Whoever you are, therefore, who have been placed in adversity, I entreat you to lend your ear diligently for a little while to my words, so that I may, as far as I am able, offer you consolation from the fountains of the Scriptures. If, therefore, you are constrained by poverty and overwhelmed by the weight of penury; if you have lost your worldly rank and life's ignominy weighs upon you; if an ensuing languor weakens the strength of your limbs; if, because your dear ones and children have passed away, the sadness of this world has disturbed your soul and mind; or if, filled with the marks of leprosy throughout your body and limbs, you have lacked the company and the crowd of the people: do not, however, once placed in these adversities, be broken or collapse in your mind. Rather, take refuge in the precepts of God, that you may draw consolation for your calamity from them; so that, instructed by the Lord’s words, like a most excellent navigator, you may guide your vessel—that is, the conduct of your life—into the harbor of tranquility. A Do not, therefore, most beloved brother, desire to imagine that God brings chastisement upon us because of hatred; nay, rather, His true charity toward us is most greatly proven. For so the Lord Himself warns you through Solomon in the Proverbs: *My son, do not fail from the discipline of the Lord, nor despair when you are corrected by him: for whom the Lord loves, he chastises.* For a father also, however much he loves his most dear son, chastises him when he is found in fault; and a master often beats his disciple so that he may improve for the better.
2. Moreover, there is a twofold cause for which punishment is divinely inflicted upon men. He scourges the just man meanwhile, so that he may be amended for the better, and may correct the ways of his former conversation. And I will prove by divine utterances that this is so. But first it is fitting to explain that the just man is afflicted for this reason: that he may be tested through many trials. *Count it all joy, my brethren, when you have fallen into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience,* says James in his Canonical letter. Item, in what follows he sets it down and says: *Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been tested, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.* Wherefore, then, it is to be rejoiced, most beloved, when this body of ours is afflicted, or when it is examined by the heavy labors of God's judgment. For it is not fitting for a Christian to glory so much in prosperity as in adversity. Hear, finally, in what Paul glories. *We glory,* he says, *in the hope of the glory of the children of God: not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, because tribulation produces patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope; and hope does not put us to shame, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.* See how great are the virtues that arise for just men from tribulations. And just as the soil when it is rich and fertile, unless it be tilled sharply and continually by the industry of the farmer, not only denies fruit to men, but on the contrary generates thorns: so the just man, unless he has been B continually and assiduously worn down, not only does not profit, but sometimes incurs a fall. And that this is so, we are taught by the example of the aforementioned master. Who, although he was conscious of many virtues in himself, and had advanced in such merits before God that he was caught up even to the third heaven, and led into paradise, and had heard ineffable words: yet, lest the tumor of pride invade him on account of his virtues, and he lose the grace of his merits, divine providence delivered him to the angel of Satan to be buffeted; in which, he exulting, thus wrote to the Corinthians: *Because of the greatness of the revelations, lest I should be exalted, there was given to me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me, that I may not be exalted. For which I thrice besought the Lord that it might depart from me, and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for virtue is made perfect in infirmity;* and again: *I am pleased in my infirmities, in contumelies, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ: for when I am weak, then I am strong.*
3. We ought, therefore, to receive with gratitude and patience all the adversities of the world C which are brought upon us, knowing that we are then most certainly in God’s memory. For he is very delicate who, placed in this life, wishes to enjoy every joy abundantly, and in the future age to obtain celestial gifts. For who among the saints has ever been able to be exempt from the dangers of the world? For you will not find that anyone has migrated from this world without temptations; but all, most patiently enduring the various tribulations which the world has, have reached the true and incorrupt glory. Finally, Abraham the patriarch was filled with such grace of faith, and had loved the Lord to such a degree, that he almost killed his most dear son with a sword for His sake. For he preferred to be called a parricide than to pass over the command of God; for he was foreknowing of the saving voice saying: *He who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.