Letter to George, Prefect of Africa 1 part 13/14

and of the desiring [part], love;

and of the incensive [part], peace;

just as also of true priesthood [the end is] to be deified through these, and to deify [others]

For it is on this basis that we naturally possess reasoning in order to seek God, and we have received desire in order to long for Him alone, and we have obtained the incensive power in order to strive only on His behalf

And the end of the seeking is true knowledge;

and of the longing, unceasing and ardent love;

and of the divine struggles, the peace that surpasses every mind

Knowing that you, all-holy and all-blessed ones, are the producers and teachers of these highest goods, the truly handmaid of God — both daughter and mother — Eudokia the recluse, together with her sacred flock, has returned to you, having proved you, who are honored of God, to be victors over all who eagerly sought to have her for themselves

[She is called] daughter, in that through all things she possesses, by disposition, an unaltered likeness to God; and mother, in that she is also, in others, generative of a disposition according to virtue

But rejoice, then, and exult, having received back the more precious part of your holy flock;

and especially having taken along also my sanctified lord George the presbyter, the truly divine tilled field, and a most approved husbandman of the divine and great George, able in deed and word before God and all the people according to the husbandry-skill of souls, and therefore beloved by all who love the Lord

But since, for the time being, I have become half-dead and half-severed, torn away from their beneficial companionship, either take me too, as a diseased member, and heal me, or console me through your prayers, and persuade me to bear the separation without passion

For this too stands as proper to true and divine priesthood

32. By the Same [Author], to Abba Polychronios

Since we are about to celebrate the burial and resurrection of Christ, who died and was buried in the flesh for our sake, let us consider whether we too have died and been buried with respect to the old man that is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit, and have risen with respect to the new man that is being renewed according to the image of the one who created [him]

Of mortification: complete freedom from the passions;

and of the second resurrection: the unblemished and true boldness according to conscience;

and the illumination of knowledge according to the mind

And if these things have come to be in us, let us celebrate the feast together with Christ our God;

but if not, let us strive at least not to betray the Word to the passions, after the manner of Judas, or not to deny him, after the manner of Peter;

lest somehow we should not be able to repent, and be led away regretting to no avail;

or [lest we be unable] to weep bitterly and wash away the marks of denial

For denial of the Word is the refusal, out of fear, to do the good;

and betrayal is the deliberate impulse toward sin carried into actual operation;

of which may it never happen that we take experience

33. By the Same [Author], to the Same [Recipient]

If, according to the great conqueror of trials, Job, the life of men is a place of trial

And the world, as the Lord said, lies in the evil one.

when the tempting life, and the evil-working world, and men, and demons have been put to death in us — that is, the passionate life, and the pleasurable deception according to sense-perception, and the fleshly sufferings, and the passionate stirrings of the soul, and the involuntary afflictions consequent upon these, which are called tribulations —

Let us therefore endure, that we may be saved;

for he who endures to the end shall be saved.

The peace of Christ be with us.

Departing toward his Passion, the Lord left peace to us;

and again, having risen from the dead, he gave peace to us.

What is he hinting at through these words? That we must bear through opposite seasons without passion — neither, falling under grievous circumstances, being left without a better hope, nor, being carried along together with cheerful occasions, casting off the reasoning that disciplines us;

but to be the same, both when suffering and when faring well.

But this does not come about, unless we first tread upon the asp and the basilisk;

that is, that we become above disobedience to the divine words, and acceptance of evil thoughts;

and that we trample down the lion and the dragon, that is, wrath and desire;

when these have departed from us, all peace shall be ours, nothing being able to move us toward any of the things that remain here.

Let us master wrath and desire, and together we shall have cast down the whole house of the foreigners along with those in it, having slain together with the passions both the passionate life and its conduct.

35. Of the Same to the Same

For our sake he, being God and Lord of all, having become man, enters into his glory through sufferings and the cross and death, there being no other way appointed for him, even as it is written:

'Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things, and enter into his glory?'

Let us not lose heart in tribulations, growing faint;

but let us look to Jesus, the author of our salvation, and the perfecter;

and let us endure with courage the things that befall us.

For the end of every tribulation is joy;

and of every labor, rest; and of every dishonor, glory;

and, simply put, the end of all the pains endured for the sake of virtue is to be with God forever, and to enjoy the eternal rest that has no end.

But pray, Father, that we may attain to it, having crossed well the sea of life, and having kept the intelligible foundations of the soul unwetted by its brine.

