably changed and made like to the unreasoning beasts." Thus far Bernard. I would not, however, hesitate, to return to Origen, to say that his words can be explained in a pious sense, especially since not very dissimilar words are found in other Fathers; for Irenaeus, lib. III, ch. 20, "As we had lost (he says) in Adam" (he speaks of the incarnation).

^A wisdom accomplishes such a God-worthy work. Having found his own image, which had been corrupted by sin and had entirely cast off the God-like likeness, he judged it necessary first, as it were, to re-smelt and re-form it, and thus to lead it back to its ancient beauty, or rather to a greater one. He does this, therefore, through divine baptism; for the creative power by which he formed man at the beginning according to the divine image and likeness—since it was through this that he intended to re-form him—the Artificer, out of a sort of wisdom and knowledge and active power, infuses into the water, having himself first entered into it and been baptized in it. ^B First indeed, as I have said, so that he might deposit in the water the re-formative grace; for he who takes away the sin of the world certainly did not need cleansing himself. Second, that he might bring those born again through baptism into brotherhood, himself becoming the firstborn among many brethren by means of the identity of the mode of that supernatural generation according to the flesh. For he also describes the font of holy baptism as a sort of image of the virginal and immaculate womb in which our nature was fashioned and subsequently born. For just as into that blessed and God-receiving womb, entering with his divinity bare, he fashioned anew the first fruits of our dough, joining it to himself and making it the Son of God in the very hypostatical union, through the advent of the all-holy Spirit, without male intercourse, thereby working that most blessed place—the witness of God's reconciliation to us and of the ineffable union—that is, the God-receiving womb, ^C as a fountain truly life-giving and re-formative of our nature from corruption to incorruption and God-like beauty, so, having entered into the water, no longer with his divinity bare, but with the first fruits of our dough—which had been filled and deified in the prototypical and life-giving font—he has made, by his own presence and that of the all-holy Spirit, another womb, as it were, that reforms our entire nature. For having demonstrated this to be a fountain of salvation, as Isaiah says, capable of regenerating in a supernatural manner, without carnal intercourse and without the laws of nature, all those who approach Christ, he makes them sons of God, and brothers of Christ by grace, on account of a certain [identity] of birth. ^D There is much difference, however, between—as it is said—smelting and re-forming us without fire, and re-creating us without breakage; the author of salvation. "What is this new mystery concerning me?"

^A For the first and second womb are to be compared, and the second—the font in which we are regenerated—is as incomparable in dignity to the first, which truly received and bore God, as the Lord who was born from the first is greater than those who are reborn from the second—or indeed, even more. For those who are regenerated from the second become brothers of Him who was born from the first, the Son of God, by grace; but the second womb possesses no such kinship with the first. Rather, the difference between them is as great as that between an external sign and the truth in its nature. For the one is the true Mother of God, because He who is above all substance truly assumed substance from her. The water of holy baptism, however, is received, as we have said, as a sign and figure of that life-giving and God-containing womb. Through it we are wondrously regenerated into sons of God without carnal union or other natural operations, and we are made conformed to the image of the natural Son of God—who Himself proceeded from that virginal and immaculate womb—but from the water we receive nothing that pertains to the substance of the new man created according to God. ^B For all that is provided by this second creation and regeneration is brought about by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

4. Therefore, through His incarnation—which exceeds every mind and reason—He exalted the firstfruits of our lump, that is, the human nature He assumed, to the highest degree of divinity, making what He had assumed a sharer in His own divinity, and then bestowed upon us unity of nature; sharing in flesh and blood with us, He became consubstantial with us. But through our second creation, which occurs by baptism, He received us into brotherhood by a certain similar mode of generation, as we have said; for He bestows brotherhood only on those reborn in the Spirit, who have already become gods by grace and as it were clothed in the image of the heavenly Adam, just as formerly that of the earthly one. ^C For from this they receive the divine form, and according to the example of His very humanity, which was raised to the highest degree of divinity, they are deified. Wherefore not all men are brothers of the Lord, but only those who have been reborn through holy baptism and have preserved the God-like beauty unstained to the end. For just as we would never call horses and dogs brothers, for the reason that our flesh, like theirs, consists of earth and is likewise mortal and passible, compacted with senses and blood-vessels, and, by the inhalation of air through the lungs, containing life as it were within itself—yet by the addition of reason we differ from their kinship and brotherhood, ^D accepting into communion with these only those who are endowed with reason—so too our Savior, having assumed our nature from us, did not wish it to be naked or devoid of divine glory, but through that very union enriched it with the properties of the divine nature. And therefore, having bestowed this grace worthy of God upon men

He makes them brothers to Himself, having rendered them in this way similar to His own human nature.

