Select Orations (2/40/43) 1-1

By the same author, an apology for his flight to Pontus, and again for his return thence, after his ordination as presbyter, in which he sets forth what the profession of the priesthood involves.

I have been defeated, and I confess my defeat;

I submitted myself to the Lord, and made my supplication to him.

For indeed the best order, for everyone who begins any word or work, is to begin from God and to find rest in God.

As for the cause—whether of my first reluctance and faintheartedness, on account of which I withdrew in flight and lodged far from you for a time perhaps not short to those who longed for me, or of my present gentleness and change of mind, on account of which I have once more given myself back and come to you—let each of those who either hate or love us think and say one thing or another;

the one not letting go of accusations, the other even adding his approval.

For nothing is so sweet to men as talking about other people's affairs, especially when they happen to be drawn on by some goodwill or hatred—by which the truth is for the most part wont to be stolen away.

But I will set the truth in the midst, ashamed of nothing, and will judge fairly between both parties—both those who accuse us and those who eagerly speak in our defence:

accusing myself in one respect, and defending myself in another.

And that our discourse may proceed in due course, I will speak first concerning my timidity, since it came first;

for neither can I bear that any of those who carefully watch over all my affairs—both what is well and what is otherwise—should be wounded in my person.

For since God has been pleased that our affairs should in some measure belong to Christians, I will also heal, by means of this defence, those who have already been wounded, if indeed there be any such;

for it is good, so far as is possible and as reason allows, neither by sinning nor by being suspected to lay a stumbling-block or an offence before the many;

since we know that for those who cause even one of the little ones to stumble, the punishment from him who cannot lie is inescapable and most heavy.

For I suffered this, O men, not as one untaught and senseless—but rather (that I may boast a little) nor as one who despises the divine laws and ordinances.

For just as in a body there is one part that rules and as it were presides, and another that is ruled and led,

so also in the Churches God has ordained—by a law of equity that holds to what is according to merit, or rather of providence, by which he has bound all things together—that some should be shepherded and ruled, namely those for whom this is more profitable, being guided by word and deed toward what is fitting;

and that others should be shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the Church, namely those who are above the many in virtue and in nearness to God, holding the place of soul to body, or of mind to soul;

so that both, being joined and blended with one another—the deficient and the abundant—as in the limbs of a body, and being knit together and bound by the harmony of the Spirit, may be shown forth as one complete body, truly worthy of Christ himself, who is our head.

I do not, then, know any anarchy and disorder to be more profitable than order and rule, either for other creatures or for men;

but for these latter least of all, inasmuch as for them the danger concerns the greater things;

for whom it is a great thing, even if they cannot preserve the first part of the principle—namely, to sin in nothing—yet at least to attain the second after it: that, when they have sinned, they be brought back again.

Since, then, this seemed good and right, it is for me an equal evil and a like disorder, both for all to wish to rule and for none to accept the office;

for if all should flee this—whether one must call it a ministry or a leadership—the Church would be lame in its greatest part, and the fair fullness of the Church would no longer remain fair.

And where, and by whom, would God still be worshipped by us with the mystic rites that lift us on high—which indeed is the greatest and most honourable of all that is ours—if there were no king, nor ruler, nor priesthood, nor sacrifice, nor any of those things which the disobedient of old were condemned to lose, as the greatest losses for their great transgressions?

But neither is it a strange or unseemly thing for those who philosophize on divine matters among the many to ascend from being ruled to ruling, nor is it outside the recognized bounds of philosophy, nor does it bring reproach;

just as it is no reproach for one of the esteemed sailors to take the lookout's post, and for him who at the prow has kept good watch on the winds to be entrusted with the helm;

or, if you will, for a noble soldier to become a captain, and for a good captain to be made a general and entrusted with the command of a whole war.

Nor indeed—as someone perhaps of those altogether perverse and base might suppose, who judge the affairs of others by their own passions—was I ashamed of the rank of my degree out of a desire for the higher one;

I am not so ignorant of the divine greatness or of human lowliness as not to count it a great thing for any created nature even in any way whatsoever to draw near to God, who alone is most resplendent and most radiant, surpassing in purity all nature, both material and immaterial.

What, then, is it that I have suffered? And what is the reason for my disobedience? For I did not seem to most people then to remain within myself, nor to be such as I had been known to be, but to have become quite another person out of myself, and to resist and behave with more self-will than was good.

The causes of this you shall now hear, you who have long been longing for them.

First of all, being smitten by the unexpected, like those who are startled by sudden noises, I could not control my reasonings;

and on this account I cast off my reserve, though all that time I had been accustomed to it.