* In order, therefore, that he might be held worthy of God, according to His precept, he was offering his only son as a sacrifice; and he did not grieve at having to kill with his own hands the one whom he considered his heir. Why, therefore, did he not grieve? Because divine love had inflamed his heart, and the heat of his faith had extinguished all pain. Such, therefore, and so great a patriarch was Abraham, thus amiable to God and dear, to whom even the Lord Himself bore witness, saying: *Now I know that you fear your God, and have not spared your most dear son for my sake,* he could not be exempt, so as to lead a secure life without tribulation and temptations; but having endured all adversities, he deserved to be called the father of all the saints. Finally, when at a certain time he felt the pestilence of famine prevailing in the land, and had descended into Egypt with Sarra his wife, fearing that he might be killed by the Egyptians on account of the beauty of his wife, he said to her: *Do not say that you are my wife.*
A I believe that there is no doubt for anyone what sort of mind a person possesses when he suspects that death is imminent for him, when he fancies that near death is being brought upon him by someone. Neither food nor drink is sweet to him, but bitter; and even when sleep overcomes him, even then in his dreams he perceives himself being butchered by an executioner. Although he, protected by the aid of God, remained unharmed by all these things, nevertheless, worn down by suspicion, a great fear had seized him. He suffered another similar tribulation in the land of Gerar under King Abimelech, B and by the will of God he was honored with the greatest honors by those whom he feared as adversaries and by whom he thought death to be imminent. Isaac, his son, also endured a similar tribulation in the land of Gerar; for he himself, fearing that he might be killed, confessed that Rebecca his wife was his sister C, but nonetheless he suffered very great tribulations. Finally, when Jacob was fleeing from Esau his brother on account of the blessing, he took to flight to the land of Mesopotamia in fear of death. And when the brothers of his son Joseph sold him into Egypt and brought word to their father, saying that he had been devoured by a beast, they caused him such great grief that, rending his own garments and clothing himself in the squalor of sackcloth, he mourned his beloved son as lost. Joseph himself also, having suffered many trials, was made worthy. Finally, on account of envy he was reduced to slavery by his brothers in Egypt. Therefore, his master, seeing his good conduct, appointed him steward of his house. But the mistress, because of the appearance of his beauty, was basely fettered in love for the youth, and, captured by the filth of lust, she attempted to assail the servant of Christ. And when, inflamed by such passions, she often invited him to perform the most villainous deed, and he refused to commit so horrid a crime, she found him working alone one day and approached. She grabbed him shamelessly by his garment and, with mouth filled with deadly poison, said to him: *Lie with me.* D O pernicious exhortation! O most shameless woman, do you offer me this temporal enticement so that you may defraud me of eternal joy? Why do you try to pour into me a pestilential and incurable disease with your viperous mouth? Why do you offer sweet words for my deception, which are full of guile and bitterness? Indeed, your lips seem to sing, but such sweetness is to be avoided, which in the end becomes gall. For through you the devil cast the first-formed Adam from paradise: but that expulsion will serve for my caution. I was sold so that I might render service to you, not so that I might consent to your most foul adultery; I was sold so that I might provide you with service, not so that I might lose my chastity, but rather that I might confess myself to be a brother, lest at some point A I should lose my reward for the sake of the envy of my brothers. Let it be that I have been made a servant of men, that I may not be made a slave to sin. I follow the footsteps of my fathers, I do not suffer myself to be a partaker of your crime. Then Joseph, leaving his garments in her hands, went out naked; although naked of the clothing of the body, yet clothed in the glory of chastity. The garment indeed, which grows old and is devoured by moths, he left behind; but he departed clothed in modesty, which always flourishes, and he did not suffer himself to be irritated by most filthy pleasure. But that shameless woman, when she sees herself confounded and overcome by a most chaste man, turns all the heat of her lust into fury, and upon the husband’s arrival, she accuses the innocent one with words. *You have brought a boy into our house,* she said, *to mock us.