5. The Lord therefore recreates and regenerates our nature in this way. For the Holy Spirit, who fashioned flesh for Christ from the life-giving womb of the all-holy Virgin without carnal union, does this very thing through holy baptism in the font, recreating those who are being born again without carnal desires, similarly to those of whom the evangelist says, that they were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. What follows after this? He is pleased that we become not only uniform to Himself and His own brothers—nor does He stop the benefaction at this point—but that we should also be called His own body and members, since He is the Head of us who are members and a body, rather than being called a brother, because of the bond of His love which surpasses thought and reason. ^B And for this reason, those whom He is about to unite to Himself as His own members, He first renders similar in form to the Head through baptism, and then, through the participation and communion of His own body and blood, He grafts all these godlike members to Himself and to one another. For this is why baptism precedes the holy communion: for the members must first become similar to the Head, which, as has been said, the divine baptism accomplishes, and then be joined to the Head, which is effected through the fearful communion, which is also a kind of fuel for immortality. Regarding this... ^C ...sacrament, it calls that which the Fathers of Trent approve in session 13, chapter 2 and 8; and the Florentines, in the *Legation to the Armenians*. Hence it came about that this most holy sacrament is called by catachresis by the term "synaxis," as Dionysius records in chapter 3 of *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*. Among the Latins, the same term for communion is frequent in this sense, as we are taught in the most ancient canons of councils and in liturgical practices. Origen and, before him, Dionysius, wisely call the virtue of this sacrament by the same meaning, that is, as having the chief and most powerful force for reconciling and uniting the Christian people; and Clement of Alexandria called it the perfection and consummation of charity.

I am moved (as I said) by this passage to think that Theophanes lived long before the age of Andronicus the Elder. For after the baptism of adults ceased, this ceremony of receiving the Lord's body ^D also ceased. Furthermore, that it was customarily administered after baptism even to infants themselves is proven by the testimonies of many ancient writers. Tertullian, in his book *On Modesty*: "He receives," he says, "the ring then for the first time, with which, having been interrogated, he seals the pledge of faith, and thus from that time on he feeds on the richness of the Lord's body." The same is repeated in book IV *Against Marcion*; Dionysius, *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 2; Ambrose, book *On the Sacraments*, chapter 2; Jerome in his *Dialogue Against the Luciferians*; Augustine, book V of the *Hypognosticum*; Gregory, in the *Sacramentary*; the *Ordo Romanus*, and Alcuin.

Irenaeus, *Against Valentinus*, book V, chapter 2, similarly proves the resurrection of the flesh through the true participation of the flesh and blood of Christ, which passage is piously and learnedly defended against the calumnies of Oecolampadius by the bishop of Rochester, as also noted by Franciscus Fevardentius in his notes to that passage.

^A communion, first bringing it to perfection through himself, the Savior, when in the mystical supper he offered up his own body and his own blood, and gave these as food and drink to the apostles, having taken bread and wine and changed them into his own flesh by the perfecting Spirit, who also had first formed this from the virginal flesh and its blood, not needing now either a carnal nature for its accomplishment. Just as it was then in the Virgin, and thus he perfects us, having rendered us sons of God and co-heirs of his kingdom; so that he whom every creature, intellectual and sensible, adores as God, and who sits with the Father and the Spirit, we might have as a brother and as members to their own head, so that we may be joined to him and inseparably remain so for infinite ages.

^B 6. These, brothers, are the supernatural effects, these, brothers, the God-befitting works, exceeding all reason, of the indwelling of the Son of God in the flesh among us, to such a peak and incomparable glory has the lover of mankind, the Lord, raised our humble nature. Since, therefore, it was necessary that such an ineffable mystery of our deification should be perpetually exercised in those who were to come into this life as men, until the consummation of the world—this being their regeneration through holy baptism and their union with Christ, which comes about through the communion of the Lord’s body and blood—and that it should be perpetual and most firm; and since it was necessary that the Lord, after the passion and resurrection, should ascend into the heavens and sit at the right hand of the throne of majesty, he therefore bountifully bestowed upon his own apostles that creative grace of the Holy Spirit, through which the new creation and the regeneration of those who exist and who will exist until the consummation of the age were to be accomplished, committing his own work to them.

