On the Beatitudes 1

Now when He saw the multitudes, He went up into the mountain;

and when He had sat down, His disciples came to Him;

and opening His mouth, He taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

Who, then, among those here gathered together is such a one as to be a disciple of the Word, and to ascend with Him from the ground below, from thoughts hollow and lowly, to the spiritual mountain of exalted contemplation? For it has fled every shadow cast by the towering hills of vice, and, illumined on every side by the ray of the true light, in the pure clear air of truth it grants one to behold from a lofty vantage all those things which remain unseen by those shut up in the hollow below.

And the things beheld from this height—of what kind and how great they are—God the Word Himself sets forth as He pronounces blessed those who have ascended with Him, pointing as it were with a finger, here to the kingdom of the heavens, there to the inheritance of the land above;

then mercy, and righteousness, and comfort, and the kinship that comes to pass with the God of all things;

and the fruit that comes from persecutions, which is to become a fellow-dweller with God;

and all the other things that may be seen besides these, as the Word from on high upon the mountain points them out with His finger, discerned from the lofty watchtower through hope.

Since, then, the Lord goes up into the mountain, let us hear Isaiah crying aloud;

and though we be weak because of sin, let us grow strong, even as the prophecy instructs, strengthening the hands that hang down and the knees that are feeble.

For if we come to be upon the summit, we shall find the One who heals every sickness and every disease, who takes up our infirmities and bears our diseases.

Let us, therefore, also run toward the ascent, that, having come with Isaiah to the mountaintop of hope, we may see from a lofty vantage those good things which the Word points out to those who have followed Him up to the height.

But let God the Word open His mouth to us also, and teach us those things the hearing of which is blessedness;

and let the beginning of the teaching of the words spoken become for us the beginning of our contemplation.

Blessed, He says, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

If one of those who love gold should chance upon writings indicating that a treasure lies in a certain place;

but the place that holds the treasure should point to much sweat and toil for those who desire the possession;

will he then grow faint before the toils, and be slothful concerning the gain, and count the bringing in of no labor through diligence as sweeter than the riches? Not so, it is not so;

but he will summon all his friends to this task, and gathering from every quarter, as best he can, help for this end by the multitude of hands, he makes the hidden riches his own.

This, brethren, is that treasure which the writing indicates;

and the riches are hidden beneath the obscurity of the words.

Let us, therefore, we who desire the incorruptible gold, also make use of the many-handed labor of prayers, so that the riches may come forth into the open for us, and all may share the treasure equally, and each may possess the whole.

For such is the dividing of virtue, that it is distributed among all who lay claim to it, and the whole is present to each, not being diminished among those who partake together.

For in the distribution of earthly riches he who tears away the larger portion wrongs those who share an equal lot;

he who increases his own share does wrong to the one who partakes with him;

but spiritual riches act as the sun does, distributing itself to all who look upon it, and coming whole to each one.

Since, then, an equal gain from the labor is hoped for by each, let there be for all an equal cooperation through prayers toward the thing we seek.

First, then, I say, we must consider what the blessing itself really is.

Blessedness, according at least to my account, is a comprehension of all things conceived under the notion of the good;

from which nothing is absent of those things that pertain to good desire.

But that which is signified by the blessing might become more clearly known to us also from the placing of its opposite alongside it;

and the opposite of the blessed is the wretched.

Wretchedness, then, is the misery found in painful and unwished-for sufferings.

And the disposition in each of the two, arising from things opposite, is divided according to what occurs in them.

For to the one accounted blessed there belongs the gladness in the things set before him for enjoyment, and rejoicing;

but to the one accounted wretched there belongs the being grieved by the things present to him, and being pained.

That which is truly to be accounted blessed, then, is the Divine itself.

For whatever we suppose it to be, blessedness is that incorruptible life, the good that is unspeakable and incomprehensible, the beauty that cannot be uttered, grace itself, and wisdom, and power;

the authority that transcends the whole universe;

the only thing worthy of love, that which ever remains the same, the unceasing exultation;

concerning which, whatever anyone is able to say, he says nothing worthy of it.

For neither does the understanding attain to that which truly is; and even if we should be able to conceive something of the loftier things concerning it, that which is conceived is expressed by no word.

But since He who fashioned man made him according to the image of God,

in a secondary sense that would be accounted blessed which, by participation in true blessedness, comes to be called by this name.

For just as in the case of bodily comeliness, the archetypal beauty is in the living and subsisting face, while what is shown by imitation upon the image is secondary to this;

so also human nature, being an image of the transcendent blessedness, is itself characterized by the good beauty, whenever it displays in itself the reflections of the blessed characters.