* But he, persuaded by her deceitful words, immediately cast him into prison; but God was with him. And although he was confined and humbled in chains, the purity of his mind set him free: and even if his limbs shuddered from the squalor of the dungeon, the modesty of his soul shone forth. But the Lord, who is always present to the innocent and who is accustomed to exalt the humble, delivered him from all tribulations, and established him as lord of all the land of Egypt. And he, whom his brothers had sold into slavery, a little later, unmindful of all those evils, provided food for his brothers; and because he bore a type of our Lord the Savior, he returned good for evil. C 4. Therefore, let Job be brought forward into our midst, who as a general remedy is sufficient to strengthen weak and infirm minds well enough. For if anyone, oppressed by whatever miseries, if anyone occupied by countless calamities, will have carefully observed this man with the gaze of his mind, he will find the greatest consolation for his own grief from him. For this man had so committed himself to divine service, and he worshipped the Lord in such an irreproachable manner, that he deserved to be praised by His proclamation. For thus the divine Scripture testifies: *The Lord said,* it says, *to the devil: Have you considered with your mind my servant Job, that there is no one like him on the earth, a man blameless, a true worshiper of God?* But he was also so solicitous on behalf of his children that he offered daily sacrifices for them. And indeed, although Scripture mentions no sins of the children, he, however, who truly and religiously loved his children, feared lest perhaps in their heart, as men are wont, they might think something against God, of malice; and, terrified by mere opinion, he purified the hearts of his children through divine offerings. How many parents today see their children openly neglecting many things and sinning, and not only do they not offer sacrifices for them, but they do not even utter a word to rebuke them, that they might abandon their perverse ways! And while they are unwilling to sadden them for a moment, they generate eternal sadness for them! But such parents show that they do not have true love, but false: for if they loved them, at any rate according to the Scripture...
they would diligently correct them; but for this reason, perhaps, they neglect their sinning children, because they never had concern for their own salvation. But the blessed Job, just as he himself served the Lord without complaint, so he cared for the hearts of his children with gifts and offerings. And listen to him saying how merciful he was toward faithful widows: "The mouth of the widow," he says, "blessed me: but I was clothed with justice. I was clothed with judgment as with a cloak. I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame. I was the father of the powerless." A But that he possessed infinite riches, the Scripture testifies. "There were," it says, "seven sons of Job, and three daughters; and his cattle were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and he had a very great household." B Therefore, hearing him praised by the divine voice, that rival of good things burned with the bile of envy, and asked of the Lord that he might hand over his goods to his control: and behold, suddenly he sets out to ravage all his substance in various ways, and then reports one thing after another—the prey of the beasts of burden, the burning of the sheep, and after these, the slaughter of the servants. For the devil himself, who was doing all these things, was also the one delivering the news. Yet, although he brought such destruction unexpectedly, he could not break the virtue of his faith or incline his mind to words of blasphemy. For Job knew that he had brought nothing into this world, and that he could take nothing away. C But at the last, when the death of his sons and daughters was announced to him, his bowels were stirred, and he tore his own garment, and sheared the hair of his head, and cast dust upon it. Yet, in doing this, his mind was not swayed into words of blasphemy; but turning immediately to the praises of God, he fell to the ground, worshipped, and said: "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked also shall I go under the earth. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it has pleased the Lord, so has it been done; blessed be the name of the Lord." The most holy Job shows us a great lesson, that our mind should remain unshaken D against all the turbulent waves of the world, lest, exhausted by adversities, we erupt into words of blasphemy; but that we should use the same words as he himself used, saying: "Blessed be the name of the Lord for eternity." But the insatiable adversary, when he could do nothing to him even after afflicting him with so many losses, and when he had heard him praised again by the divine power, said to the Lord: "Skin for skin, and all things that a man has, he will give for his soul: but stretch forth your hand, and touch his bones and his flesh, and see if he does not bless you to your face." Then the Lord, foreknowing all things to come, handed over to him the body only, but commanded him to guard the soul. The Lord handed him over, not that he might obey the will of the devil, but that he might make his servant more proven, and that his A perseverance might shine forth in the whole world. Then he struck Job with a most grievous wound from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; and he took a potsherd to scrape away the discharge of his sores, and sat on the dung heap outside the city, he who a little before sat on a royal throne; and all who were once in fear of him as subjects now looked down upon