36. Of the Same to the Same

Blessed is our master in the Lord, and blessed is the garden of his heart, which the true husbandman Jesus planted, and has filled with immortal plants of righteousness;

of which we too have partaken of the fruits, having been filled with its spiritual vegetables;

with which the great Apostle also knows how to nourish those who are too weak for the immediate vision of divine things;

feeding them, as it were with vegetables, on the natural contemplation of visible things;

and through the magnificence of the things that appear, leading them by the hand toward its creator.

Imitating him, our blessed Father and teacher has also affectionately shown us kindness, symbolically setting before us, through the vegetables, an understanding of this creation.

But impart also solid food, and stir up our soul, which is enfeebled by pleasures and has no appetite for divine things, tightening our desire with the subtler reasoning of providence and judgment;

so that you may not nourish your disciples with vegetables alone, teaching only the principles of things coming into being and passing away;

but also with grain, and wine, and oil, establish them firmly with the doctrines of things eternal.

giving the teaching that holds the virtues together as solid bread, and, as it were with wine, warming through with the teaching of unforgettable knowledge the heart of your followers toward a deifying ecstasy;

the knowledge that nourishes, and keeps unquenched the torch that is within them;

just as oil, producing in your servants the peaceful and undisturbed habit of gentleness.

37. Of the Same to the Same

Again we have received your honored letter along with gifts, holy Father;

and again we have enjoyed goods equal to the former ones;

by the gifts, having quenched the burning of the passions that blackens our soul;

for before them we had already eaten the intelligible principles;

believing that these things were not sent by you idly, and in vain, and as it happened to be, since you are moved in all things with reason and spirit;

and you make even the food of the body into an instruction for our soul.

and in the letter, having found humility, the mother of all virtues, through which both the generation and the guarding of good things is wrought for those who possess it, we wept abundantly, having observed how far we have been removed from this way.

For your mourning has become a reproof of the evils in which we are held fast;

and it has awakened our mind, which was sleeping deeply, and it has exercised our memory, which had been covered by the veil of puffed-up self-conceit;

making us knowers of ourselves, perceiving in due measure the disturbance caused by our own sins.

And it has made us in some measure partakers of wisdom, having received discernment of our own transgressions, if indeed he speaks truly who says:

'Those who know themselves are wise.'

Do not, therefore, cease, honored Father, both renewing our mind by your word, and asking, through prayer, deliverance from evils for us;

that you may receive for these things a reward from God, who grants the perfect purification of the soul according to conscience.

38. Of the Same to the Same

We thank you, honored Father, because you have given yourself to us as a model of excellent repentance, persuading us, through confession, to lay bare the dark treasures of the passions within ourselves;

through which the hatred toward sin naturally comes to be confirmed.

For we are, in truth, those who cherish the passions, the memory of which, after the act, brings disgust;

as onions, loving the assent to evil thoughts, according to which the visual faculty of the soul toward virtue and knowledge becomes duller, receiving, as it were, layers of skin — the passionate imaginings of visible things;

For, according to those who trace its etymology, 'onion' means 'the closing of the pupil.'

and as garlic, we eat the fulfillment of the passions wrought through their operation, according to which the mind, filled with impurity, breathes out to those outside, through shameful words and manners, the stench of the evils it has consumed through the deed.

But teach us, holy Father, how, after casting these away, we shall love the manna;

I mean the rational bread of divine knowledge, rained down upon us from heaven, and how we shall keep it incorruptible;

neither storing it up for the morrow through delay, lest it breed worms of fleshly passions, decaying through idleness;

nor triumphing through ostentation, lest it be melted away by vainglory and become nothing.

With such words again nourish us, honored Father, your disciples, and commend to God through prayer those who cannot worship apart from your intercession.

39. Of the Same to the Same

Ungrudgingly you nourish us, sanctified Father, both the visible and the intelligible man.

supplying the body with what is needed for its subsistence;

and giving to the soul what leads to growth in the Spirit.

For God has made you rich in both respects, having blessed your entrance.

For by 'entrance' I mean the acquisition of the gifts granted to you by God, which is multiplied through practice.

and as its outgoing produce, the transmission of the word that comes about from you to others;

and evidently in those who receive it, bearing as fruit the working of what is fitting.

40. Of the same [author], to the same Thalassius, presbyter and abbot.

Having attentively perused the wise and honored letter of your paternal holiness, O master,

and having examined everything, and having read through the whole book of my conscience, I found none of the things reported [in it] to be mine,

I quickly restrained the tension of my soul, tightening its slackness, since I deemed it vain to be added to praises belonging to others, and judged that such a thing belongs only to a soul inclined toward every alluring deceit.