But since the filth of sin marred the beauty upon the image,

there came the One who washes us with His own water, the living water that leaps up unto eternal life, so that we, having put off the shame that comes from sin, might again be renewed according to the blessed form.

And just as in the art of painting one who is skilled might say to the inexperienced that a face is beautiful which is composed of such-and-such parts of the body;

one that has such hair, and such circles of the eyes, and such outlines of the brows, and such placing of the cheeks, and all the several features by which comeliness is brought to completion;

so also He who paints anew our soul unto the imitation of the only blessed One, sketches out in words each of the things that tend toward blessing, and says first of all:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

But what gain will come from the great gift, if the meaning laid up in the words is not made plain to us? For even in medicine, many of the precious and hard-to-obtain remedies remain useless and unprofitable to those who do not know them, until we hear from the art for what use each of these is fit.

the one to be sought after, and the one to be condemned.

The riches of the virtues are to be sought after, but the material and earthly riches are to be repudiated;

because the former becomes a possession of the soul, while the latter is well suited to the deceiving of the senses.

And He commands that we have our diligence about the riches of the lofty things, which the corrupting power does not touch.

And by speaking of the moth and the thief, He indicated the destroyer of the treasures of the soul.

poverty is set in contrast to riches; and altogether, according to the analogy, a twofold poverty may be taught;

the one to be rejected, and the other to be accounted blessed.

He, then, who is poor in temperance, or in the precious possession of righteousness, or in wisdom, or in prudence, or in any other of the costly treasures, being found needy and destitute and poor, is wretched in his poverty and pitiable in his destitution of the precious things;

but he who is voluntarily poor in all things conceived under vice, and who has none of the diabolical treasures laid up in his own storehouses, but is fervent in spirit, and through this treasures up for himself the poverty of evils, this one would be shown by the Word to be in the blessed poverty, whose fruit is the kingdom of the heavens.

But let us return again to the working of the treasure, and let us not desist from uncovering what is hidden by the mining word.

Blessed, He says, are the poor in spirit.

This has in a certain manner been said also in what went before, and now again let it be said, that the end of the life lived according to virtue is likeness to the Divine.

But indeed the passionless and incorruptible utterly escapes imitation on the part of men.

For it is not possible for the life subject to passion to be in every way likened to the nature that is incapable of receiving the passions.

If, then, the Divine alone is blessed, as the Apostle names it, and the sharing of blessedness comes to men through likeness to God, but the imitation is impracticable;

then blessedness is unattainable for human life.

Yet there are certain things belonging to the Godhead that are set before those who so desire as objects for imitation.

What then are these? It seems to me that by 'poverty of spirit' the Word means voluntary humility.

As a pattern of this the Apostle sets before us the poverty of God, when he says that He, being rich, for our sakes became poor, that we by His poverty might be made rich.

Since, therefore, all the other attributes that are beheld in the divine nature transcend the measure of human nature,

whereas humility is something connatural to us and bred together with us who walk upon the ground, who have our constitution from the earth and dissolve back into the earth,

by imitating God in that which is according to your nature and within your power, you yourself have put on the blessed form.

And let no one suppose that the achievement of humility is effortless and procured with ease.

On the contrary, more than in any single one of the pursuits practised according to virtue, such an attainment is more laborious.

And there is no other evil in our nature so great as that which comes through pride.

Since, then, the passion of self-exaltation is in some way inborn in nearly everyone who shares in human nature, for this reason the Lord begins the Beatitudes from this point, casting out pride from our disposition as a kind of primordial evil, by counselling us to imitate Him who became poor of His own will, who is truly blessed; so that, being made like Him in whatever we can and as far as we are able, through becoming poor by deliberate choice, we may also draw to ourselves fellowship in the blessing.

For 'let this mind be in you,' he says, 'which was also in Christ Jesus;'

'who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,'

'but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.'

What is poorer, in the case of God, than the form of a servant? What is more lowly, in the case of the King of all that is, than to come into fellowship with our impoverished nature? The King of kings and Lord of lords willingly puts on the form of servitude;

the Judge of all becomes subject to those in authority;

the Lord of creation is brought down into a cave;

He who holds the universe in His grasp finds no place in the inn, but is cast down in the manger of the brute beasts;

and having passed through the whole extent of our poverty, He advances even to the experience of death.