him. B Therefore, to such a one, and so great, who stood out in such excellence, his wife now offers food—or rather, the recompense of her own work, she who even attempted to bring perpetual punishment upon him, saying: "Say a word in the Lord, and die." But that philosophical man, filled with the teaching of all patience, despised and rejected such counsel, saying: "You have spoken as one of the foolish women: if we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure the bad?" See the weight of his temptations, that you may recognize the greatness of his patience. He was sublime in his power, abounding in riches, copious in children; and stripped of all these, he appeared naked. For it is the custom of athletes to go forth to the contest naked. Deservedly, therefore, this blessed man, about to engage against the devil, was stripped of all his goods as if by a certain garment; but placed in such a contest, I believe he spoke these words against the devil: "O," he says, "devil, have you therefore raged so cruelly against me, so that your power might be rebuked by me? Why, like a whirlpool, do you seek to absorb everyone? Why, like a lion, do you seek to devour those who have done you no harm? Why do you hasten to harm the innocent? Are you not ashamed, when you have been so C often prostrated and conquered by the servants of God? Was it not enough for you when you brought me down from such high status to this destitution? Was it not enough for you when you killed my sons and daughters in a single moment? In addition, you have afflicted my small body with the most savage pains, so that from the rot of my flesh, swarms of worms boil up. You, indeed, have aggressed to wage war against fragile limbs, but you will not be able to unsettle the stability of my soul. Confiding in wicked poisons, you have attempted to shake my faith: but I, confiding in my God, will crush your unbridled strength. And although you are deceitful, you have attempted to ensnare me in your traps, but the Lord has snatched me from these nets. Even if you bring temporal tortures upon me, you yourself are to be tortured in eternal punishments: D and indeed, if mortal worms proceed from my small body, you are to be devoured by immortal worms in Gehenna. Even if you bring multiplied temptations, I will not change my innocence: and although cast outside the city, I will not cease to bless my God."
5. But if you consider the example of Tobias diligently, you will find the greatest consolation from it. For he was also very occupied in the ministrations of the poor. And if any of his kin had died, he would bury them as was fitting, according to the rite of our religion. For, as
A the custom among the Assyrians is such that they deny burial to the dead, but cast their corpses, wrapped in skins, upon the face of the earth, so that they may be devoured by beasts or birds. This man, therefore, while he lived as a captive with a great multitude of the Jews among the Assyrians, and, as I have said, gave himself to the task of burying the bodies of the dead, was sometimes hindered from this work, so religious and so pious, by the king of the Assyrians; nevertheless, he attempted to carry out the customary work secretly as best he could.
At a certain time, when on the most festive day of Pentecost, food had been prepared for him, as was usual for the solemnity, more savory than its wont, he would not suffer himself to take the meal alone. He said therefore to his son: Go, he said, my son, and call, if you find any poor person from among our brethren, one, however, who fears the Lord, B that he may eat with us; and behold, I will wait for you, my son, until you come. But as he went, he found a certain Hebrew strangled by a noose, and cast out in the public square. Without delay, he returned and reported to his father what he had seen. When he had heard these things, neither the prepared food, nor the festivity of the day, nor even the threats of the tyrant pulled him back from the good work; but rising immediately, he proceeded to the public square, and covering the corpse with earth, as he was wont to do, he returned and, amid mourning, partook of the meal that he had left behind.
This man, therefore, so pious and so adorned with good works, was finally deprived of the sight of his eyes. And he who had first brought solace to the miserable, later had need of the aid of others. But the Lord, to test the patience of his faith, willed that he should be tempted in such a way. And he, knowing that adversity is more profitable to him than prosperity, maintained his patience with equanimity to the end. For this reason, the angel Raphael praises him and says: It is honorable to reveal and to confess the works of C God. For when you prayed and Sara your daughter-in-law, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the sight of the glory of God; and when you buried the dead in like manner, and because you did not hesitate to rise and leave your meal, and you went: I was sent to test you. And again: The Lord sent me to heal you, and Sara your daughter-in-law.
Indeed, we have explained these things briefly, as we were able. But if anyone most diligently attends to the life of all the saints, he will perceive that they shone in no other way than in labors and adversities.