For it is truly vain for one who does not possess in deed the glory of what is spoken, to attempt rashly to appropriate to himself praises as though full of virtue.

But my master, judging the affairs of others from his own advantages of virtue, renders his verdict, covering with the abundance of his godlike perfection the shame of the one wounded by many

passions, as is the custom among those who love the Lord.

But I, O my blessed master,

the command of [your] all-radiant perfection in virtue — most

...-most, about to enter, perhaps, into every reproach and blame, as on account of my rashness in this regard, from those

...-ing [ones], placing your love higher,

to lord Abba Thomas, readily assisting...

supplying, that is, sufficient material, as I think, through the winter, so that, the Lord cooperating, we may be able to fulfill such a command of yours.

May you be greatly preserved for me, beloved and honored Father, and may you preserve [us] by prayers to God—

your servant and slave;

and I will add also 'lover' — being delivered, through his intercession, from every diabolical contrivance.

41. Of the same, to the same.

One who has been taught by the Spirit to take everything captive unto Christ knows how to derive benefit from everything;

just as you too [derive benefit] from me, who am wholly estranged from divine grace, and thoroughly bound by the laws of the flesh,

And since I possess nothing, not even of serious worth, it would be necessary for me to refrain altogether from ever coming, lest, in fulfilling your command, I cause harm rather [than good].

And I shall come when the Lord wills, knowing that you have remained undefiled and unstained even while associating with me, the profane one.

For that which is holy by disposition, just as that which is holy by nature, will not be defiled by anything unclean.

But concerning the affair of the Vestitor, you do well to show sympathy, provided the matter involves no harm;

and especially if you know that you are able to bear with it.

42. Of the same, to the same.

...increase, and the kingdom, when he perceived that from God, on every side, there was granted to him [...]

then he purposed to build a house for the Lord God.

And God, on the one hand, accepted him as one who had purposed well;

yet He nevertheless also makes a fitting distinction, saying:

'It is the seed that comes from him that must bring this good work to completion...'

adding the reason: because he had shed much blood upon the earth.

And he, on the one hand, obeyed God who admonished him;

and he embraced the counsel with delight, and judged it more honorable than his own disposition.

And he himself, indeed, did not build the temple of God,

but he refers [it] to his son, abundantly...

he gives both the material and the pattern;

...the well-ordered bonds of salvation.

And lest, by going through the contemplation of each of the things mentioned, I prolong my discourse, [let it suffice to say that] the peaceable...

...able to [raise] the temple of God on high,

but [peace, which is] able to persuade [people] to attend [worship] not through fear, and, in cooperating toward the building of the most divine temple, sustains no harm;

both Hiram king of Tyre, and the hundred and fifty thousand foreigners — the stonecutters and water-carriers —

'But bend your bow, and prosper, and reign' — even though you have reigned without your Maximus — 'for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness,' which are these:

And I shall add: be watchful with all your might, lest you be led astray in the manner [that Solomon was] through the daughters of the gentile kings;

lest they divide the kingdom [and give it over] to a foolish son and a rebellious servant.

Farewell, honored Father, and pray for your servant,

who grieves, and is terribly ensnared by many sins.

43. Of the same, to John the cubicularius.

There arrived the honored letter of my God-protected master, bringing peace, and appearing in its manner to convey him wholly [in person].

For in the dignity of one's words, together with the gentleness of one's manner, the disposition of the soul is naturally somehow manifested;

and I rejoiced as though I had received my master himself, and I embraced him in spirit, and, having wholly enfolded him within the room of my heart, I laid him up [there];

and I glorified Christ our God, who has implanted in mankind, as a light, the law of love;

according to which those who know how duly to cultivate the seeds of love can never be absent from one another, even though they are bodily separated from each other by a great spatial distance.

But since the letter, bringing tidings of worldly peace, transformed the soul's grief into joy, it is necessary that we too should reasonably become altogether grateful to God who granted it, on its account;

lest we appear ungrateful concerning his benefaction, having repaid the Benefactor badly.

And we shall become altogether grateful by evidently using this peace as is fitting, and by renouncing the friendship toward the world and the ruler of this world that wrongfully subsists within us;

and, having at last dissolved the war set up against God through the passions, and having made with them a truce of peace toward Him through the mortification of the body, let us cease from enmity toward Him.

For it is impossible for us to be befriended to Him while we rebel against Him through the passions, and are held bound to pay tribute through wickedness to the evil tyrant and murderer of souls, the devil — unless we have first become wholly at war with the evil one.