Then there crept upon me a certain longing for the beauty of stillness and of withdrawal;

of which I had become a lover from the beginning, as I know not whether any other of those devoted to learning has been; which also, amid the greatest and most grievous dangers, I had promised to God; and having even laid some hold on it, only so far as to come to its threshold, and having had my longing the more kindled by the experience—I could not bear to be tyrannized over, to be thrust into the midst of the tumults, and as it were to be torn away by force from this life as from some inviolable sanctuary.

For nothing seemed to me to be such as, closing the senses, becoming outside flesh and world, turning in upon oneself, touching none of human things except so far as is altogether necessary, conversing with oneself and with God, to live above the things that are seen, and ever to bear within oneself the divine reflections pure and unmixed with the lower and wandering images—being truly a spotless mirror of God and of divine things, both being so and ever becoming so, taking light to light, and the clearer to the dimmer, already reaping by hope the good of the age to come, and going about in company with angels, while still upon earth having left the earth, and being set on high by the Spirit.

If any of you is possessed by this love, he knows what I mean, and will forgive my feeling at that time;

for the many I could perhaps not even persuade by speaking, those to whom the matter even seems laughable, being ill disposed either by their own folly or by those who are unworthy of the profession;

who have attached an evil name to a good thing—vainglory to philosophy—taking as their helper envy and the wickedness of the many, which is more ready to incline toward the worse;

so that in any case one of two sins is committed by them: either the evil is practised, or the good is disbelieved.

Besides these things, I suffered something—for I will tell you the whole secret—I know not whether it was boorish or befitting a free man, but suffer it I did:

I was ashamed on behalf of those others who, being in no way better than the many—indeed it would be much, if they were not far worse—with unwashed hands, as the saying goes, and uninitiated souls, thrust themselves into the most holy things;

and before they have become worthy to approach the sacred things, they lay claim to the sanctuary, and crowd and jostle about the holy table, thinking this rank to be not a pattern of virtue, but a means of livelihood, not a ministry that must give account, but a rule that is exempt from scrutiny.

And they are well-nigh more in number than those whom they rule;

wretched in respect of piety, and pitiable in respect of splendour;

so that, to me at least, it seems that, as time and the evil go on, they will at length have no one left to rule, when all are teaching instead of being taught of God, as the promise says, and all are prophesying, so that even Saul is among the prophets, according to the old story and proverb.

For nothing has ever been, nor ever was, so abundant at any time—with different evils flourishing and ceasing at different times—as such reproaches and sins are now among Christians.

And even if to stay the tide of these things be beyond our power, yet at least to hate and to be ashamed of them is no small part of piety.

But that which is the last and greatest of the things mentioned—for I now come to the very crown and climax of my discourse, and I will not lie—

For it is not even lawful for those who speak about such weighty matters to do otherwise.

I did not think then, nor do I think now, that it is one and the same thing to rule a flock or a herd of cattle and to have charge of the souls of men.

For there it is enough to show that one has made the herd or the flock as fat and well-fed as possible;

and with this end in view the herdsman and the shepherd will look out for the watered and well-pastured places, will drive the beasts in and out from pasture to pasture, will let them rest, move them on, and call them back, using the staff a little but the pipe for the most part.

And the shepherd or the herdsman has no other task than now and then to fight off the wolves a little, and here and there to look after some ailing beast;

but for the most part his concern is the oak tree, the shade, the reeds, lying down in a fair patch of grass beside cool water, improvising a bed of leaves beneath the breezes, now and then singing some love-song over his cup, and conversing with his oxen or his flock;

and to feast upon these very beasts, or to sell off the fattest of them.

But no one ever yet gave a thought to the virtue of flocks or herds.

For what virtue is there in them? Or who ever considered their good before his own pleasure? (10)

But since for a man it is hard to know how to be ruled, it is likely far harder still to know how to rule men, and most of all in this office of ours, which is under divine law and leads toward God; and as great as its height and dignity are, so great also is the peril, at least for him who has understanding.

Such a man must first of all, like silver or gold turned about on every side and tried in all sorts of seasons and circumstances, nowhere ring false or sound base-metalled, nor carry within himself any of the meaner ore, the ore deserving the hotter fire;

otherwise his evil will be the greater, the more numerous those over whom he rules;

since indeed the wickedness that spreads to many is greater than that which stands within a single man.

For a woven cloth does not so readily take on a fast-fixed dye, nor does what comes near so easily absorb a stench or its opposite, nor does a pestilent vapour so quickly diffuse itself into the air and through the air infect living creatures—the thing that is and is called a plague—as the subjects are wont most swiftly to be filled up with the vice of the one set over them, and far more readily than with its opposite, virtue.

For to become evil is easy, even if no one at all be leading us to it;

but the acquiring of good is rare and uphill, even if there be much that draws us on and invites us toward it.

And this, it seems to me, is what the most blessed Haggai too perceived, when he came to that wonderful and most truthful image;

for he said, Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying:

If holy flesh, carried in the fold of a garment, should touch any food, or drink, or vessel, will it forthwith sanctify what it has come near?