Behold the measure of His voluntary poverty:

the Judge is led to the judgement seat;

the Lord of the life of all beings becomes subject to the verdict of the one who judges Him;

the King of all the supramundane power does not thrust away the hands of the executioners.

'To this pattern,' He says, 'let your gaze be directed—to this measure of humility.'

But it seems to me well also to examine the irrationality of such a passion, so that the Beatitude may become easy of attainment for us, humility being achieved with great facility and ease.

For just as skilled physicians, when they have first removed the cause that produces the disease, more easily gain the mastery over the ailment,

so also we, having reduced by reasoning the vain conceit of those puffed up, may make for ourselves the road of humility easy to travel.

Whence, then, might one better display the emptiness of conceit? Whence else than by showing what our nature is? For he who looks to himself, and not merely to the things around him, would not reasonably fall into such a passion.

What then is man? Do you wish me to speak the more august and honourable of the accounts? But he who adorns our estate and decks out human nobility in the more boastful fashion still traces the genealogy of our nature from clay;

and the nobility and dignity of the proud man has kinship with the brick.

But if you should wish to speak of the more immediate and ready source of our coming into being—away with it, do not utter a word about this;

do not so much as mutter, do not uncover, as the Law says, the shame of your father and your mother;

do not publish abroad by speech things worthy of oblivion and of deep silence.

And then do you not blush, you statue of earth, you who after a little while are dust, you who like a bubble hold within yourself a short-lived puffing-up, becoming full of pride, and inflamed with conceit, and swelling your mind with vain thoughts?

Have you not seen in a common burial-ground the mysteries of our nature? Have you not seen the heap of bones piled one upon another—skulls stripped of flesh, gazing with something fearful and hideous out of their empty eye-sockets? Have you seen mouths gaping open, and the rest of the members scattered about at random? If you have seen those things, you have beheld yourself among them.

Where are the tokens of your present bloom? Where the fair colour of the cheek? Where the flower upon the lip? Where the fierce beauty in the eyes, gleaming beneath the arch of the brows? Where the straight nose, mediating between the beauty of the cheeks? Where the locks upon the neck? Where the curls about the temples? Where the hands that draw the bow, the feet that ride, the purple, the fine linen, the mantle, the girdle, the sandals, the horse, the racing, the haughty snorting—all those things by which your conceit is now nourished? Where are these among those bones, tell me, over which you now exalt yourself and think great things? What dream is so insubstantial as this? What such phantoms out of sleep? What shadow so feeble, escaping the touch, as the dream of youth, appearing and at once flying past? These things I say to those who in youth, through the immaturity of their age, play the fool.

But what could one say concerning those already settled in life, whose age has become fixed, yet whose character is unstable, and in whom the disease of pride increases;

and they give the name of 'high-mindedness' to such an infirmity of character;

and, as generally happens, office and the power that goes with it become the occasion of pride.

For either they suffer this in the office itself, or they are preparing themselves for it, or the tales told about it often fan into flame the disease even when it has already subsided.

And what discourse could be such as to get within their hearing, which is already stopped up by the voice of the heralds? Who will persuade men in such a state that they differ in no respect at all from those who make a show upon the stage? For upon those too a face has been laid on by the art of the skilled, and a purple robe shot with gold, and the procession upon a chariot; and yet no disease of pride comes upon them from such things;

but such as they were in disposition before the stage, the same habit of soul they preserved even during the procession, and afterwards they are not distressed when they have stepped down from the chariot and put off the costume.

But those who make a show through office in the theatre of life, reckoning neither what was a little before nor what will be a little after, are stretched taut like bubbles by the puffing-up;

in the same manner these too are puffed up by the loud proclamation of the herald, and mould around themselves the form of some alien mask, altering the natural set of the face into what is unsmiling and terrifying, and a harsher tone of voice is contrived by them, transformed into something bestial for the astonishment of those who hear;

they no longer remain within the bounds proper to men, but assimilate themselves to the divine power and authority.

For they believe themselves to be lords of life and death, because to one of those judged before them they assign the vote that saves, while another they condemn to death;

and they do not even see this, who is truly the Lord of human life, He who determines both the beginning of being and its end.

And yet this alone would have been sufficient for the abatement of their vanity: to see that many of the rulers, in the very stage-show of office, were snatched from the midst of their thrones and carried out to the tombs, over which lamentation succeeded the voices of the heralds.

How then is he lord of another's life, who is a stranger to his own? And so this man too, if he is poor in spirit, looking to Him who for our sakes became poor of His own will, and beholding the equal honour of our common nature, doing no violence to his own kind out of that deluded tragedy about office, is truly blessed, having exchanged temporary humility for the Kingdom of the heavens.

