On His Own Life 1 part 1/3

ON HIS OWN LIFE. The purpose of this discourse is to relate in full the course of my misfortunes — or, indeed, of my good fortunes;

for some would call them one way, others another, according, I suppose, to whatever bias inclines them.

For mere wishing is no sure criterion.

Verse plays the part of a remedy for grief, at once a discipline and a sweetness for the young, a pleasant consolation.

My discourse is addressed to you — you who once were mine, but now are estranged; and to all who share my belief, even to any who hold a spurious faith.

For all men are kindly disposed toward us once our lips are closed in death.

Men — the renowned eye of the inhabited world — you who dwell, as I see it, in this second world, clothed in the beauty of land and sea, new-wrought Rome, seat of other nobles, city of Constantine and pillar of his power: hear, men, a most truthful man, one who has toiled much through many turnings of fortune, from which comes also a greater knowledge.

And even fair things grow weary with time.

Nothing — or only a scant remnant — is left, as when earth has been swept away by the onrush of violent rains, and only pebbles remain behind.

This as yet is nothing great, if I speak of the multitude, who even before were not ranked among the good — brutish as cattle, and bowed down toward the earth.

But we are the dread and rugged torrent-bed.

Our order is dissolved — I speak it with lament — we who sit unworthily upon high thrones, presidents of the people, teachers of the Good, allotted to nourish souls with divine food, while we ourselves go hungry.

Physicians of the passions, yet dead men teeming with countless diseases.

Guides, perhaps, along precipitous paths which they have never guided others upon, nor themselves traveled.

Men concerning whom the briefest doctrine and the surest teaching unto salvation is this: not even to follow them.

Men whose very tribunal accuses their own character, whose chancel-rail separates not lives, but only brows [put on for show].

But as for the reasons that led me to commit these things to speech — for it is not my wish to rhapsodize much in vain — let every man hear, both those now living and those to come.

It is necessary to relate my circumstances a little from the beginning, even though I must speak at length, so that false reports may not prevail against me.

For evil men are wont, for the wrongs they themselves commit, to turn the blame upon those who have suffered them, so that they may do them further harm through their lies, while excusing themselves from the charges.

Let this, then, be the prologue of my discourse.

I had a father who was noble and exceedingly good, aged, simple in character, a plumb-line of life, truly a patriarch, a second Abraham as it were — best not in seeming but in being, not after the manner of men today.

Formerly given to error, later a friend of Christ, and afterward a shepherd — indeed the very strength of shepherds.

And my mother, to speak briefly, was the yoke-fellow of so great a man, and an unswerving balance-scale; more pious than the pious from whom she sprang, female in body, but in character surpassing a man.

Both, in equal measure, were throughout their life a common theme of praise.

By what means is this clear? How shall I prove my word? I will bring forward as witness the very one of whom I spoke, my own mother, the mouth of truth — one accustomed rather to conceal something of what was manifest than to boast of what was hidden, for the sake of glory.

For fear guided her — that great teacher.

She, longing to see the offspring of a male child in her house — a thing dear to many — conversed with God, and begged to obtain her desire.

And since she could not restrain her heart, she gave as a gift the very one she had asked to receive, her eagerness even outrunning the gift itself.

And so she did not fail of her beloved prayer, but there came to her a favorable prelude — a vision bearing the shadow of what she had asked.

For my form appeared clearly before her, together with my name.

And this was the work of the night's grace.

For I became for them — if indeed I was worthy of that prayer — the gift of the God who had granted it;

but if instead I proved a thing to be shunned, that is due to my own sin.

Thus, then, I came forth into this life, mingled with clay — alas, wretched man! — and with composite matter, by which we are mastered, or which we master only with difficulty;

yet having received, in that very birth itself, a pledge of everything most fair.

And as soon as I arrived, I straightway became estranged — with that noble estrangement.

For I was presented to God like some lamb, or a beloved calf, a noble offering, honored also in word — I hesitate to say, like a new Samuel — unless I look to the desire of those who gave me.