For until then we remain enemies and foes of God, even if we fashion for ourselves the title of 'the faithful' — for as long as we wish to be enslaved to the passions of dishonor, and willingly consent to bring dreadful tributes to the devil through works of shame.

And so no benefit will come to us from worldly peace, if the soul remains ill-disposed, rebelling against its own Maker, and refusing to come under His kingdom, being still sold to countless masters who ever urge it on toward wickedness;

and they deceitfully cause it to choose the road leading to destruction, rather than the one that saves.

But whenever we become sober from the drunkenness of the passions, and rise up against the wickedness of the devil and [his] tyrannical rule,

we shall accept to become His yoke, as He arranges and regulates us by the laws of truth, and we shall willingly consent to enter into friendship with Him;

willingly bringing to Him tributes and dues, [namely] the fruits of righteousness brought to fulfillment in us through the virtues, according to His commandment.

Delighting in these for the sake of our salvation, He who alone is without need will grant us all things, being truthful, as many as He has promised us —

which are the things that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, which God has prepared for those who love Him.

For unto this end He has made us, that we might become partakers of the divine nature, and sharers of that same eternity;

and that we might appear like Him, according to the deification that comes by grace;

on account of which there is both the constitution and the continuance of all beings.

and the bringing-forth and coming-into-being of things that were not [in being].

Let us, then, become worthy of peace, my blessed master, manfully stripping off from ourselves the passions within us that rebel against God,

let us waste away the body as much as we are able, through whose vigor the devil's entrance toward the soul is naturally wont to occur;

by divine readings let us steady the mind that wanders, and lead it back again toward God;

by the exertions of self-control and vigilance let us prudently restrain desire, which through appetite is disorderly corrupted toward many things;

by prayers and supplications and almsgiving let us wisely lull to rest the temper that seethes and is troubled;

by the fear of God and the threat of things to come, let us halt the senses that are licentiously moved and active;

In all things, and before all things, let us remember death and the fearful departure of the soul from the body;

and how, in that air, the principalities and authorities and powers of darkness meet it;

each one dragging it toward itself and rending it apart, in proportion to the evil kinship that had come to be in relation to it through the passion that mediated between them;

let us remember the bitter anguish that comes upon the soul in Hades according to conscience, at the remembrance of the evils it wrought through the body;

Let us remember the final consummation of the whole world, at which this universe is consumed by the great and boundless fire;

the elements being fearfully convulsed by the melting of that conflagration;

and the heaven, rolled up, fleeing in terror and haste from before the face of the fire that purifies creation beforehand, on account of the presence of the Pure One;

the sea vanishing, the earth being convulsed and shaken from its very depths, and yielding up, undiminished, the countless myriads of human bodies;

let us remember the dreadful hour of defense before the fearful and terrible judgment-seat of Christ;

when all the power of the heavens, and all the creation of men from the foundation of the age, will behold what belongs to each one, down to even a bare thought;

when, on the one hand, on account of the splendor of their works, the ineffable light will receive some, and the radiance of the holy and blessed Trinity, shining forth more clearly, will receive those able, through purity of soul, to behold and receive it;

while others, on account of the unseemliness of their works, the outer darkness will receive, and the unsleeping worm and the unquenchable fire of Gehenna;

and, heaviest of all, the shame in the conscience that has no end.

Let us remember all these things, so that we may become worthy of the former, and may not be condemned to experience the latter;

and let us become [belonging] to ourselves and to God;

or rather, wholly belonging to God alone, entire;

bearing nothing earthly within ourselves, so that we may draw near to God, and, becoming gods, having received from God the being gods.

For not yet are the divine gifts honored, and the presence of divine peace shown friendship.

So much, then, concerning this matter.

And may the God of peace, who reconciled us to himself through the cross, and, though we were enemies, ransomed us by his own blood from the authority of darkness, himself grant to my blessed master his peace which surpasses all understanding, and deem him worthy of his heavenly kingdom;

where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, and the chorus of those who keep festival.

Of the same [author], to John the Cubicularius, concerning adoption.

He not only loved us as himself, but also above himself;

just as the power of the mystery also clearly teaches those who have piously received the confession of faith in him.

For if voluntarily, as one liable, he put himself forward, according to his will, on our behalf—we who, as liable ones, owed to suffer—unto suffering and death, then it is plain to anyone who has perceived the grace even in the slightest, that he loved us, for whom he delivered himself to death according to his will, above himself; and that, as one more than good, he preferred—even if the word is bold—the disgrace endured for us at the opportune time according to the divine economy, as more honorable than his own natural glory.