Do not reject, brother, the other sense of poverty also, which becomes the procurer of the wealth that is in heaven.

'Sell,' He says, 'all that you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow Me, and you shall have treasure in the heavens.'

For such poverty too seems to me not to be out of tune with the poverty that is called blessed.

What then shall be ours? And what is the answer? 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of the heavens.'

Do you wish to understand who it is that is poor in spirit? He who has exchanged the wealth of the soul for bodily prosperity, who becomes poor for the sake of the spirit, who has shaken off earthly riches as though some burden, that he may be borne aloft, lifted up and traversing the air, as the Apostle says, journeying on high upon a cloud together with God.

A weighty thing is gold; weighty is all the material eagerly pursued for the sake of wealth;

but a light and upward-tending thing is virtue.

But surely these are opposed to one another—weight and lightness.

It is therefore impossible for one to become light who has nailed himself to the weight of matter.

If then we must mount up to the things above, let us become poor as to the things below that drag us down, that we may come to be among the things above.

And what is the manner of it, the psalmody expounds:

'He has scattered abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness abides for ever and ever.'

He who has shared with the poor will set himself in the portion of Him who for our sakes became poor.

The Lord became poor; do not you either be afraid of poverty.

But He who for our sakes became poor reigns over all creation.

Therefore, if you become poor together with Him who became poor, you shall also reign together with Him who reigns.

in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might, unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'

Those who ascend to the higher places by means of some ladder, when they have set foot upon the first rung, are by it lifted up to the one lying above it; and again the second brings the one ascending to the third, and this to the one next in order, and this to the one after itself.

And thus the one ascending, being ever raised up from the rung on which he stands toward the one lying above, attains to the topmost point of the ascent.

For the one who has by his understanding mounted upon the first Beatitude is received, through a certain necessary sequence of the thoughts, by the one that comes after it, even if the second saying seems somewhat strange in comparison with the first.

For perhaps the hearer will say that it is not possible, as in an arrangement of steps, that after the Kingdom of the heavens the inheritance of the earth should be taken hold of;

But if reason had to follow the nature of things, it would have been more consistent for the earth to be set before heaven, since our ascent would then be from the earth up to heaven.

But if we could somehow take wing by reason and stand above the vault of heaven, we shall find there the supra-celestial earth, laid up as an inheritance for those who have lived according to virtue, so that the order of the sequence of the Beatitudes does not appear to be mistaken—heaven first, and after that the earth—as these are set before us in the promises by God.

For that which is visible, in so far as it pertains to bodily sense, is wholly akin to itself.

For even if one thing seem to be lofty by reason of its spatial distance, yet it lies below the intelligible substance, upon which the reasoning mind cannot set foot unless it first pass beyond, by reason, those things that sense apprehends.

But if the region that lies above is named by the appellation of 'earth,' you should not be surprised.

For the Word condescends to the lowliness of our hearing—the Word who for this very reason came down to us, because we were not able to be raised up to Him.

For indeed, in the promise that precedes this one, He named that ineffable blessedness in the heavens a 'kingdom.'

Was He then showing forth to us by this word something such as the kingdom here below contains?—diadems flashing round about with the sparkle of gems, and bright purple robes casting some sweet gleam upon covetous eyes, gateways and hangings, lofty thrones, and ranks of spear-bearers standing round in file, and all the other things that those who magnify the pomp of dominion by such means add as tragic trappings to this stage of life?

But since the name of 'kingdom' is, in this life, something great and higher than almost all things sought after among men, for this reason He made use of the name to indicate the good things that lie above.

So that, if there were among men anything higher than the kingdom, it is by that name above all that He would have most fully set the hearer's soul aflight toward the desire of the ineffable blessedness.

For it was not possible that those good things should be disclosed to men by their own proper names, seeing that they are beyond human sense and knowledge.

For 'Eye has not seen,' he says, 'nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man.'

But that the hoped-for blessedness may not altogether escape our surmising, we hear of the unutterable things in such measure as we can contain according to the lowliness of our nature.

You have set foot upon the heavenly hope; then search out for me that earth which is not the inheritance of all, save only for those who through the meekness of their life are judged worthy of that promise.

For I do not say that the Prophet meant this earth, which produces all mortal things and again dissolves back into itself the whole race that comes from it.