Reared amid every good thing from swaddling-clothes (for I had the best models at home), I already began to acquire a certain reverence for old age, and little by little, as a cloud gathers out of darkness, there was gathered within me an eagerness for what is better.

And I advanced further, as reason too kept pace with me; I delighted in books that pleaded God's cause, and I kept company with men of the finest character.

But as for what remains, I know not what path of speech I should cut.

Shall I hide the wonders by which God urged me on, taking my eagerness as the best of beginnings (for thus He knows how to draw a man to salvation)? Or shall I set them forth eagerly, proclaiming them in the open? For the one is thankless, the other not free of vanity.

It is better to keep silent — let it suffice that I myself know — lest my present life, falling far short of that former eagerness, should seem to war against my own words.

But that which is necessary, I will make known to the many.

While my cheek was still beardless, a certain burning love of learning already possessed me.

For I sought to make the profane disciplines serve as helpers to the true ones, so that those who learned from me might not be puffed up with anything at all — save for a vain and empty eloquence, the kind that lies merely in noise and throat — nor yet might I myself lack the intricate coils needed against sophistries.

But this never once entered my mind: to set anything before my [true, sacred] learning.

But what the fervor of the young always suffers — being easily fanned by disorderly impulses, like a colt darting into its course, full of spirit — this too I suffered.

For quite out of season, when the sea was no longer tame — those skilled in such matters call it 'the Bull's tail,' a voyage not without danger, a voyage of rashness rather than of sound sense — then indeed, having left Alexandria (for from there too I had gathered something of learning), I set sail and cut straight across the sea toward Greece.

And a conflict of winds set the ship seething, and everything became a single night.

Earth, sea, sky, heaven all darkened.

Thunders echoed with the flashing shocks of lightning, and the ropes groaned as the sails filled with wind.

The mast bent, and the rudders had no strength at all.

For the tiller was violently wrenched from the grip of the hand.

And the hull was filled with water surging over the gunwale.

And a mingled outcry, full of lamentation, arose — of sailors, boatswains, ship-owners, and those aboard — all calling upon Christ with one accord, even those who before had not known God.

For fear is a more timely teacher than all else.

But what was the most grievous of all evils was this: the ship was without water.

For at once, as the ship reeled and spun, the small cask that held the sweet treasure of water was shattered and scattered upon the deep.

And there was a struggle of thirst and storm and winds, threatening to make us corpses.

But God provided a swift release from this.

For Phoenician merchants, suddenly appearing — though themselves in fear — having learned from our supplications the straits of our peril, by the bracing of poles and the grappling strokes of hands, having disengaged their vessels (for they were sturdy ships), saved us, who were already as good as dead men of the sea, like fish that had failed and died out of the sea, or a lamp dying for lack of fuel.

But the sea grew wild and roared yet more fiercely against us for many days, while we, amid our many turnings of course, knew not whither we sailed, nor did any see salvation coming from God.

And while all feared the common death that threatened everyone, for me there was a hidden death that was more terrible still.

For I feared being cut off, by these murderous waters, from the purifying waters by which we are deified.

This was my lamentation, this to me was calamity; for this I sent up cries, stretching out my hands — cries that rose louder than the great roar of the waves — having torn my tunic, lying prostrate, wretched man that I was.

And what is scarcely credible, yet entirely true: all the sailors, setting aside their own calamity, joined with me in raising prayerful cries, becoming pious sailors amid our common woes.

So deeply did they share in the suffering of my sorrows.

You, my Christ, were present even then, a great Savior, and now You still free me from the waves of life.

To You I look — my life, my breath, my light, my strength, my salvation — You who frighten, who strike, who smile, who heal, ever weaving what is good out of its opposites.