Ask again, whether if any of these things has come into contact with uncleanness, it does not at once partake of the defilement; for they will surely answer that it does partake, and does not remain clean through the contact.

—signifying that the good is hard for human nature to take hold of, just as fire is hard to kindle in over-moist material;

but the most part of men are ready and apt for fellowship with evil, like stubble that is easily set ablaze by a spark and a breath of wind, and consumed because of its dryness;

for one would more quickly take on a rich measure of a little vice than, little by little, a deep store of virtue.

Since indeed a little wormwood most swiftly imparts its bitterness even to honey;

but honey, even in double measure, does not impart its own sweetness to the wormwood;

and a small pebble drawn out from beneath might draw a whole river down the slope,

while even the strongest barrier could scarcely hold it back or turn it.

First, then, among the things we have spoken of, this is worth taking heed to: that we do not show ourselves to be bad painters of that wonderful virtue—or rather, painters perhaps not unskilful, but having the many for a poor archetype;

or that we run not far from the proverb, in undertaking to heal others while we ourselves are teeming with sores.

For he to whom this charge is entrusted must not merely be free from evil—for that, in most of those under authority, is the most shameful thing—but must also excel in goodness, according to the commandment which bids us turn away from evil and do good;

nor only to blot out the base impressions from his soul, but also to inscribe the better ones upon it, so that he may surpass others in virtue by more than the measure by which he exceeds them in rank;

and to recognize no limit to the good and to his ascent, nor to count what he has attained as gain rather than what eludes him as loss;

but ever to make what he has reached a stepping-stone to the next;

and not to think it a great thing if we surpass the many, but a loss if we fall short of our calling;

and to measure his attainment by the commandment, not by his neighbours—whether they be evil, or have come to some measure of virtue;

and not to weigh virtue in small scales, when it is owed to the Greatest One, from whom are all things and to whom all things are owed.

Nor should one think that the same things suit all alike, just as ages are not the same for all, nor the characters of faces, nor the natures of living creatures, nor the qualities of soils, nor the beauties and sizes of lamps;

but should hold that for a private man it is a vice to do mean things and whatever deserves punishment—things over which even the law is a stern master;

but for a ruler or one set in charge, the vice is in not being the best, and in not ever advancing toward the good, if indeed he is to draw the many, by the abundance of his virtue, toward what is moderate, and not to lord it over them by force, but to win them over by persuasion.

For that which is involuntary tends toward the tyrannical, and is neither praiseworthy nor lasting;

for that which has been forced is wont, like a plant violently bent aside by the hand, when let go to spring back again to its own place;

but that which springs from free choice is at once most lawful and most secure, being kept fast by the bond of goodwill.

Wherefore our own law and Lawgiver chiefly enjoins us to shepherd the flock willingly, and not under compulsion.

But grant that there be one who is neither evil and has come to the very summit of virtue;

for truly this seems to me to be an art of arts and a science of sciences—to guide man, the most versatile and many-sided of living creatures.

One may recognize this by setting the healing of souls over against the treatment of bodies;

and by learning how laborious the latter is, and by further examining how much more laborious is the work that pertains to us, and how it is more honourable—both in the nature of its material, and in the power of its science, and in the end of its activity.

For the one labours over bodies, over perishable material that flows downward, destined wholly to be dissolved and to suffer its own fate, even if for now, by the aid of the art, it gains the mastery over the strife within it;

for either disease or time has dissolved it, since it yields to nature and does not overstep its own bounds.

But the concern that touches the soul is for that which is from God and divine, which partakes of the nobility from above and presses on toward it, even though it has been bound together with the lower nature;

perhaps for other reasons too, which God alone knows, who bound them together, and any to whom such mysteries have been revealed in wisdom from God;

but so far as I and those like me can understand, for two reasons:

first, that through struggle and wrestling against things below, the soul might inherit the glory above; that, tried like gold in the fire by the things of this world, it might hold what it hopes for as the prize of virtue, and not merely as a gift of God;

and this also belonged to the highest goodness—to make the good our own as well, not only sown in us by nature, but cultivated also by our own choice, and by the movements of free will in both directions;

and second, that the soul might draw the lower part toward itself and raise it on high, gradually loosing it from its grossness;

so that what God is to the soul, the soul might become to the body—training through itself the matter that serves it, and bringing its fellow-servant into intimacy with God.