(40) He perfects. It is a technical term for divine mysteries, which we rightly call sacraments; for these are what bestow true perfection upon the soul. Therefore to perfect is the same as to initiate, to consecrate, and to sign with a divine character. For with Gregory the Theologian, if one does not read his writings sleepily, these are synonyms, as many passages in him can prove. That one occurs to me now, where, speaking of baptism, he calls it… (he says) in baptism (Gorgonia) perfect, consummated, and again ^D a seal, not grace, was this mystery (to her). So also Dionysius, *Eccles. Hierarch.*, cap. 1, and elsewhere, called baptism the blessed life. And with Paul this word is frequent in this sense: (he says to the Hebrews x) *For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with those same sacrifices which they offer continually make the comers thereunto perfect.* Nor should I think this word is to be understood otherwise in Matthew x: which the vulgate interpreter translates best: *Amen I say to you, you shall not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of man comes,* that is, as Hilary rightly interprets, the Gospel will not be admitted by the Jews until I come a second time on the day of judgment, for then, after the fullness of the Gentiles, as the Apostle said, they will be consummated, that is, they will be perfected with the character of Christianity and Evangelical faith. For it is the opinion of many Fathers that the Jews are to return to the acknowledgment of the truth at that time. See (after Ambrose, Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory the Great) Gaudentius, *tract. in Evang.* Furthermore, sacred writers have used the Latin word *perficere* in the same sense: Ambrose, *lib. de sacrament.*, cap. 2: *The spiritual seal follows because after the font it remains that perfection be made.* Augustine, *lib. contra Julianum*: *Let them be strong, therefore* (he says), *who deny that baptism perfects man.* In which passage he censures the heresy of the Massilians, which was led by this error (as Damascenus testifies).

^A His office to accomplish this He attributed to them, and for this reason He created them as it were gods and creators, mighty through the power of the omnipotent Spirit to perform the greatest works of divine power. And indeed, from them is the manifold wisdom and power of God especially made manifest, and the unsearchable riches of His goodness are revealed, for which cause also the blessed Paul said: *We are God's co-workers.* For of all the works, both spiritual and corporeal, which God has made, the greatest—by incomparable degrees of excellence—is the holy soul and flesh of the Lord. For what is greater than that our nature, according to the hypostatic union, should become the nature of the Word of God? Therefore, by as much as the humanity of the Savior excels the very Cherubim and Seraphim (and it excels by as much as the Lord excels the servant), by so much does the generation of the divine flesh surpass the creation of the heavenly powers. This exceptional work, therefore, He gave to the apostles also to perform, and through them to their successors, and thereafter to the rest even unto the consummation ^B of this life. For taking bread and wine, by the energy of the Holy Spirit, into the Body and Blood of the Lord—O the miracle!—they transmute them; and they have received the power to loose and to bind sins, which is a work belonging to God alone. And taking men, through the holy baptism they regenerate and reshape them into sons of God and gods by grace, just as if someone were to take a horse and reshape it into the nature of a man; or rather, these are greater by far than the many things mentioned. For it is a greater thing to transmute bread and wine into the divine Body, and to make man a god by grace, than to make heaven and angels.

7. This creative and deifying grace and power of the good Spirit, therefore, beloved, which can perform that which is greater than all creatures in a twinkling, the priest—O the philanthropy and gift of the Word of God toward us!—undoubtedly receives. For he too, in like manner, taking bread and wine, by the divine power dwelling in him through the anointing of the priesthood, changes them into the Body and Blood of the Lord; thereby performing a work greater, as has been shown, than if he were able to create angels and heavens. And again, taking a mortal man, through holy baptism he makes him a son of God ^C and a god by grace; performing a work greater than if he were able to raise the dead, and restore to health and integrity by a word the dislocated and mutilated limbs of the body. If, therefore, there were to appear among us upon the earth a man able by his word to create angels and heavens, and to raise the dead, and to heal incurable diseases, what sort of man ought such a one to be? Pure and in virtue incomparable, so that he might receive such power and potency of God and become, after God, another creator? If it were permitted him, in truth, to die a thousand times daily for Christ, still ^D