And having reminded You of all the wonders of old, by which we recognize Your mightiest hand — the Egyptians worn away by plagues, the sea rent asunder as Israel passed through, enemies overcome by the mere raising of hands, creation itself made subject to its commanders, walls demolished by trumpets and by a running-course — and having added my own case to those ancient deeds so long proclaimed, I said: 'I am Yours, both in time past and even now still.'

You shall receive me a second time, a possession among the things precious to you, a gift of earth and sea, purified by a mother's prayer and by extraordinary fears.

I shall live for you, if I escape this twofold danger.

You will lose a worshipper, if you forsake me.

Shake off sleep for my sake, or walk upon the waters, and let fear be stilled. These things I said.

And the tumult of the winds ceased, the sea fell calm, and the ship sailed a straight course.

And this too is the gain of my prayer:

For the whole company of the ship departed reverencing great Christ, having received a twofold salvation from God.

And passing beyond Rhodes a little later, sailing with a fair wind, we put in at the harbor of Aegina (for the ship was of Aegina).

As for what happened there, let others tell it — how at first we conducted ourselves in the fear of God, knowing first things first;

but how, in the prime of youth and the surge of rashness, while others were being goaded on, each with their different factions, we nevertheless passed through a quiet life — like some sea-spring, I think, sweet amid the bitter waters, as indeed men believe — neither drawn along by those who lead toward harm, but ourselves drawing our friends toward the better things.

For in this too God has dealt well with me:

he brought and joined me to the wisest of men, one alone above all others in life and in learning.

Who is this? You will surely recognize him very easily.

It was Basil, the great benefit of the present age.

Him I had as a partner in discourse, in lodging, and in reflections.

We were a pair not without renown in Greece.

All things indeed were common between us, and it was one soul, lacking only the separation of two bodies.

But what especially brought us together into one, this it was:

God, and the longing for better things.

For from the time we came to such boldness as to speak out even the depths of the heart, we were bound the more tightly to one another in love.

For likeness of mind is a sure bond toward union of nature.

What then remained? My homeland, and the patterns of life to come.

For indeed much time had already been spent on my studies;

this was now nearly my thirtieth year.

Then I came to recognize what longing and what esteem my fellow-students held toward me.

The time was at hand — and great toil was at hand too.

There was need of embraces and gloomy words, of farewells, and of memory's kindled embers.

To him indeed they yielded, though under compulsion and with difficulty, when he gave many reasons for his departure.

But even now, as I recall the confusion of that time, the tear runs ahead of me.

All of them surrounded me at once in great haste — strangers, familiars, agemates, teachers — with oaths, with lamentations, and mingling in something of force as well (for love persuaded them to dare even this); they held me fast, declaring that not even if something happened would they send me away from there — for it was not fitting, they said, that our honored Athens should be brought low — as though indeed they would grant, by vote, the crown of mastery in eloquence.

until they bent my will — for it would take an oak alone to withstand so many laments and words — yet not completely:

for my homeland was pulling me back as well, prevailing in faith over almost all beneath the sun, in which it seemed a noble thing to pursue wisdom, and my parents too, worn out by age and time.

So, having remained yet a little while longer at Athens, I stole away my departure almost in secret.

I came, I gave my orations, I satisfied the craving of those who demanded this of me as though it were a debt.

For I had no regard for applause and noise, nor for the buffooneries and contortions in which the 'wise' delight amid a throng of young men.

This first I set before myself as true philosophy: to cast away for God both everything else and the labors of oratory — as those who abandon their sheep-grazing estates, or those who gather gold only to fling it into the depths of the brine.

But, as I said before, I danced attendance to please my friends.

These things were, as it were, preliminary exercises for the contests, or preparatory rites before greater mysteries.

What remained now called for manly resolve.

Within myself I convened a tribunal of friends — the genuine counselors of my own reasonings.

A terrible whirl gripped my mind, as I sought the better among things already good.

To cast the things of the flesh into the depths had long been resolved, and at that time it pleased me even more.

But as I myself examined the divine ways, it was by no means easy to find the better one.