The physician will take note of regions, seasons, ages, climates, and the like;

he will prescribe medicine and regimen, and guard against what is harmful, lest the cravings of disease should resist the art of healing;

and sometimes, in certain cases, he will even resort to cauteries and incisions and the harsher means of treatment;

yet none of these, however toilsome and grievous they appear, is so great a task as to scrutinize and heal the characters, passions, lives, and choices of men, and whatever else of this kind is within us; and to banish from our nature all that is brutish and savage, to introduce and establish in its place all that is gentle and dear to God, and to render just judgment for both soul and body;

not allowing the better to be tyrannized by the worse—which is the greatest of all injustices;

but subjecting to the ruling and governing part that which is by nature secondary;

even as the divine law, which holds most beautifully throughout all His creation, both that which is visible and that which is beyond sense.

I observe this too: that each of the things I have enumerated, as kept by the physician in the natural state it has, so remains, and contrives nothing cunningly of itself against him, nor matches its wits against what the art applies;

rather, the healing art the more readily masters the matter;

except perhaps where some slight disorder of the patient intervenes, which it is not hard either to guard against or to check.

But for us, the cleverness and self-love, and the refusal either to know or to bear being easily overcome, is the greatest hindrance to virtue, and becomes, as it were, a battle-line drawn up against our very allies;

and all the zeal we ought to bring in order to lay our disease bare to those who would heal us, this much zeal we bring instead to flee from the cure; and we are brave against ourselves, and skilled against our own health.

For either we have stolen away our sin like slaves, concealing it like some festering and malignant passion in the depths of the soul, as if we would escape even the great eye of God and of justice, provided we elude men;

or we make excuses in our sins, devising arguments to plead on behalf of our passions;

stopping our ears like the deaf adder that closes up its hearing, we strive not to hear the voice of the charmers, nor to be cured by the medicines of wisdom, by which the sickness of the soul is healed;

or finally—those of us who are bolder and more shameless—we even openly flaunt our impudence toward sin and toward those who would heal it, advancing, as the saying goes, with bare head to every transgression;

O the madness!—or whatever other name may more fitly suit such a passion!

And those whom we ought to love as benefactors, these we ward off as enemies, hating them when they reprove us in the gates, and abhorring the holy word;

and we suppose we shall the more do battle with those who wish us well, the more grievously we treat our own selves—like those who lay hold of their own flesh, thinking thereby to consume the flesh of their neighbors.

These are the reasons why I reckon our healing—the cure of souls—far more laborious than that which concerns bodies, and on that very account more honorable;

and because that other art, which scrutinizes but little of what lies in the depths, has its greater concern about what is outwardly apparent;

but for us, all the treatment and all the zeal is about the hidden man of the heart, and our warfare is against the one who wars and wrestles against us from within, who, using our own weapons against ourselves, surrenders us—most terrible of all—to the death of sin.

Against these things, therefore, there is need of much and entire faith, and of yet greater cooperation from God, and of no small effort of our own contrivance (so at least I persuade myself), an effort to be shown both in word and in deed, if we are to be rightly healed and cleansed, and if the most precious of all we possess—our souls—are to be of the greatest worth.

Now as for the ends of the two kinds of healing—for this still remains for us to examine—the one aims either to preserve the health or good condition of the flesh while it is present, or to recall it once it has departed; yet it is not even clear whether these will profit those who possess them;

since often the very opposites have benefited their possessors more—as poverty and wealth, glory and dishonor, lowliness and splendor, and all such things as by nature lie midway, inclining no more this way than that, which take on the better or the worse according to the use and choice of those who possess them;

but the other has set before it this aim: to give wings to the soul, to snatch it from the world and give it to God, and to preserve the image where it abides, or to lead it by the hand where it is in peril, or to restore it where it has been broken in pieces, and to settle Christ in the heart through the Spirit;

and—the sum of all—to make a god, and a partaker of the blessedness above, of one belonging to the order above.

This is what the law, our tutor, intends for us;

this, the prophets, who stand midway between Christ and the law;

this, Christ, the fulfiller and the end of the spiritual law;

this, the Godhead emptied;

this, the flesh assumed;

this, the new mingling—God and man, one out of both, and through one the two together.

And all things came together into one, on behalf of all and on behalf of one—the first father:

the soul, on account of that soul which disobeyed; the flesh, on account of that flesh which abetted it and was condemned together with it;

Christ, on account of Adam who came under sin—He who is mightier than sin and higher than it;

and through suffering, the One who suffered called us back, and for each of our ills there was given in exchange each thing of the One who is above us;

and so there came to pass a new mystery—the dispensation, born of God's love for mankind, concerning the one who fell through disobedience.

For this cause—the manger and Bethlehem;

the birth, on behalf of the first fashioning;

the Virgin, on behalf of the woman;

the manger, because of paradise;

the small and visible things, on behalf of the great and hidden ones;

and shepherds beholding glory upon the Lamb and Shepherd;

falling down and bringing gifts, that idolatry might be abolished.

For this cause was wood set against the wood, and hands against the hand: against that which was wantonly stretched out, the hands nobly stretched out;

against the hand unrestrained, the hands bound fast with nails;

against the hand that cast out Adam, the hands that gather in the ends of the earth.