he would not have performed a work worthy in return for this gift. ^A But the things performed by the priest are shown to be greater than such works by far and by an incomparable measure. What sort of person, then, must he be who has received the grace of the priesthood, being divine and supernatural? One may reckon from this that he must be the most exact imitator of Christ, following in the footsteps of that first high priest and ministrant, and of those sacred things, and the leader of the rites. Whence, one would not be wrong, beloved, to call the priesthood a creative power of God, or a divine science, having as its end the working, through certain symbols as though they were instruments, to make man a god by grace and conformed to the image of the Son of God according to nature; ^B and to transmute the bread and wine mixed with water into the Lord’s body and blood, and to attach those reborn through baptism as members to Christ, the Head. Since, therefore, no one fettered by the bonds of the flesh could truly be found a worthy steward of such supernatural mysteries—for these things are desirable and fearful even to the angels themselves—to despise or neglect the purity that it is granted to men to acquire, and not to endeavor with all one’s strength to propose to oneself the imitation of the Savior’s life on earth, that would surely be the sign of an ungrateful mind and a despiser of divine things, and therefore worthy of an intolerable punishment; for "to whom much is given, much will be required of him." Although that ancient priesthood of the Hebrews was indeed a figure and image of this high and heavenly one of ours; for by blood and by the slaughter of irrational animals it was permitted ^C to it to cleanse, not of the soul, but of the body, its stains and defilements. And, to speak in a word, all things that were performed through it were a shadow, as the divine Apostle says, of the good things to come, as much inferior to our things as the earth is distant from heaven. And because of this, in proportion to the difference between our priesthood and theirs, and our priests and theirs differing proportionally—that is, as much as men are distant from angels—nevertheless, Nadab and Abiud, being the sons of Aaron and priests, having committed a certain unlawful act (for they attempted to offer incense to God with strange fire contrary to the law), they paid the penalty for their transgression on the spot, becoming at once fuel for that fire, and even their father Aaron was of no avail for their salvation. But what need is there to speak of these, when even Aaron himself, ^D the divinely chosen and first high priest among them—he who was second after Moses before God—having slightly offended God, was pitiably cut off from life, not even Moses his brother being able to deliver him from his punishment? And what then of Heli the priest? Although he was good and irreproachable in himself, yet on account of the iniquity of his sons alone, he ended his life by a dire sort of death; and he had surely often rebuked them with words, although he had not chastised them as severely and gravely as he ought. If, therefore, those who were delinquent under the shadow of the law

teachers and masters of those who were as yet infants in spiritual age, were visited with such dreadful and inevitable punishments, what penalties, I ask you, beloved, await the ministers of the supernatural mysteries, the fellow-servants of angels, the co-workers of God, who perform the initiation of those whom they bring to the mysteries, and who, by the spirit of adoption, render them perfect in the stature of Christ, if they fail to keep that deifying unction of the priesthood as pure and unalloyed as they possibly can? For as great as is the difference in dignity between the legal and the Christian priesthood, so great a purity and excellence of life, answering in proportion, will be required in both. For this reason our Savior also said: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

^B 8. For this reason, beloved, one must be attentive to, and each man must keep, his own vessel, as the divine Paul says, in sanctification, or rather the vessel of God. For is the hand of the priest not a certain sacred forceps touching the Lord's body? Or are not the mouth and the whole body a certain sacred chalice, containing the body and blood of Christ, much more honorable than these inanimate forceps and cups, since it becomes both a vessel and, in a part, a limb of the Lord's body that is received? Tell me, then, by God: if anyone were to have stained these holy and sacred vessels—I mean the divine forceps [(42)] and the cup—with an audacious mind, and had dared to pour some unclean and foul thing into them, would we not accuse him of impiety and supreme transgression, and judge him worthy to pay the penalty with a thousand deaths, because he insolently and impiously violated the most sacred things? He, therefore, who stains with various and manifold spots the most holy vessel of the priesthood, which is gilded by the Holy Spirit and which, as we have said, is much more honorable than inanimate sacred things, inasmuch as it is a limb of Christ, of what punishment will he be worthy? And yet, surely the divine apostle Paul threatens these same things formidably not only to priests, but in general to all the faithful: "Do you not know," he says, "that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him."