For different things appeared good or bad depending on different considerations, as is often the case with matters requiring action.

Such was my case, if one may liken it to something: like one contemplating some long journey abroad, who had shunned sailing and the toils of the sea, yet was searching out which road might be the easier.

I had in mind Elijah the Tishbite and great Carmel, or the strange food, the possession of the Forerunner — namely the wilderness — and the unencumbered life of the sons of Jonadab.

Then again a longing for the divine books prevailed, and for the light of the Spirit in the contemplation of the Word — a matter that is not the work of the wilderness, nor of quiet stillness — until, having often been swayed toward both, at last I arbitrated between my two desires in this way, and moderately checked the wandering of my mind.

For seeing that those whom the active life delights are useful to others in the community but useless to themselves, tossed about by evils out of which their once-calm character is churned into waves; while those who stand apart are somehow more steadfast, and gaze toward God with a quiet mind, yet are useful only to themselves, within a narrow circle of affection, living a life strange and harsh — I came to a certain middle way between the solitaries and those who mingle with others, bearing the thoughtfulness of the one and the usefulness of the other.

And there was besides a greater matter: the debt of gratitude owed to those precious ones — I mean my parents, to whom I stood indebted.

Their old age (for indeed it is most pious to render to one's parents, after God, the first honor — those through whom one also comes to know God) I cherished, I upheld with all my strength, I led by the hand, so as to make their old age gracious toward myself, propitiating that old age.

For we reap the very things we sow.

This was for me a part of philosophical training:

not to seem to strive after the highest life, but rather to be — rather than merely to seem — pleasing to God.

I thought, then, that one ought also to hold dear those active in the ministry, as many as have received some honor from God, leading the people with divinely inspired rites.

But a greater longing for the monastic life possessed me, although I seemed to be ranked among the many.

For solitude is a matter of disposition, not of bodies.

The sanctuary was to me an object of reverence, but I stood far off from it, as sunlight is to failing eyes.

I would have hoped for anything sooner than to receive this, amid the many turns of life.

Say nothing great, in brief — you are but a man.

Envy always cuts short our exaltations.

Take nothing on hearsay from outside; look rather at my own case.

While I was thinking in this way, a terrible upheaval befell me.

For my father, although he knew my mind most exactly, moved I know not from where — perhaps by paternal affection (and affection joined with power is a terrible thing) — so that he might bind me with the fetters of the Spirit, and honor with better things the one he had begotten, violently bends me toward a throne of the second rank.

Thus indeed I was grieved by this tyranny — for I am not yet able to call it by any other name, and may the divine Spirit pardon me for feeling so — so that, suddenly loosed from all things at once — friends, parents, homeland, kin — like oxen struck by the gadfly, I went to Pontus, intending to procure for myself, as a remedy for my anguish, the God-inspired presence of my friend.

For there he was practicing communion with God, veiled in a cloud like one of the sages of old.

This was Basil, who is now among the angels.

With him I would soften the grief of my heart.

But when my good father, worn out by old age and longing, was greatly in need of his son, that he might render honor to his last breaths, and time was ripening my calamity — as it never should have — I ran again into the deep, fearing the groaning of my father's stirred emotions, lest his very affection should fall upon me as a curse.

Such a thing is guileless simplicity, once provoked to anger.

A brief interval between, and then again a mighty triple wave — one cannot say how much fiercer.

It is no worse thing that friends should know all.

My brother was carrying out a certain secular office — my brother indeed, O most malicious one, so far as your power reaches! — and it was a trust over the treasury.

In the middle of his office he dies, and a pack of dogs rises up against the dead man's money and remains.

For who does not gather wood from a fallen oak? But I, so far as it depended on my own reckoning, would never have feared the onset of these affairs;

for I am a bird that rises aloft with ease.

Yet it was necessary to bear all things together with my good father, both the good and their opposite, being a partner in his affairs, not in his money.