And gall against the tasting, and a crown of thorns against the dominion of the evil one, and death against death, and darkness for the sake of the light, and burial against the return to the earth, and resurrection for the sake of the resurrection.

All these were a kind of training that God gave concerning us, and a healing of our weakness, leading the old Adam back to the place from which he had fallen, and bringing him to the tree of life, from which the tree of knowledge—partaken of unseasonably and unfittingly—had estranged us.

Of this healing we are the ministers and fellow-workers, all of us who preside over others;

for whom it is a great thing both to know and to heal their own passions and infirmities;

or rather, this is not yet a great thing—except that the wickedness of the many among those in this order has made us say even this much;

but far greater is the power to heal the ills of others and to cleanse them skilfully, in such a way as may profit both parties—both those who need the healing and those entrusted with the curing.

Now the healers of bodies will have toils and sleepless nights and anxieties such as we know;

and they reap their own griefs out of the misfortunes of others, as one of the wise men among the Greeks has said;

and some remedies they themselves devise by their own labour and discovery, while others they gather from elsewhere and contribute, to offer to those in need;

and nothing is so small, whether found or overlooked—not even the least thing—that it is not reckoned to weigh greatly toward the inclining of health, or, on the contrary, toward danger;

and all this for what end? That a man may live more days upon the earth—and that man perhaps not even one of the worthy, but of the most wretched, for whom it would perhaps have been better to have died long ago, being evil, that he might be rid of the greatest of diseases, which is wickedness.

But even if we should grant him to be among the good, for how long is he to live? For all time? Or what does he gain from this earthly life, to seek release from which is the first and safest of good things, and the mark of a man truly sound and possessing understanding? XXVIII.

But as for us, whose peril concerns the salvation of the soul—that blessed and immortal soul, which shall be either punished or praised everlastingly, according to its vice or virtue—how great ought we to think the contest to be, or how much skill is needed to heal well, or to be well healed, to transform one's life and to render the dust over to the spirit? For neither the same words nor the same impulses suit all alike: not woman the same as man, nor youth as age, nor wealth as poverty, nor the cheerful as the despondent, nor the sick as the healthy; rulers and ruled, wise and unlearned, timid and bold, the irascible and the gentle, those who stand upright and those who fall.

And if you examine yet more closely, how great is the difference between those joined in wedlock and the unmarried; and again, among these, between those of the solitary life and those who live in fellowship and intermingled with the world;

between the proven and advanced in contemplation and those who simply keep to the straight path; between townsfolk and country-dwellers, between the more guileless and the more crafty, between those engaged in affairs and those who live at leisure, between those stricken by reverses of fortune and those who run their course prosperously, yet are ignorant of the worse.

For in each of these classes men differ from one another sometimes more in their desires and impulses than they do in the forms of their bodies;

and, if you will, the mixtures and blends of the elements out of which we are composed are no easy thing to govern.

But just as for bodies the same medicine and diet are not applied to all, but to some one and to others another, according as they are in good health or sick, so too souls are treated with differing word and method of guidance.

And witnesses to this healing are the very maladies themselves:

some are led by reasoning, others are set in order by example;

some need the goad, others the bridle.

For some are sluggish and hard to move toward the good, and these must be roused by the stroke of the word;

while others are too hot in spirit beyond measure, and hard to restrain in their impulses, like noble colts running far past the post, whom the word would make better by checking and reining them in.

Some are benefited by praise, others by blame, both administered in due season;

or, on the contrary, they are harmed when these are out of season and out of all reason.

Some are set right by encouragement, others by rebuke;

and this rebuke too: some when reproved in public, others when admonished in private.

For some are wont to despise private admonitions, but are brought to their senses by the condemnation of a crowd;

others grow shameless in the face of the freedom of open reproofs, but are disciplined by the secrecy of correction, and repay sympathy with ready obedience.

In the case of some it is needful to watch carefully over everything, down to the very least matters—those who, by supposing that they go undetected (since this is the trick they practise), have puffed themselves up as wiser;

but in the case of others it is better even to overlook some things, so as, while seeing, not to see, and, while hearing, not to hear, according to the proverb—lest we provoke them to desperation by drowning them in a zeal for reproofs, and in the end make them reckless toward everything, having dissolved their sense of shame, which is the very medicine of persuasion.

And indeed one must even be angry with some, without being angry;

and show disdain, without disdaining;

and despair of some, without despairing—wherever their nature so requires.

And others must be treated with gentleness and humility, and by joining them in eagerness toward the more cheerful hopes.

And as for some, to conquer them, but as for others, to be vanquished, is often more profitable;

and the abundance and power of some, but the poverty or ill fortune of others, must be either praised or deprecated.