For the return of those who had gone astray to him truly constitutes surpassing honor and abounding glory of God, and a manifest advance and demonstration, more than natural glory.

And nothing is, with respect to the account of glory, more proper to him than the salvation of men;

for the sake of which is every word and every mystery;

and indeed, the most mysterious mystery of all: God himself, truly on account of love, having become man through the assumption of flesh ensouled intellectually and rationally, and having received into himself, unchangeably, the passions of our nature, in order that he might save man, and give to us men himself as a pattern for virtue, and a living image of the goodwill and love toward him and toward one another—an image able to move all to the owed recompense.

Since, then, it is God's law, both old and new, that we love one another as much as we have been loved;

and that we make one another's misfortunes so much our own, that toward one another, by way of exchange, on account of the bond of love, we requite each other's dispositions, according to the commandment that bids us rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep;

I entreat my God-protected and blessed master—having one and only aim, to follow, through equal loving-kindness, Jesus who passed through the heavens, being bound at all by no bond whatsoever of kinship to this deceptive world and its world-ruler—

for the present world is truly deceptive, ever alluring by deceit toward desire for the things that perish, and binding fast, in the servitude of material things, those who are by nature free and heirs of the heavenly goods;

playing through pleasure, and stealthily deceiving those who tolerate being held captive by these things.

Knowing, then, as I have said, that my blessed master has one and only aim, that of being saved, I entreat him, upon receiving my lord who is together with him, the most magnificent illustris, lord Theocharistos, who bears this my modest letter, to become to him all things in which he needs assistance, after God—or rather, with God—as much as we wish God, and our neighbor, to become to us ourselves, concerning the things for which we pray.

For he is truly a good man, and a temple of every work of righteousness, and, after God, the genuine patron of my sojourning community;

and an eager comforter of my many, frequent, and grievous infirmities;

and, simply put, according to the power available to him, he has assisted both me and many others,

granting, according to his own power, that this should redound to him.

For this is what the law of love dictates, and what the mystery of God's most divine sojourning among men through flesh wills;

so that he might return, with God's help, recounting the benefactions of my blessed master and the unadulterated zeal of his support toward him;

and I too shall receive an increase of boasting, having obtained from God such a master upon earth, eager for every good work, and a ready and most sincere patron of all who are in need.

May God, who alone is good and loving toward mankind—

who, for the sake of our salvation, dispenses all things to all in a saving manner, himself hold your right hand, my master, and guide you into the way of his righteousness, and deem you worthy of the heavenly kingdom, having here rightly partaken of the divine gifts.

May the God of all, and our Lord Jesus Christ, preserve our most pious and altogether gentle emperors, and strengthen the might of their pious reign, and speak good and peaceable things concerning us, their humble servants, into their hearts;

for grief makes me bold;

yet may He also grant them this itself as a prayer pleasing to God: that they have consented, even if only out of pressing need, to recall the all-acclaimed prefect of this land—who shines like a lamp in a parched place, and who in some manner frees everyone from the pain of not seeing—

a man who loves God, faithful, pious, good, reverent, temperate, self-controlled, forbearing, gentle, compassionate, merciful, a nourisher of the poor, a carer of the aged, a protector of widows, a guardian of monks, possessionless [unharmed], a lover of the Church;

and, to speak concisely, a friend of all, both the living and the dead;

cherishing the living in every manner of affection;

and honoring the dead, in matters pertaining to burial, with the beauty of buildings, as Joseph of Arimathea honored the Lord who consented to be put to death in the flesh on our behalf;

and, still further, a most ardent zealot of right doctrine according to the apostolic faith, a herald of a life of righteousness.

And, to say it briefly: different men have zealously pursued different things upon earth, each according to his own inclination;

but for George, it has been to tend and nourish the hospitals, and the homes for the aged, and hospices for strangers, and almshouses for the poor, and the monasteries, and the burial-grounds for strangers, and all the multitudes of the poor and needy who, by kindred, are scattered herd-like throughout the cities;

and it is his work and pursuit to surpass, with the rays of his loving-kindness, the boundaries of east and west, of the northern and southern regions.

These things being so, who, among those who in any way lay claim to piety, does not know how much favor of God toward the whole world the good pleasure arising from such works kept calling forth, ever flourishing, continually present in his zealous efforts?

The opposite, which comes about through the neglect of these works, I shall pass over in silence, on account of its inauspicious nature.