6. This matter, that the word profits (as we premised above), is to be proved; and that then the divine love is recognized toward us, when we are afflicted by diverse torments and temptations. For so Solomon instructs us in Proverbs: He who spares, he says, the rod, hates his son: but he who loves, corrects him diligently. Therefore, when we are corrected by the nod of God in adversities, it is not hatred toward us that is then being manifested, but charity. For He chastises because He does not want the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. D He does not afflict and scourge us so that He may send us to destruction, but that we may be sent back, and that we may turn to Him, and be able to attain His mercy. Finally, hear the Lord speaking through the Prophet, who says: If they shall abandon my law, and shall not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes; but I will not scatter my mercy from them, nor will I deceive them in my truth.
For frequently the prosperity of things generates arrogance, and through long-suffering the human mind is inflated in pride. Therefore, God, the true physician of souls, when He sees our mind sick with the diverse languors of vices—that is, when the tumor of pride has inflated us; or the disease of avarice has struck us to plunder what belongs to others; or envy has persuaded us to contrive snares for our brethren; or when our mind, oppressed by sloth, has neglected the religion of God—hastens to cure our soul through bodily chastisements, as if by certain medicines. For when He permits us to be laid waste by captivity, or to suffer the loss of our possessions, or a huge illness to strike our members, or the temptations of any kind whatsoever to be inflicted upon us, He desires to bring health of soul to us through these things, and not damage.
For so He himself testifies through the prophet Isaiah: And because of sin, he says, I was slightly sorrowful for him, and I struck him, and I turned my face from him: and he was sorrowful, and walked sadly, and I was consoled with him, and I healed him. Finally, that king Manasseh, when he was enjoying abundance and delights, and when he saw himself as a prince over the Jewish people; he grew proud and withdrew from the Lord: he even filled the temple of God with idols, and shed the blood of many saints: but he also sawed the prophet Isaiah with a wooden saw, and perpetrated many execrable works. But when he had been captured by the Assyrians, bound in fetters and laden with iron, and led into Babylon, seeing himself oppressed by distresses, in the bitterness of his soul he turned and cried out to the Lord, who desires the salvation of souls, not their death: and He snatched him from the hands of his enemies, and restored him to his former kingdom.
You see how calamity corrected him from the way of error; you see that captivity brought to him, as it were, a certain medicine of soul-remedy, and he found his salvation, which he had previously lost through elation, later when afflicted by miseries. Behold how much bodily damage profits the human race. But security and the prosperity of things often, as we have said, generates the detriment of the soul.
7. And what shall I say of sinners? That just man David, who was chosen according to the heart of the Lord, of whom the Lord himself said: I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man according to my heart, who does all my wills, to whom He had granted the power of the kingdom and the grace of prophecy; when he was in the greatest abundance, and had flourished in security and riches, mul-
A and had brought nations into subjection to himself with the Lord’s assistance, because tribulation had gone a little apart from him, he even thought himself to be immovable. He himself says, finally: *In my abundance I will not be moved forever.*[26] Yet he, captured by one woman, perpetrated two crimes in one transgression: he killed Uriah the Hittite, an innocent man, whose wife he had committed adultery with.[27] Had he then been pressed by tribulations, he would by no means have fallen into so great a sin, through which he suffered a shipwreck of the Holy Spirit. Whence, after he recognized his transgression, and sensed that he was deprived of the Holy Spirit, he cried out to the Lord, beseeching Him for the recovery of his former grace: *Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels; and cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.*[28] But when he was most worn down by tribulations, and surrounded on all sides by the encounters of his enemies, who, warring against him most often, did not allow him to rest, he cried out with his whole heart to the Lord, from whom he immediately obtained help, even as he himself says in the psalm: *When I was in trouble I called upon the Lord, and he heard me*[29]; and again: *In the day of my trouble I sought God: with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived.*[30] Nor only this, but placed in these states, he not only refrained from grave sins, but even judged a slight incontinence to be a maximum crime. Finally, at one time, when the tribe of the Philistines was besieging Bethlehem, and David was in the stronghold, he longed for it, and said: *Who will give me a drink of the water out of the cistern that is in Bethlehem, which is by the gate?*[31] And when three mighty men broke through the midst of the camps of the Philistines and brought back water for him from the same cistern, he reproached himself, and was unwilling to drink, but poured it out as a libation to the Lord, and said: *Be propitious to me, O Lord: I will not do this, that I should drink the blood of the men who went in their own souls.* And he would not drink.[32] Consider, therefore, brother, diligently, and perceive what kind of shipwreck he endured previously in abundance, and what kind of philosophy of humility he later introduced. When he lived in security, killing an innocent man, he ignored it to be a sin. In humility, however, he judged it a crime to drink the water brought to him at such peril. Therefore, noticing that humility was conferring utility upon him, the blessed David used to say to the Lord: D *I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are equity, and in thy truth thou hast humbled me.*[33] Likewise, in the same psalm, concerning his own humility, he added with joy: *It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications*[34]; and again: *The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart, and he will save those who are humble in spirit.*[35] For when a man is placed in tribulations, he is often mindful of God, and God is nigh unto him, or rather, He even finds rest in him. For thus the Lord himself declares by the prophet: A *Upon whom, he says, shall I rest, but upon the humble and meek, and him that trembleth at my words?*[36] But it will be difficult for anyone to be humble or quiet, unless he has first been perfected by tribulations.