Rather, he knows a land of the living, upon which death has not trodden;

in which the way of sinners has not been worn, which has received upon itself no track of evil, which he who sows the tares has not furrowed with the plough of wickedness, which is barren of thorns and thistles;

in which are the water of rest, and the place of green pasture, and the fountain that is divided into four, and the vine tended by the God of all, and all the other things which we hear through riddles from the God-inspired teaching.

If, then, we have understood the lofty earth to be that which is contemplated above the heavens, upon which the city of the King is founded, concerning which glorious things have been spoken, as the Prophet says, we should no longer with good reason be perplexed at the order of the sequence of the Beatitudes.

For it was not likely, I think, that this earth should be set before the hopes as a blessing for those who are to be caught up, as the Apostle says, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus shall be forever with the Lord.

What need, then, is there any longer of the earth below, for those whose life is on high in their hopes? For 'we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.'

But let us see for what virtue the inheritance of that earth is set forth as a reward.

'For blessed,' He says, 'are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'

What is meekness? And concerning what does the Word pronounce meekness blessed? For it does not seem to me that we should think all things done in gentleness to be equally virtue, if by this term only quietness and slowness are signified.

For among runners the meek man is not better than the one who presses on with speed, nor does the slow-moving man in boxing carry off the crown against his opponent;

and though we run toward the prize of the upward calling, Paul counsels us to strain our speed, saying:

'So run, that you may obtain';

since he himself was ever pressing on to what lies ahead by a more vehement motion, forgetting the things that are behind;

and in boxing he was nimble;

for he saw through the assault of his adversary;

and he was sure in his footing, and armed in his hands; he did not throw the weapon about his hands into some empty and insubstantial space, but he seized upon the vital parts of his wrestling opponent, bringing his blows upon the body itself.

Do you wish to know Paul's boxing? Look at the weals of his antagonist, look at the bruises of his adversary, look at the marks of the one who was defeated. Surely you are not ignorant of the adversary who wrestles through the flesh, whom he buffets by his boxing, tearing him with the nails of self-control, whose members he mortifies by hunger, and thirst, and cold, and nakedness, upon whom he lays the marks of the Lord, whom he conquers in the race, leaving him behind himself, so that he may not, as the adversary runs ahead, darken his sight.

How, then, does the Word here pronounce meekness blessed as a species of right achievement? 'For blessed,' He says, 'are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'

We hear of the Father of the Lord.

But the Word seems to philosophize something of this sort: that there is a great proneness toward evil, and that our nature is swiftly inclined to what is worse;

just as heavy bodies remain altogether immovable toward what is above, but if they be shaken off from some high summit down the slope, they are borne toward what lies beneath with such a rush, their own weight intensifying the momentum, that the speed surpasses description.

Since, then, this swiftness in these matters is grievous, that which is conceived as its opposite would surely be altogether blessed.

And this is meekness, the disposition that is slow and hard to move toward such impulses of nature.

For just as fire, having a nature ever-moving toward what is above, is immovable toward the contrary motion;

in the same way virtue also, being swift toward what is above and lies higher, and never relaxing its quickness, is fettered against the contrary impulse.

Therefore, since swiftness toward evil abounds in our nature, it is rightly counted blessed to be at rest in such matters.

For quietness in these things becomes a testimony of the motion toward what is above.

But it would be better to make the argument clear through the very examples of life.

And what has been said with respect to a particular species of virtue and vice, let this be understood also with respect to every species.

For the human character is altogether split toward contrary impulses—whether anger be set over against forbearance, or arrogance against moderation, or envy against goodwill, or hostility against a loving and peaceable disposition.

Since, then, human life is material, and about material things are the passions, and every passion has a keen and irresistible impulse toward the fulfillment of its will (for matter is heavy and downward-tending);

for this reason the Lord pronounces blessed—not those who live by themselves outside of passion (for it is not possible in a material life to accomplish a life wholly immaterial and passionless), but He calls meekness the attainable measure of virtue in the life lived through the flesh, and He says that meekness is sufficient for blessedness.

For He does not legislate impassibility altogether for human nature;

for it does not belong to a just lawgiver to command such things as nature does not admit;

for such a thing is like as if one should transplant water-creatures to a life in the air, or, conversely, to the water those creatures that live in the air;

but it is fitting that the law be suited to the proper and natural capacity.

For the one is outside of nature, but the other is set right through virtue.

If, then, the Beatitude had supposed immovability toward desire, the blessing would have been profitless and useless to life;

for who, being yoked together with flesh and blood, could attain to such a thing? But now He says that the one condemned is not he who has desired through some chance occurrence, but he who has drawn the passion upon himself by forethought.