^D 9. For this reason, the priestly hands, these divine forceps, as has been said, must be cleansed of all theft, of all rapine and base desire for another's goods, and must not serve anger or desire, nor handle ill-

-^A-gotten flesh. That is to say, they must not be used like those of an executioner against one's brothers, since they have received from God a medicinal grace for the healing of souls; nor must they be extended for the sake of wanton pleasure into any execrable act. They are the same hands that announce the death of the Lord through that formidable and ineffable sacrifice; therefore, they ought to be dead and motionless toward every obscene pleasure, but toward every good work, they ought to be ever ready and eager. For this reason, a priest—who acts as a mediator between God and man—should ever raise them up to God in every place, pure, without wrath and disputation, praying for his own sins and those of the people; and he should extend them toward men to assist the oppressed, to visit the sick, and to provide for the needy. These things cleanse ^B the priestly hands much better than all hyssop. And if no priest would ever dare to touch the divine mysteries with unclean and defiled hands until he had washed them well with water, ought he not, then, be much more diligent in cleansing them with the aforementioned virtues? For these do not merely wash away the filth of the flesh or its surface, but they render the depths of the soul whiter than snow. These living and priestly tongs, therefore, O beloved, must be cleansed, and only then brought to the sacred mysteries. For if that Uzzah ^C, when he touched the Ark—which was but a shadow and a figure—perished immediately because it was not lawful for him, with what reverence, fear, and humility of soul ought one to approach and draw near to the archetypes and heavenly realities? And furthermore, by what standard must the chalice and vessel that receives the divine body and blood of the Savior—I mean the mouth of the priest—be purified? It will be worth our while, therefore, to bring forward into the midst and make clear to all both those things which defile and those which can purge, so that we may admonish them to abstain from the former with all diligence, and to embrace the latter eagerly and avidly. Now, the uncleanness of the mouth consists of blasphemy and words of ingratitude toward God, uttered in impiety out of excessive faithlessness and pusillanimity in the midst of trials; furthermore, it includes swearing, and even more so, perjury, which is a plain denial of God. Likewise, ^D a lie is the most wicked offspring of the devil, the cause of the ancient perdition, the bait of the ancestral sin and of death, and the destruction of all who use it. For "Thou shalt destroy," he says, "all them that speak a lie." In addition to these, there is slander, insult, and railing—those most bitter shoots of the bitter root, which is to say, of misanthropy; but not only these, also obscenity, foolish talking, and scurrility, which do not befit us, and clamor and corrupt speech. For the divine Apostle exhorts us to abstain from these and all such things. And rightfully so: for if

^A we are to render an account, brethren, for an idle word, much more shall we be held accountable for the things aforementioned. And why do I speak of words? When we shall have to render an account even for the thoughts themselves, as the blessed Paul says: *And their thoughts the one accusing or else excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men* (Rom. II, 15). And these are indeed the muddy pollutions of the mouth, and poisonous draughts, which truly kill the soul. But the things that are accustomed to make the mouth brighter than gold and precious stones, and a worthy receptacle of divine grace—which are the opposites of those aforementioned (for, as physicians say, opposites are cured by opposites)—are these: gratitude, which one renders to God constantly, not only in prosperous times, but much more in temptations. For one must know that adversities are curative medicines for our soul and for its internal and inveterate disease, being indeed keen and biting, but capable of restoring health more easily than all other medicines. Therefore, there is need, as has been said, of patience with thanksgiving in such things. For if we do not endure their astringency for a time, we shall not obtain the healing that comes from them. ^B Likewise, prayer, psalmody, and constant glorification must be done with attention and care. For if we do not attend precisely to what is recited, but the tongue speaks while the mind remains fruitless, occupied with worldly thoughts or some soul-destroying passions, we provoke the Lord to indignation rather than to mercy. For this reason, the divine Apostle Paul, having said, *Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody* (Eph. V, 18-19), added, *in your heart to the Lord*; that is, do not offer your glorification with the lips only, but much more with the heart, that is to say, with attention, affection, and compunction. For indeed, it is possible for one, while praying and glorifying God solely with the heart, without lips and tongue, to be heard by God; since Moses, while silent in mouth, was speaking to God with his heart alone, and heard from Him who searches the hearts: *Why criest thou to me?* (Exod. XIV, 15). But it is impossible for anyone to pray ^C properly with the tongue without the heart. For God rebuked the Jews who thought they honored Him with the mouth only, without the heart, saying through Isaiah: *This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me* (Isa. XXIX, 13; Matth. XV, 8). ^D [index: entries preserved]