For it is not as with virtue and vice—that the one is always and to all most noble and most beneficial, while the other is most base and most harmful;

so it is not with our medicine, that one and the same thing is shown to be always and for the same persons the most healthful, or the most perilous;

such as severity, or gentleness, or each of the other things I have enumerated.

But to some this is good and useful, while to others, again, the contrary—according, I suppose, as the occasions and circumstances may coincide, and as the disposition of those being treated may admit.

Now to distinguish all these things by reasoning, and to discern them with the utmost precision, so as to comprehend the whole treatment under a single rule, is impossible, even if one attains to the greatest diligence and intelligence;

but it is in the very experience and practice of these matters that it becomes manifest to the healing word and to the man who applies it.

And in general this is plain to us: that, just as for those who walk upon a rope stretched aloft on high it is not safe to lean to this side or to that, and the inclination, even if it seem small, carries them to no small consequence, but their safety consists in keeping the balance even;

so also in these matters, whichever way a man inclines, whether through vice or through ignorance, there is no ordinary danger both to himself and to those whom he leads, in the fall of sin.

But we must truly walk by the king's highway, and look well about us, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left, as the Proverbs say.

to one who will know the souls of his flock, and will lead them according to the principles of shepherding—the right and just kind, worthy of our true Shepherd.

And as for the very dispensing of the word—that I may mention last what is first among our concerns, I mean that divine and lofty word which all now make their study—if anyone else is so bold as to suppose it within the reach of every mind, I marvel at his intelligence, not to say his simplicity.

To me, at least, it seems no trivial matter, nor one requiring but little of the Spirit, to give to each one his measure of the word in due season, and to dispense with discernment the truth of our doctrines:

all that has been philosophically taught concerning worlds, or the world, concerning matter, the soul, the mind, and the intelligent natures both higher and lower, concerning the Providence that binds together and governs all things, all that seems to accord with reason, and all that runs counter to our lower, human reason;

and further, all concerning our first formation and our final refashioning, concerning types and truth, concerning covenants, and the first and second coming of Christ, His incarnation, sufferings, and dissolution; all concerning the resurrection, the end, the judgment and the recompense, both the more sorrowful and the more glorious;

and—the chief point of all—what must be held concerning the sovereign and blessed Trinity;

which indeed is the greatest of perils for those entrusted with the work of enlightening: lest, fearing polytheism, they collapse the Word into a single hypostasis and leave us with bare names alone, supposing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be one and the same;

nor, on the other hand, dividing Him into three—either alien and foreign to one another, or disordered and without origin, or, so to speak, gods opposed to one another—lest they fall from the contrary extreme into an equal evil;

as a plant, when twisted, bends far to one side.

For there are at present three maladies concerning theology: atheism, Judaism, and polytheism. Of the first, Sabellius the Libyan became the champion; of the second, Arius of Alexandria; and of the third, certain among ourselves who are over-orthodox.

What, then, is my counsel? That we escape what is harmful in all three and abide within the bounds of true godliness; that we be not drawn by this novel resolving or compounding into the atheism of Sabellius, defining all things to be rather one than each to be nothing;

for that which by mutual interchange and transition into one another ceases to be what it is, escapes from existence altogether;

nor that we sketch out and fashion for ourselves a composite and absurd God, like the fabulous beasts of mythology;

nor again, dividing the natures after the manner of that madness which has been so aptly named after Arius, that we be shut up into Jewish poverty and introduce envy into the divine nature, circumscribing the Godhead to the Unbegotten alone, as though we feared lest our God should be destroyed in being the Father of a true God, equal to Him in nature in honour;

nor again, setting up three principles in opposition to one another or in mere coordination, that we introduce the polytheism of the Greeks, from which we have fled.

For of whom would He be Father, if the Son were separated and estranged from Him in nature, together with the creation? For sonship does not imply alienation. Or if the Son were merged into the Father and confounded with Him—which is the same as to say, confounding Him?

nor, on the other hand, so excessively Christ-loving as not even for Him to preserve His being a Son;

(for of whom would He be Son, if He were not referred to the Father as His origin?) nor that we strip from the Father the dignity of being the origin—the dignity that belongs to Him as Father and Begetter;

for then He would be the origin of small and unworthy things—or rather, would be so in a small and unworthy way—if He were not the origin of the Godhead and goodness which is beheld in the Son and the Spirit:

the one as Son and Word, the other as Procession and as indissoluble Spirit.

since indeed it is necessary both to keep the one God and to confess the three hypostases, each with its own distinctive property.

These things, then, would require a longer time than the present occasion—indeed, I think, than a whole lifetime—both to grasp and to set forth in a manner sufficient and worthy;

or rather, both now and ever they require the Spirit, by whom alone God is conceived, interpreted, and heard.