For the weakness that is mingled with our nature often, and against our judgment, prepares such an impulse to arise at some time;

but not to be swept away, like a torrent, by the impulse of the passion, but to stand manfully against such a disposition, and to thrust away the passion by reasonings—this is the work of virtue.

Blessed, therefore, are they who are not swiftly inclined toward the passionate motions of the soul, but are restrained by reason—in whom the reasoning faculty, like some bridle checking the impulses, does not allow the soul to be carried away into disorder.

But one might rather observe in the case of the passion of anger how meekness is a thing to be counted blessed.

For whenever a word, or some action, or a suspicion of the more disagreeable things stirs up this sickness, and the blood boils about the heart, and the soul rises up for vengeance;

just as the fables, by means of some drug-potion, alter nature into the forms of irrational beasts;

so it is possible suddenly to see the man become, out of his anger, a boar, or a dog, or a leopard, or some other such wild beast.

the hair standing on end and bristling;

the tongue benumbed by the passion, and not serving the inward impulses;

the lips stiffened, and not articulating the speech, nor keeping within the mouth the moisture engendered by the passion, but unseemly spitting out the foam together with the voice;

such is the whole disposition of the body, each of the members being co-affected with the passion.

If, then, the one man should be such;

while the other, looking to the Beatitude, should through reasonings calm the sickness with a settled countenance and a quiet voice, like some physician treating by his art one who behaves unseemly out of a frenzy;

will you not yourself also say, setting the one against the other, that the beast-like man is pitiable and abominable, but that the meek man—who has not, together with his neighbor's wickedness, distorted his own seemliness—is to be counted blessed? And that the Word looks chiefly to this passion is clear from His legislating meekness for us after humility of mind.

For the one seems to hold fast to the other, and the state of humility of mind is, as it were, a kind of mother of the habit of meekness.

For if you take arrogance away from the character, the passion of anger has no occasion to arise.

For insult and dishonor become the cause of such a sickness in those who are provoked to anger.

But dishonor does not touch the one who has schooled himself in humility.

For if a man should keep his reason cleansed from human deception, and behold the worthlessness of the nature to which he has been allotted—from what beginning it has its constitution, and to what end the brief and swiftly-perishing course of this present life is carried, and the filth that is yoked to the flesh, and the poverty of our nature, that it is not self-sufficient of itself for its own maintenance unless it should fill up its lack from the abundance of the irrational creatures—

and, besides these, the sorrows and griefs and calamities, and the manifold forms of diseases to which human life is subject, from which there is no one who by nature is exempt and free;

he who beholds these things with the eye of his soul thoroughly cleansed to accuracy would not easily be vexed at any lack of honors.

On the contrary, he will consider the honor offered him by his neighbor for some cause to be a delusion, since there is nothing of such a kind in our nature that can have fellowship with what is truly honorable, except only in respect of the soul, whose honor does not consist in the things sought after in this world.

For to boast of wealth, or to pride oneself on lineage, or to look toward reputation, or to seem to be above one's neighbor—the things by which human honors are filled up—

all these become a demolition of the soul's honor and a reproach, so that the man of sound reasoning would not choose to defile the purity of his soul with any such thing.

And to be so disposed is nothing other than to be established in a deep habit of humility; and when this has been rightly achieved, anger will have no entrance against the soul.

And when this anger is not present, the calm and quiet life is set aright;

which is nothing other than meekness, whose end is blessedness and the inheritance of the heavenly land, in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

We have not yet set foot upon the summit of the mountain, but we are still at the foothills of these contemplations;

even if we have already traversed two hills, having been led up through the Beatitudes to blessed poverty and to the meekness above it—after which the Word brings us on to yet higher things and points out to us in succession a third height through the Beatitudes.

What then is the meaning of the saying, 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted'? The man who looks to the world will surely laugh, and will say these things in mockery of the Word:

'If those who are consumed in every calamity are called blessed in this life, then by consequence those whose life is free from grief and misfortune must be wholly wretched.'

And thus, enumerating the kinds of calamities, he will multiply his laughter, bringing before our eyes the evils of widowhood and the misery of orphanhood, losses, shipwrecks, captivities from wars, unjust judgments in the law-court, banishments and confiscations and dishonors, and the calamities that come from diseases—such as maimings and amputations and every kind of bodily disfigurement—and whatever affliction, whether touching body or soul, befalls men in this life, he will go through all of it in his argument, whereby he supposes he will show the discourse that calls the mourners blessed to be laughable.