^A And concerning prayer and the singing of psalms, this is my view. One must also study and read the divine oracles with understanding and searching, just as our Lord commanded, saying: *Search the Scriptures* (John V, 39); and not only this, but also not to refrain from teaching and admonishing others. But before all things, and in all things, you must hold fast to the truth, which is the natural good of the holy Spirit. For the Lord claimed this name for Himself above all else as His own, saying: *I am the truth* (John XIV, 6), and *The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father* (John XV, 26). Let it be your earnest care to repay with blessings and praises not only those who love you, but also those who hate you. *For bless*, He says, *those who persecute you; bless and curse not* (Rom. XII, 14). But before these things, beloved, you must consider it necessary to resolve and cast away, before the setting of the sun, any anger or enmity toward your neighbor, if such a thing should ever happen to you through the instigation of the demon who loves war. *For let not the sun go down upon your wrath* (Eph. IV, 26); nor let anyone, while harboring wrath in his soul, touch the sacred gifts rashly, until he has made peace and been reconciled with his brother according to the Lord's commandment. For peace and hatred cannot dwell together, just as light and darkness cannot; ^B and Christ is our peace, who has made both one, as the divine Apostle says (Eph. II, 14). Therefore, it is impossible for those who harbor any enmity and ill-will in themselves against anyone to receive Christ, the Prince of peace, into their heart in any way, unless they have first vomited out that deadly poison and cast it far from their soul.

11. These are the purgatives and medicinal remedies for soul and body. These are what perfect priests, that they may be divine vessels, capable of the priestly and deifying grace of the Holy Spirit. These are, to sum up the matter briefly, the conditions and properties that constitute a venerable and priestly manner of life. For I omit telling of deadly sins—namely, fornication and all other carnal impurity; furthermore, murder ^C and sorcery and demonic incantations... ^D especially since this was known even to the heathens themselves. *Truth*, says the Greek poet, *is a citizen of heaven, and alone enjoys the banquet of the gods.* The most ancient Pythagoreans used to say that men become like the gods through truth. The Stoics afterward cried out that nothing was more precious than truth. We read that voice of the Academics, never sufficiently understood or praised: *He cannot be happy who lies.* The most effeminate Peripatetics, finally, constant in this one thing, say: *It is pious to desert friends, one's own affairs, and oneself for the sake of truth.* They say that certain peoples, describing their god, whom they called Onomagden, asserted that he was like light in body and truth in soul.

(48) Homicidium: The Vatican text has *phthonou* [envy], but with a note of correction for *phonou* [murder]. But since the earlier reading is held in the Messanian [manuscript], it has seemed best to retain it.

^A And incantations and divinations, which it is not right even to contemplate in one’s thoughts, nor to defile the heart with their memory; for it is said, "He who looks at a woman to lust for her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And such things are called mortal sins, because it is impossible for a priest who has been caught in such a passion and transgression to possess the priesthood worthily, even if he were to raise the dead. And let these things be said generally to all priests and to the rest who have been deemed worthy of the rank of the divine altar. For their goal too is to reach the perfect degree of the priesthood. And therefore they must apply themselves to the aforementioned sweat and labors just as the presbyters do, and strive vigorously alongside them; "For those who have served well," he says, "gain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus." ^B But those who have been allotted the gift of the priesthood to heal the thoughts of men and the maladies of their souls, and who have received from Christ the authority to loose and bind sins, will have need of even greater diligence, and of greater sweat and labors of virtue, by how much they have been deemed worthy of a greater gift and glory. And for this reason they owe the constant and diligent study of the sacred and divine canons, so that they might dare to perform nothing outside of them, but rather hasten to heal the souls of men according to their statutes.

But above all, one must be an unashamed workman, showing oneself a good example to others, apt to teach, hospitable, a consoler of those who are grieving; always holding fast to the word of exhortation, generous to the poor, a bridle for the opulent, not given to wine—that is, not injurious, according ^C to the divine Paul's exhortation—not a striker, not greedy for base gain, but gentle, without contention, correcting with modesty those who oppose the truth, "if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." By doing all these things, beloved, you will save yourselves and those who hear you.