8. Do not, therefore, beloved, grieve over the losses of the body; rather, suffer with joy and manfully whatever the Lord has sent. If the various languors of the body strike you, I beg that your heart be not troubled, that your soul be not broken, that your voice not break forth into words of blasphemy; but rather place the example of that most patient blessed Job before your eyes. Say what you have heard him saying: *As it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done: blessed be the name of the Lord.*[37] For I know some, especially those who are sprinkled on the body with the spot of leprosy, to arrive at such desperation on account of this plague that they think themselves to be entirely forsaken by the Lord; but this is suffered by him who is not learned in the divine scriptures. If, however, he were to meditate in the law of the Lord day and night, if he knew that the judgments of God are true and justified in themselves, and *more to be desired than gold and many precious stones, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb*[38], he would take up the ulcers of his disease as true medicines. He would also say himself: *I have remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord, and I was comforted.*[39] For though this wound is harsh and bitter for a small time, it generates a great remedy for the soul thereafter. Believe me, brother, bodies are never so washed of filth in baths as the filth of the soul is cleansed by languors of this kind. Does not the physician also, when he has cured the wound of a sick person, lacerate the limbs with the cutting of iron; or if it be necessary, sear them even by the ministry of fire, and brings pain for this reason, that he may expel the pain which death had the power to generate? Do you therefore accuse the physician of having done this out of hatred: to whom, in order that he may do this, you have given gifts and rewards beforehand? How much more does that heavenly physician, God, desire with a fatherly affection to heal those whom He has made, and whom He also Himself redeemed from death. And thus He brings temporal plagues upon our body, that He may free our soul from the plagues which generate eternal death.
9. Do not, therefore, be troubled, brother, but receive with a willing mind whatsoever the Lord has brought upon you. Do not take it heavily that you have been deserted by the people of the city. For what does it profit you to dwell with crowds, or what does it harm you if you have been segregated from the crowds? For in this we must labor in all ways, that we be not deprived in the future age of the city of God. For even those who dwell in cities, and for whom the circuit of the walls seems suitable—if they, seized by the disease of crimes, have neglected their own life, are deprived of the communion of that heavenly city, which is the mother of all the saints. And you, when you are constituted in plagues and sorrows, and excluded from this muddy city; if you wisely tolerate these things, and humbly serve your God, you shall be [found] of that very city...