And just as those who have not first set their footing firmly, once they slip, fall into the depth of a precipice, no longer masters of themselves, so for me, having tasted of troubles, one calamity after another kept rising up.

There came to us once — I will keep silent about the middle of the matter, lest I seem to utter a slanderous word against a man whom I have now ceased to bless — but there came to us the dearest of friends, Basil — alas for the words I must speak! —

yet I will speak it — another father to me, far more burdensome.

For the one I was bound to endure even when he played the tyrant, but the other there was no necessity to endure, for the sake of a friendship that brought harm, not release from troubles.

I do not know whether I should blame my own sins the more — which have often, many times, bitten me, as one ever boiling over with youthful heat in whatever befell — or blame you, best of men, for the elation which the throne gave you; for as to the rest, may my word find you gracious, you yourself would perhaps not have thought it right to bear the yoke so far beyond measure.

Indeed formerly, O most excellent one, you did not think it right either.

But if you had thought it right, perhaps some fair-minded judge, among those who knew both of us well, would have restrained you.

What then has come over you? How have you cast us off so entirely, and all at once? May the law of a friendship that so reveres its friends thus perish from human life!

We were lions yesterday, but today I, for my part, am among the apes.

If indeed you regarded all your friends thus — I will utter a lofty word — it ought not to have been so with me, whom you once ranked before your other friends too, when — before you were above the clouds, holding all things beneath you —

Why do you seethe so, my heart? Restrain the young colt by force.

Back again to the turning-post, my discourse.

That man was a liar to me alone, though most truthful in everything else — who, though he had often heard me say these things: that for now all is bearable, even should it fall out worse, but should my parents depart this life, then every reasoning bids me too depart from these affairs, so that I might gain something from a hearthless life, being most easily a citizen of every place — hearing this, then, and agreeing with my reasoning, nevertheless forced me toward the throne of the episcopate, he himself and my father twice tripping me up in this.

Do not yet be troubled, before you have learned the whole matter.

If enemies had deliberated the longest time on how they might dishonor me, I do not think they could have devised any other way than the present one.

Do you long to hear it? Will not all who thought the matter one of the unjust things tell you so? What sort of self I offered to my friend, Pontus knows, the city of the Caesareans knows, and all our common friends know.

For it would be petty of me to reproach him with these things.

For it is fitting that the one who received a benefit should remember it, but by no means the one who conferred it.

But as for what sort of man he was to us, let the facts themselves persuade you.

There is a certain station midway on the great highway of Cappadocia, where the road splits three ways — waterless, without a blade of green, not free at all, a dreadfully detestable, cramped little hamlet.

Dust is everything there, and clatter and carts, wailings, groanings, tax-collectors, racks, fetters, and a populace made up of strangers and wanderers.

This is the church of my Sasima.

To this place he — hemmed in by fifty chorepiscopoi — gave me over, such was his high spirit! — and this, so that, while another was seizing it by force, he might, by creating this new see, gain the upper hand and keep the seat firmly in his grasp.

For to him I was among the foremost of his war-like friends — for I too was once valiant, and no wound seemed dreadful when it was a blessed one.

For besides the other things I have enumerated, it was not even possible to gain that throne without bloodshed;

for this was the borderland between two rival bishops, and a fierce contention had broken out there, whose author was the division of my homeland, which had ordained two cities as mothers of lesser towns.

Souls were the pretext, but the reality is the lust for power;

for I am loath to say it — revenues and taxes, by which the whole world is wretchedly shaken.

Reaping the fruits stripped bare of anything good? Demand of me some other courage, whatever you wish, but offer this kind to those wiser than I.

Such then were Athens, and our shared labors in learning, our life under one roof and at one hearth, one mind in the two of us, not two — the wonder of Greece;

and our clasped right hands, pledged to cast the world far away, ourselves to live a life shared with God, and to surrender our own reasonings to the one wise Word.

All has now been scattered, thrown down upon the ground; the winds bear away those old hopes.