Pray also for us, that our affairs may advance day by day toward the increase of the Gospel of Christ, and that we may run the course set before us with patience, ^D looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, so that both we as shepherds and you as the flock may be deemed worthy of the heavenly fold in Him, Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST Spoken for deliverance from plague and death.

Eucharistic Oration to Our Lord Jesus Christ for deliverance from plague and death.

Oratio qua Domino nostro Jesu Christo gratiæ aguntur pro liberatione pestis ac 52 mortis.

^A Master Lord Jesus Christ our God, the super-substantial and super-vital, truly Self-Life and the Author and Giver of Self-Life, whom every intellectual and rational nature insatiably desires and enjoys by participation in a life that is divine and eternal; who alone possess immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, the life-giving power of all who in any way partake of life, and the resurrection of the dead; at whose fear the gates of death are opened to You, and the gatekeepers of Hades, when they saw You, trembled and shuddered; You, who for the sake of our forefather and the author of our race, because of his disobedience—and the subsequent death of the soul, that is, the separation from You which he suffered by his own judgment—mercifully disciplined him with the blow of bodily death, so that ^B he might not make this, the consequence of his transgression, an immortal evil; but later again, through the unspeakable bowels of Your mercies, entirely...

52 Regarding deliverance from plague: It was frequent for the holy bishops of the past age, when some calamity assailed the crowds in their charge, to offer prayers to God for the attainment of deliverance, and, once attained, to recite hymns and eucharistic panegyrics to that same God, the Dispeller of evils. We have, as evidence of the former case, the oration of Cyprian on mortality, that of Gregory the Theologian on the plague of hail, and that of Chrysostom entitled, *On the Calamity of the City of Antioch*. Of the latter, we have the one by the same author which begins: *When the past storm*—in which thanks are given to God for the resolution of the evils expected from the sedition—and that which begins: *The devil disturbed our city not a little yesterday*. Dionysius also, the Alexandrine bishop, a man most holy and most learned, of whom there is frequent and honorable mention in Eusebius, when he was in exile under Valerian and could not be present to admonish his people during the time of the plague, is said to have admonished them in his absence by letter.

53 Regarding bodily death: The human composition was of clay, so that it was necessary for it to be dissolved in the end, because of the particles of elements mutually warring against each other, of which it was compacted: or as Nazianzen speaks in his forty-second oration, which is on Easter, because it was composed of visible and pre-produced matter, whereas matter itself, as Moses says, was αόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος [invisible and unformed]. Man, therefore, as a consequence of his nature, was bound eventually to perish. But when the heavenly Fashioner had given to this, His creature, an intellectual soul as a companion—a life-giving breath, a divine image, an act living in itself, simple, pure, and therefore eternal and immortal—He bestowed that same eternity upon the body as a free gift. A gift it was, indeed, given freely, yet revocably—that is, if only man remained in the duty and obedience of his Creator. But when he immediately rebelled against Him, he fell from that benevolence and was stripped of the privilege of eternity, and became the cause of his own funeral, as the Spaniard Pacianus, bishop of Barcelona, rightly says. Septimius Florens also, in his book *Against the Jews*, wisely says that he committed homicide upon himself. The wise King looked to this: *Justice* (he says) *is perpetual and immortal, but injustice is the acquisition of death, and the impious summoned it with their hands and with words*, from which place comes that famous passage of the Apostle to the Romans, chapter six. Although, however, on account of sin, and as its punishment, death entered the world, this very casting down had nevertheless, as being inflicted by a most benevolent Judge, no small measure of clemency and mercy. For if we were immortal, what would be more miserable for us? We are pressed by inconveniences, we are overwhelmed by evils; no manner of life, no part, no day, no hour, no moment of time is free from labors, and these are the unhappy fruits of an unhappy seed—what then, if we were liable to them eternally? Wherefore, piously and truly, Theophanes attributes the mortality of our race to divine mercy.