For only by the pure may the Pure and ever-unchanging One be touched.

But the reason for which we have now briefly treated these things is this: to show that it is exceedingly difficult—especially before a multitude, when discoursing on matters so great, a multitude composed of every kind of age and disposition, like some many-stringed instrument requiring varied notes—to find a word capable of fitting all together and of illuminating them with the light of knowledge;

not only because, the peril being shaken in these three—thought, word, and hearing—it is inevitable to stumble in one at least of them, even if not in all;

for either the mind has not been illumined, or the word has failed, or the unpurified hearing has not received it;

and from any one of these, as from them all alike, the truth must needs come away lame;

but also because that very thing which, for those who profess to teach anything else, makes their discourse easiest and most readily accepted—namely, the reverent disposition of the hearers—here becomes the loss and the danger.

For inasmuch as they regard the contest as being about God and the greatest of all that exists, about salvation itself and the first hope of all, the more fervent they are in faith, the more resistant they are to the word; and reckoning compliance to be a betrayal of the truth rather than piety, they would sooner give up anything than the reasonings they have brought from home, and the habit of those doctrines in which they have been brought up.

And I say this still of the more moderate, those whose passion is not wholly evil: who, even if they err from the truth, yet because they suffer this through reverence, and have zeal—though not according to knowledge—may perhaps be among those not too severely condemned, nor beaten with many stripes, like those who fall away from the Master's will through malice and wickedness.

And perhaps these might sometime be persuaded otherwise and be changed by the very same reverence by which they once resisted, if some word should lay hold of them, striking timely either from within or from without, as iron strikes flint, upon a mind that is pregnant and worthy of the light;

in which, even from a tiny spark, the beacon of the truth might most swiftly blaze forth.

But what could one say of those who, through vainglory or love of power, speak unrighteousness against the heights—the boastings of some Jannes or Jambres, who arm themselves not against Moses but against the truth, and rise up in revolt against sound doctrine? Or of that third class, who, through ignorance and the rashness that follows upon it, charge headlong against every argument with swinish fury, and trample underfoot the fair pearls of the truth?

Or of all those who, bringing no preconception of their own from home, nor any pattern of the doctrines concerning God, whether worse or better, but subjecting themselves to all teachers and all teachings—as though they would select from all the better and safer—yet trusting in themselves as poor judges of the truth;

and then, carried about and whirled now this way, now that, by mere plausibility, washed over and trodden down by every argument, having changed many teachers and many writings, casting them off as easily as dust before the winds; at last, wearied out in both ear and mind (O the unreasonableness!), they come to be displeased alike with every word, and stamp upon themselves a perverse character—to mock and despise our very faith as unstable and having nothing sound in it, passing in their ignorance from the speakers to the message itself;

just as if a man whose eyes were diseased, or whose ears were impaired, should blame the sun or the sounds—the one as dim and not shining, the others as tuneless and feeble.

And for this reason it is easier to engrave truth afresh upon a soul, as upon wax not yet stamped, than to write over other writing—I mean over wicked teachings and doctrines—a godly word, so that the latter becomes confused and disordered by the former.

For it is better to tread a road that is smooth and well-worn than one untrodden and rough, and to plough land that the plough has often cut and tamed;

but to write upon a soul which no wicked word has yet engraved, nor into whose depths the letters of evil have been stamped—

for then two tasks would fall to the God-fearing calligrapher: both to erase the former characters and to inscribe in their place those more approved and more worthy to remain.

So many, then, are the wicked—both as regards the other passions and as regards the word itself—and so many are the marks and characters of the evil one;

and so great is the task laid upon him who has been entrusted with this tutelage and oversight of souls.

And the discourse has passed over the greater part, lest it become more lengthy than is needful.

Just as, then, if someone should attempt to lead and to tame a beast composed of many beasts—of many kinds and many forms, larger and smaller, gentler and wilder—it would surely be a labour for him, and no small struggle, to govern a nature so uneven and so strange, since each of the beasts delights neither in the same calls, nor the same food, nor the same touch of the hand, nor the same whistlings, nor the same modes of the rest of its training, but different ones in different things, taking pleasure or feeling distress as the nature and habit of each may be;

what then would the keeper of such a beast have to do? What else but to be manifold and varied in his skill, and to apply to each the appropriate treatment, so that the beast might be well guided by him and kept safe? In just this way, this common body of the Church—composed of many and diverse characters and minds, as of a single creature compounded and dissimilar—makes it utterly necessary that its ruler too be both simple and consistent in his uprightness toward all,

and at the same time most manifold and varied in his adaptation to each, and suited and fitting in his manner of conversation toward all.