and you shall be made a dweller of paradise. For it is not because of the condemnation of your soul, but because of the nature of the infirmity, that you have withdrawn from the fellowship of the people; for, as some are pleased to assert, though the disease of its kind might pollute by its contact, it does not pollute the soul—nay, even if it were unclean, it purifies it. Whence I beg you, dearest one, do not be confused; do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let the harshness of your wounds lead you to despair of the life to come. Do not wish to entertain that foolish opinion of some who think that they will rise again on the day of resurrection in such a state; and how vain, how empty a suspicion is this! Tell me, whoever you are who affirm these things, do you speak from the judgment of your own mind, or have you read that it was written somewhere in the divine pages? But it appears to me that you have never read the words of the divine Scriptures; for if you had applied yourself to matters of this kind, the disease of faithlessness would never have invaded you. Oh, what a great ruin ignorance generates for the soul! Oh, what a most savage wound an unlearned mind acquires! But now, brother, I beg you to flee from these A faithless thoughts, and because you err greatly while you are ignorant of the Scriptures, ask the Lord that He may grant you understanding. Cry out to the Lord, and say: Give me understanding, and I shall learn your commandments; and *Teach me your justifications*; for *blessed is the man whom you have instructed, Lord, and have taught out of your law*, that you may mitigate for him from the evil days. But if the Lord has taught you from His law, the storm of faithlessness will by no means disturb you.
10. If, therefore, you desire that the Lord may instruct you, read the Scriptures inspired by God assiduously, or at least gladly lend an ear to one who reads, and you will find great consolation from them, which will mitigate your pains. The remedies inserted in the divine books are not small, dearest brother; for example, if your soul is sick, oppressed by many sins, read the book of Psalms, and there you will find the medicine for your wounds. Say to the Lord: *I have said, Lord, have mercy on me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against you*. But if your soul doubts how to repent on account of the disease of despair, the Lord Himself invites you to Himself through the prophet, saying: *Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you*; and again: *Is there no resin, or is there no physician in Galaad? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people gone up?* Again, in the Gospel, the Lord Himself says: *Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you*. If, indeed, your mind swells up through the vice of pride, you will find it written in Proverbs: *God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble*; so that with this medicine too we may avoid the evil of pride and assume humility. Again, if the ardor of avarice inflames you, hear the Apostle, how he explains the nature of this disease, saying: *The desire of money is the root of all evils, which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves B with many sorrows*. Then you, recognizing the malice of this worst of wounds, cry to the Lord: *Incline my heart unto your testimonies, and not to avarice*. For there is no passion of the soul for which you will not find medicines in the divine books: to mention which now the time does not permit. For if you yourself apply the zeal to search, without any doubt, God granting it, you will find.
11. But since I understand that your soul is ill at this time, when you say this—that one who departs from the world with the plague of leprosy must rise again after death in that same state—listen, therefore, diligently, that you may be able to turn this deadly suspicion away from yourself. Therefore, if it is as you say, that everyone must necessarily rise again in the state in which he died; for the sake of argument, whoever departed from this life with one eye, or foot, or hand, or some withered limb, would have to rise again in like manner. Do not, brother, do not believe so impiously: but hear in what state the Lord has predicted we shall be after the resurrection. For those who shall have merited the resurrection *neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven*. If they do not marry, but are as the angels, certainly the flesh is no longer subject to any infirmity; but what was mortal has put on immortality. Likewise, hear what the Lord says concerning this: Then, He says, *the just shall shine in the kingdom of their Father, as the sun*. But it is manifest to us that many of the just, consumed by innumerable C wounds, having been deprived of this light, especially since the blessed martyrs had hands and feet amputated, and were mangled all over their bodies, others with ears and noses truncated, others with eyes gouged out, have obtained the crown in heaven. Who, therefore, is so impious, so sacrilegious, as to affirm that they will rise again in the state in which they died? Behold also that beggar Lazarus, who was full of sores all over his body, and used to lie before the gate of the rich man, of whose table he coveted to satisfy his hunger; and the rich man was clothed in fine linen and purple, and was robust and fat in body, taking delight in feasts, and he was indeed so. But see, after a little while, what a sudden change occurred in them. The one who was taking delight splendidly in feasts was, after the departure of his life, tormented in flames; and he who had been covered in ulcers and consumed by hunger was being comforted in the bosom of Abraham. See how great a rest Lazarus D earned for the torment of his body, and in what heat the rich man was placed because of the pleasure of a short time. What did those fattened bodies profit him? What did the riches bring him? Behold, he is placed in such heat that he could not obtain a drop of water. For he had seen Lazarus gladdened in the bosom of Abraham, and he lifted up his voice, saying: *Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame*. Behold whom he, a little while