^A And later, again, by the ineffable bowels of your compassions, you recalled him in his entirety from the bitter tyranny of Hades and from its bonds, by a mode of ineffable dispensation, having become like us in all things, yet without sin, born of a virgin and pure womb; and, having endured voluntary death, by that death you cast down him who had the power of death, that is, the devil—for it was not possible for you, the Author of Life, to be held by him; and for this reason you forced him to vomit forth together with you those whom he had previously swallowed; by your power his bronze gates were crushed and his iron bars broken, and his gloomy and dismal prison was left empty and deserted. ^B And now, having struck and chastened us, who were slipping and having wandered far from you through the transgression of your life-giving commandments and the following of our own evil minds and the desires of the flesh, with the scourge of plague and death—especially in the infant and untimely age—that we, who had become guilty and liable to death through our sins, might fear, and recoil from our every vice and fleshly pursuit, and flee to your mighty and invincible hand and your uplifted arm; we offer thanks and magnify you with fear and longing because of the magnitude of your gifts, your forgetfulness of injuries.

In this, indeed, he has imitated the most ancient of both Latins and Greeks, who say that Adam, after the sin, was forbidden the wood of life so that he might not live in misery forever. ^C Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 37: "God hated him who seduced man, but he slowly and gradually pitied him who was seduced. Therefore, he both cast him out of paradise and moved him far from the tree of life, not envying him the tree of life, as some say, but pitying him, so that he might not remain a transgressor forever, nor might that which was evil around him—his sin, an interminable and incurable malady—be immortal." Hilary also, in his commentary on Psalm 68: "Adam," he says, "God cast out of paradise after the fault, lest, by touching the tree of life, he should remain in the eternity of punishment." The Theologian in his panegyric on the Nativity of the Savior, which is in the Bilian edition: "And here too (Adam after the transgression) attains death and the cutting off of sin, lest evil should be immortal." Thus, the punishment itself passed over into mercy. For I know for certain that this is the manner of God in chastising. Chrysostom is read to the same effect in his homily on chapter 3 of Genesis; and Jerome, in Isaiah, chapter 65. Indeed, ^D it also pertains to this place to note that it is correctly said by Theophanes that the death of the first parent followed from his fall, against the Jew Josephus and the heretic Pelagius, who affirmed that he would have died even if he had not sinned. Which error was condemned by the African Fathers in the Council of Milevis, canon 1, and in the African synod convened against Pelagius and Coelestius, canon 75, and in the Tridentine session on Original Sin. Jerome in his commentaries on Job, chapter 3; Augustine in his book *On Heresies*, to Quodvultdeus, and book 13 of *The City of God*, chapters 14 and 15, and his book *On the Merits of Sins*, chapters 2, 4, and 6; Fulgentius, *On the Incarnation and Grace*, chapter 12; Prosper against the *Collatio*, chapter 21; Bernard in his sermon to the soldiers of the Temple, chapter 11; and among the Greeks, Chrysostom in his homily on Genesis; Basil in his sermon on the abandonment of the world, and others.

(54) *The untimely age of infants.* These words are lacking in the Messanensis.

(55) *Led by fear and love.* These provide the sinews of all spiritual growth: the love and fear of God are the columns that support the Christian structure, the poles that direct the perilous navigation of the present life. "What does the Lord your God ask of you," cried Moses, "but that you fear the Lord your God, and walk in his ways, and love him?" Much has been said openly about love. I would like to speak, however, of fear. This often occurs to me concerning this most present medicine for internal evils; for it seems to agree so well with its name and its nature (if you examine the opinions of ancient sages, upon whom the divine light had not shone) that nothing is less so. Fear, say the Peripatetics, is a certain pain and perturbation. But what says the Lord through Sirach? "The fear of the Lord is glory and glorification, and gladness, and a crown of exultation." The companion of fear is mental stupor and ignorance, but divine fear is the beginning of wisdom, the consummation of sense, the discipline of knowledge, the illumination of hearts, and, as the Theologian wittily wrote, the first swaddling band of discipline. It was for the Stoics to be destitute of fear through faith and hope. On the contrary, to the children of those who fear the Lord there is hope and confidence of strength, and they shall not be unfaithful to the word of God, for faith is the binding of fear. Fear begets hatred, as we are instructed by ancient aphorisms and taught by examples. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of love, and the delight of mercy. What is more akin to fear than to fear? Yet those who fear the Lord shall not tremble, they shall not be afraid, for he himself is their hope. And the Greek writer towards this meaning: It is impossible that he who truly fears God should be found in [base] fear. Finally, what is more alien to those who are feared than to be subject to the command of those who fear them? Nevertheless, the most benign Lord, whom we fear, makes himself the will of those who fear him. We shall conclude this place...