Where should one wander? Wild beasts, will you not receive me — among whom, so it seems to me, faithfulness is greater? Such, to put it briefly, was the state of affairs.

But when I was bent — not in resolve, but in neck — what shall I say? And how could I set before you the whole of my anguish? The goads came upon me again — again some flight, a headlong rush to the mountain, stealing back my beloved way of life, my own delight.

But what did I gain by it? For it was not, it seems, a sustained flight.

Though I knew everything, in enduring this one thing I proved base.

First, then, my father made it his struggle to establish me firmly at Sasima;

but when he grew weak, the second course was, not indeed to remain in that lower place, but to labor together with him — for by then he was heavy and burdened in the flesh — and to help lighten his toils, stretching out his hands, taking hold of this very beard of mine, addressing me with words such as these:

'Your father implores you, O dearest of sons — the aged father implores the young one, the master by nature and by a twofold law implores his servant.'

'I ask of you not gold, not gems, nor silver, nor fields of land, my child, nor anything that belongs to luxury.'

'I seek to set you close beside Aaron and Samuel, and to make you an honored attendant standing before God.'

'My child, do not dishonor me, so that you may find your only father gracious toward you.'

'A noble request it is — or if not noble, at least a father's.'

'You have not yet measured out so long a life as the years of sacrifices that have passed over me.'

'Grant me this favor — grant it! — or else let another commit me to the grave.'

'This I appoint as the penalty for your disobedience.'

'Grant these few remaining days to what is left of me.'

'But as for what comes after, you shall be free to decide as you wish.' When I heard this, and my soul was relieved a little of its burden, as the sun breaks free of a cloud — what was happening? Where were my sufferings turning now? I admonished myself, that it was no harm to fulfill my father's longing until his own seat came to an end.

'For this will not hold me against my will,' I said, 'I whom neither proclamation nor promise can master.' Thus fear, having conquered me, led me back.

But when my parents had departed from this life, having obtained the portion toward which they had long been hastening, and I was left, not nobly, free — I did not touch at all the church that had been given me, not even so much as to offer God a single act of worship, or pray together with the people, or lay hands on so much as one of the clergy.

But of my father's church — for certain devout men would not let go, binding me with oaths, pressing upon me, pointing out the deaths of many still unbaptized — for a short time, as a stranger, I did take some care of what was not my own, I will not deny it, always declaring this very thing to the bishops, and asking as a gift from the depth of my heart that they set up some man as overseer for the town — speaking the truth: first, that I had not yet received it by any well-attested ordination, and second, that it had long ago been resolved that I should flee both friends and affairs.

But since I could not persuade them — some wishing, out of great longing, to keep me, others perhaps out of arrogance — I first fled to Seleucia, to the convent of the celebrated virgin Thecla,

saying, 'Perhaps, worn out in this way by time, they will at last be persuaded to give the reins to someone else.' And no small time passed for me there.

But when I turned again to face my own troubles, of the good things I had expected I found not even one, while of the affairs I supposed I had escaped, a great throng suddenly reappeared, as if by fixed appointment — here indeed comes the crux of my account.

I will tell what I am about to tell, even to those who already know it well, so that, not having me with you, you may at least have this account — a remedy for grief, a reproach to enemies, and to friends a testimony of the wrongs we suffered, though we had done no wrong.

a city presiding over all, wholly revering the harmony of God —

she was formerly upright of foot, but now no longer — I mean, indeed, this city of mine, and then no longer mine — but she lay in the depths of ruin, ever since that frivolous city, full of every evil, Alexandria — mindless heat! — sent forth Arius, the abomination of desolation, who first said:

'The Trinity is not to be equally revered' — and he set boundaries of rank, unequally dividing the undivided being of the one nature, until we were cut apart into many factions.

Yet nevertheless, though the city was most wretched, being thus in accordance with the law arising from long custom — for custom, growing old with time, ends by becoming law — and though she had died a pitiable death through unbelief, she still retained some small seed of living breath: souls made perfect in the doctrine of the faith, a people small in number, yet in God's sight the greater, for he counts not multitude but hearts — a faithful planting, a most precious vine-shoot.