But we, taking little heed of those who examine the divine meanings in a petty and lowly manner, let us endeavor, so far as it is possible to discern it, to reach the wealth that lies deep within what has been said, so that thereby it may become manifest how great is the difference between the fleshly and earthy understanding and the lofty and heavenly one.

Now it is possible, at first sight, to suppose that the blessed mourning is that which arises over transgressions and sins, according to Paul's teaching concerning grief, who declared that there is not one kind of grief, but that one is worldly, while the other works according to God;

and that of the worldly grief the outcome is death;

but the other works for those who grieve salvation through repentance.

For in truth such an affection of the soul is not outside of being called blessed, when, having come to a perception of the worse, it laments its life spent in evil.

For just as in bodily sicknesses, when some part of the body has become paralyzed from some injury, insensibility becomes a sign that the paralyzed part has been deadened;

but if by some medical art the vital sensation should be restored to the body, then, when the part is now in pain, both the sufferer himself and those who administer the treatment rejoice, using as evidence that the affliction has turned toward health the fact that the limb has now come to feel what is sharp and stinging;

so, when, as the Apostle says, certain men, having become past feeling, give themselves over to a life of sin, having become truly dead and paralyzed to the life of virtue, they have no perception of the things they do.

But if the healing word should lay hold of them, as it were through certain hot and burning remedies (I mean the gloomy threats of the coming judgment), and should sting the heart deep down with the fear of the things to be expected—the fear of Gehenna, and fire that is not quenched, and the unending worm, and the gnashing of teeth, and the ceaseless weeping, and the outer darkness, and all such things—applying and warming these, like certain hot and pungent medicines, to the man who has grown numb through the passions of pleasure, and should bring him to a perception of the life he was in, then it makes him blessed, having wrought the painful sensation in his soul.

Just as Paul also scourges with his word the man who raged madly after his father's bed, up to that point as long as he was insensible to his sin;

but when the healing of the rebuke reached the man, then, since he had already become blessed through his mourning, Paul begins to comfort him, that such a one, as he says, may not be swallowed up by excessive grief.

Let this meaning also not be useless for us with regard to the present contemplation of the beatitude concerning the life of virtue, because sin somehow abounds in the nature of men;

and the remedy for this has been shown to be the mourning that comes from repentance.

But it seems to me that the Word intimates something deeper than what has been said, in the continuous operation of mourning, suggesting that we understand something other than this.

namely, that those are called blessed, not who mourn forever;

just as, in the comparison drawn from the illustration of one's course in sickness, we call blessed those who have been healed, not those who are forever under treatment.

For the prolongation of the treatment also indicates the continuance of the sickness.

And in another way too it seems to me to be well not to rest only in such a meaning, as though the Word were assigning the beatitude to those who mourn over sins.

For we shall find many who have kept their life free from accusation, and who have been attested by the divine voice itself in respect of every excellence.

For what covetousness was there in John? what idolatry in Elijah? What transgression, small or great, in their lives does history know of? What then? Will the discourse suppose that these men are outside of blessedness—men who neither were sick at the beginning, nor came to have need of this remedy, I mean the mourning that comes from repentance? Or would it be absurd to think such men cast out from the divine blessedness, because they neither sinned, nor healed sin by mourning? Or in that case would sinning be more to be preferred than living blamelessly, if the grace of the Comforter has been allotted only to those who repent? For 'Blessed,' He says, 'are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.'

Therefore, following as far as we are able, as Habakkuk says, Him who mounts us upon the high places, let us again search out the meaning that lies within what has been said, so that we may learn for what kind of mourning the comfort of the Holy Spirit is set forth.

Let us then consider, in human life, what mourning itself first is, and over what things it is constituted.

It is then evident to all, that mourning is a gloomy disposition of the soul, which is constituted upon the deprivation of something dear to the heart;

which has no place to be constituted among those who pass their life in cheerfulness;

for example: a man prospers in life, all things flow along pleasantly for him through agreeable circumstances, he delights in his wife, he takes pride in his children, he is fortified by the alliance of brothers, he is honored in the marketplace, esteemed by those in power, feared by his adversaries, not to be despised by his subordinates, easy of access to friends, luxuriating in wealth, given to enjoyment, agreeable, free from grief, robust in body;

having everything that seems to be honorable in this world;

such a man is altogether delighting in gladness at each of the things present to him.