For some need to be nourished with milk, with the simpler and more elementary of the teachings—those who in their disposition are babes and newly formed, as one might say, unable to bear the manly food of the word;

which, if one were to set before them beyond their strength, perhaps, being weighed down and burdened—their understanding being insufficient, just as in the body matter cannot draw in and assimilate what comes upon it from without—they would suffer loss even in their original strength;

but others, needing the wisdom that is spoken among the perfect, and the higher and more solid food—their senses being sufficiently exercised to discern between true and false—if they were given milk to drink and fed with vegetables, with the food of the weak, would be displeased.

And quite reasonably so, since they are not being strengthened according to Christ, nor growing with that praiseworthy growth which the word effects, perfecting a man and bringing him to the measure of spiritual maturity—him, that is, who is well nourished.

And for these things, who is sufficient? For we are not, like so many, able to peddle the word of truth and to mix the wine with water,

diluting the word that gladdens a man's heart with what is cheap and abundant, that crawls upon the ground and quickly fades and flows aimlessly—so as to gain some private profit from such hucksterism, speaking now this way, now that, to those near at hand, and to all merely to please them;

being like ventriloquists and empty babblers, pandering to their own pleasures with words that are uttered out of the earth and sink down into the earth;

so that we may stand especially well in the esteem of the multitude, precisely insofar as we do them the most harm, or even destroy them, and pour out the innocent blood of simpler souls—blood that will be required at our hands.

It is better to be reasonable and discerning than to wag an untrained tongue.

Having reasoned thus with ourselves—counsellors perhaps not contemptible, or at least well-meaning—and recognizing that we do not know what ought to be said and done, much less are we ignorant of how to teach, we made our decision.

For it is something to be cherished if a man's word, hoary with age, should reach even to deep old age, and be able to benefit a soul that is young in godliness.

For to attempt to instruct others before one has oneself been sufficiently instructed, and—as the saying goes—to learn the potter's craft on a wine-jar, that is, to practise godliness in the souls of others, seems to me the mark of men exceedingly foolish or exceedingly reckless;

foolish, if they do not even perceive their own ignorance;

reckless, if, even understanding it, they yet presume upon the undertaking.

Now the wiser among the Hebrews say that there was of old a certain law among the Hebrews—and one held in the highest regard and much praised—that not every age should be granted access to every Scripture;

for this would not be more profitable, since not every part is at once apprehensible by everyone, and the deeper portions, by their surface appearance, might do the greatest harm to the multitude;

but those from the very beginning were thrown open to all and held in common—those whose literal sense too is not unworthy;

while the others were to be entrusted to none but those past their twenty-fifth year: namely, all those which, beneath a mean garment, veil a mystic beauty—a prize of diligent toil and a shining life—flashing forth and appearing only to those cleansed in mind; since this age alone is able to rise above the body and to ascend rightly from the letter to the spirit.

But for us there is no rule for teaching and being taught, as there once was for the stones, divided between the tribes beyond Jordan and the tribes on this side of Jordan;

nor is one thing to be permitted to some and another to others;

nor is there any canon of qualifications.

But the matter has been so cast aside and thrown into confusion, and we are in so wretched a state, that most of us—not to say all—before we have well-nigh shed our first hair and ceased to lisp like children, before we have entered the divine courts, before we have come to know so much as the names of the sacred books, before we have learned to recognize the character of the New and Old Testaments and their authors,

—O the pretension to the chief seat, and the conceit of mind!

Samuel was holy even from his swaddling-clothes;

but we are at once wise men and teachers, lofty in divine things, foremost among scribes and doctors of the law; we ordain ourselves as heavenly, and seek to be called rabbi by men; the letter counts for nothing, everything must be understood spiritually, and dreams are mere expansive nonsense.

And we should be indignant, were we not exceedingly praised.

Such are the more honest and simpler among us;

but what of the more 'spiritual' and 'noble' sort? Having heaped much condemnation upon us, if it so please them, and put us to the test, and reckoned us as nothing, they departed, spurning communion with us as with men of no godliness.

But if we say to one of them thus, gently and reasonably leading him on:

'Tell me, my excellent friend, do you call dancing and flute-playing something?' 'Certainly,' he would say.

'And what of wisdom, and being wise—that which we define as the knowledge of things divine and human?' This too they will grant.

'And which is the better and loftier thing—these compared with wisdom, or wisdom far surpassing these?' And I know well that they will say wisdom is of all things the best;

and thus far they are reasonable.

Is it then so, that for dancing and flute-playing there is teaching and learning, and time is needed for it, and much sweat and toil, and one must sometimes pay fees, find sponsors, travel far abroad, and do all manner of things and suffer others, by which experience is gathered;

while wisdom, which presides over all, and gathers and holds in itself all that is good—so that God Himself is said to delight in being called by this name more than by any other, since He is called by many names—this we shall suppose to be so trifling and trodden-down a thing that one need only wish, and lo, he is wise? This is the mark of great ignorance.