To these — for we seemed to some, both in life and in reputation among people of note, to be somebody before God, although we had always lived a rustic life — to these the grace of the Spirit sent us, since many shepherds and their flocks of people called for helpers and partners in the word, that we might refresh with a godly stream souls parched dry yet still budding green, and that the light of the lamp might be blended with the nourishment of oil — but as for fluent tongues and their many-twisted plaitings, from which the simplicity of the faith departs, and spider's webs, those rotten prisons that bind only frivolous things, a laughingstock to the strong — may they be torn apart or dissolved by firm arguments, and may those who fell into them escape the snares.

Thus I came, not willingly, but stolen away by forceful men, as an advocate of the true doctrine.

For indeed a rumor was going about, that a gathering of bishops was introducing into our friendly churches a newly-arrived heresy and doctrine — one which, cutting apart the union of God's Word with us (a union which the Word, without being changed, received when it took on a man ensouled, possessed of mind, subject to the body's passions, wholly Adam as he was before, except for sin), introduces instead a mindless God, as though fearing that the mind might war against God — for on that reasoning I might just as well fear the nature of the flesh, indeed more so, since it is far more removed from God — or as though it had been resolved that, while all else needs salvation, the mind alone should be utterly lost, the very part which above all must be saved by my God, since it is precisely the part that slipped and fell most in the first fashioning of man.

For that which had received the command was also that which disregarded the law; and that which was the one to disregard it, this same part must also be the one assumed.

Let no doctrine, then, save only half of me, who suffered wholly; nor let God be dishonored, as though he had not taken the whole of me, but only clay, and a soul as mindless and irrational as that of some animal — which, it would seem, is then the part that has been saved by your reasoning!

And let every pious person put an end to such things.

For those who cut apart the harmony below — some by paring away, others by wickedly doubling — err just as much, though from the opposite side, as those who thoughtlessly introduce two sons, the one from God and the one from the Virgin.

For if there are two, I fear one of two things: either we worship two gods instead of one, or, guarding against this, we banish the composite [humanity] from God altogether.

For that one to whom only the flesh belongs — of him God could suffer nothing.

But human nature partook of God entire — not as a prophet or some other inspired man, who partook not of God himself but only of the things of God — but was united in being with him, as the sun with its rays.

Let such men, then, be cast out from the midst of true doctrine, unless they revere as one — God and man together — him who took [our nature] to himself along with what was taken, the timeless one together with what is mingled with time, him who is of the Father alone and of the mother alone, two natures come together into one Christ.

But how did my own affairs fare, and in what manner? Having come [to that city], I encountered many troubles.

First, the city seethed against us, as though we were introducing many gods instead of one.

They had been so schooled that they were utterly ignorant of the pious doctrine — how the Monad becomes Triad, and the Triad again becomes One, both being conceived in a godly manner.

And besides, the mob is dragged along to side with the aggrieved, as champions of their then leader and shepherd, out of pity for his suffering — so vast a populace, and so full of pride, for whom not to prevail in everything is the utmost disgrace.

I will pass over the stones [thrown] at my great banquet; of these I fault one thing only:

for those who found their mark were ill-aimed — to strike men such as these would have been but an empty murder.

...to hold him graciously — one who had never done, nor even conceived, anything dreadful, as a disciple of the Word.

And Christ stood by me, the advocate of the Word, aiding the advocate of [his] words — he who knows how to rescue strangers from lions, to turn fire to dew for the refreshment of youths, and to make a sea-monster's belly a house of prayer for the pious.

This one glorified me in a foreign tribunal.

Then a terrible envy swelled among my own people, dragging me toward some 'Paul' and 'Apollos' — men who were never incarnate for us, nor poured out blood in precious suffering.

[Parties] from whom we are named — not from him who saved us.