But if some change should lay hold of this prosperity, bringing on—through some evil turn of events—a separation from those most dear, or the loss of one's possessions, or some crippling of bodily well-being, then, by the removal of that which gladdened him, the contrary disposition arises, which we call mourning.

Therefore the account given concerning it is true, that mourning is a certain painful perception of the deprivation of the things that gladden us.

Now if human mourning has been understood by us, let there be some guidance from the things evident to those things unknown, so that it may become manifest what the blessed mourning is, upon which the comfort follows.

For if the deprivation of the good things present here produces mourning, and no one would lament the loss of that which is unknown;

it is fitting first to know the Good itself, whatever it truly is, and then thus to understand human nature.

For it is as with those who live in darkness: when one has been born in the gloom, but another, accustomed to the enjoyment of the outer light, has become shut in through some injury, the calamity of the present state does not lay hold of both alike (for the one who knows what he has been deprived of counts the loss of the light a heavy thing;

but the one who has never at all known such grace passes his life without grief, reckoning, because of his rearing in the gloom, that he has fallen away from none of the good things;

and out of this, the desire for the enjoyment of the light will lead the one man to every device and contrivance for seeing again that of which he was deprived by injury;

but the other, passing his life growing old in the gloom, because he has not known the better, judges the present state to be good for himself)—

so the one who has understood the [true good of our] nature will assuredly have his soul in calamity, making mourning over the fact that the present life is not in that good.

Therefore it seems to me that the Word does not call the grief blessed, but the knowledge of the Good, upon which the affection of grief supervenes, because that which is sought is not present in this life.

It is fitting therefore to inquire what that Light is, by which this gloomy cavern of human nature is not illumined in the present life.

Or perhaps our desire looks toward that which is unattainable and incomprehensible? For what reasoning is there in us of such a kind as to track out the nature of that which is sought? What such signification of nouns and verbs is there, as to work in us a conception worthy of the transcendent Light? How shall I name the unseen? How shall I set forth the immaterial? How shall I show the formless? How shall I comprehend that which is without magnitude, without quantity, without quality, without shape; that which is found neither in place nor in time; that which is outside of every limit and every defining representation; whose work is life, and the very subsistence of all things conceived as good; around which every lofty thought and name is contemplated—divinity, kingship, power, eternity, incorruptibility, joy and exultation, and everything whatever that is conceived and spoken of in loftiness? How then is it possible, and through what kind of reasonings, that such a Good of ours should come before the sight—that which is contemplated and yet not seen, that which supplies being to all that exists, yet is itself ever existing and having no need of coming into being? But that the reason may not labor in vain, stretching itself out toward things it cannot contain, let us cease from busily inquiring into the nature of the transcendent good things, since it is impossible that such a thing should come under comprehension, gaining from what has been sought only so much as this: that through the very inability to discern that which is sought, we may form for ourselves some conception of the magnitude of the things sought.

But by however much we believe the Good to be higher in nature than our knowledge, by so much the more let us intensify our mourning over these things, that the Good from which we have come to be separated is of such a kind and so great that we cannot even contain the knowledge of it.

Yet of this Good, which transcends every faculty of comprehension, we men were once partakers;

and so great was that Good, which is above all thought, in our nature, that the human seemed to be another such [good], having been formed by the most exact likeness according to the image of the Archetype.

For the things which now we behold conjecturally concerning that [Good], all these belonged also to man—both incorruptibility and blessedness;

and self-sovereignty and freedom from any master, and the freedom from grief and from toil in life, and a conversation among more divine things;

and the beholding of the Good with a mind naked and pure of every veil.

For all these things the account of the world's creation hints to us in a few words, saying that man was fashioned according to the image of God, and lived in Paradise, and delighted in the things planted there.

And the fruit of those plants is life and knowledge and such things.

But if these things were in us, how then is it possible, comparing by contrast the present wretchedness now with that former blessedness, not to lament over the calamity—

that which came to be according to the image of the Heavenly One has been made earthly;

that which was appointed to reign has been enslaved;

that which was created for immortality has been corrupted by death;

that which lived in the delight of Paradise has been removed into this diseased and toilsome region.

For what was bred together with dispassion, our nature has exchanged for a life subject to passion and to death;

and that which was without a master and self-determining is now lorded over by evils so great and so many that it is not even easy to enumerate our tyrants.

For each of the passions within us, whenever it prevails, becomes the master of the one it has enslaved;

and just as some tyrant, having seized the citadel of the soul, does harm to his subjects through the very servants under his hand, abusing our own reasonings as instruments toward whatever seems good to him,