On the Acts of the Apostles (Epic) 4

The Spirit, forbidding the lamp kindled by the radiant word to shine under a bushel, said: "Set apart Saul for the work in the regions"; whom soon that Peter consecrated as he went, by the laying on of his hand — to whom the Master's word had given power to do all things. Leaving Cyprus and Salamis, he proceeds to make for Paphos, which is said to have been once given over to loves, to have remained a cavern of sacrilegious lust, and to have cultivated the wandering winged ones with shameless zeal. Hence the summit of works proceeds, because greater grace comes to sins; that pardon can be granted to faults, Paul was already an example. How splendid a matter of praise was added to the man! He sows chaste beginnings in the region of luxury, and the wanton field multiplies its modest fruits.

For whom should the deed thereafter be unknown and difficult, since thus honesty seems to have begun from a base place? Lest any part should be left idle and fasting from merits, nevertheless the wicked Magus contrives to contend with eloquence; things contrary have ever made a way for virtue: the warrior of the Church, hurling back the darts cast at him, says: "Deceit shows by what begetter you, O salvation, perish; you shall suffer the confines of death in your own darkness, nor is time granted you even to behold the sun and to attend to the forms of things, of which you deny that there is a Maker." Then clouds bound his countenance with dark-blue marks, and the color of a black breast came upon his face: now, the road denied, he seeks by what guide he may go safe, on whose foot he may press his steps, who, pitying, may grant him help; and through the empty airs he groped the path of his wandering.

The proconsul Paul soon learned through these to embrace the faith — for whom the cause of seeing was another's night: these are no new things, O Paul; you well know that light rightly rises from darkness, that salvation's services are no novelty. All the proofs disclose a hidden figure, if one is pleased to strike at the lurking things with a watchful sense. Rightly teaching, Paul began to establish miracles from the eyes, whence the splendor of his own face flashes higher, the day growing as it is lost; so just now he was worthy to subdue the wicked one, and, with the darkness confessing the foe, to conquer — he who, blind, earned to see without end. Paul visited the city named from the name of Antiochus, and at once hastens to give words to the throngs which the Synagogue holds;

and with his right hand bidding silence, "You know," he says, "with what ferocity the land of Egypt set its yoke upon our fathers, whom God snatched through signs from the cruel fields, to whom, yielding all things, nature changed her courses, when the rod put to flight the back of the sea, and the wave, an exile from its own shores, stood still — yielding from the dusty road, and the power of the deep was made subject to the obedience of their feet, the deep returning to make shipwreck for the guilty; which nature, commanded to overturn her own laws through various modes, here strewed sands, here heaped up waters; a way for the just, a wave for the guilty."

When the struck flint foamed forth with opened veins, having labored to bring forth watery lakes, from its dry summit it lavished a river-stream and shallow; its former origin did not keep its own habit, nor furnish its old use, but bearing novel gifts which the eternal Law compelled to follow what was not inborn, it shows that, sundered from seed, a thing can be given — feasts from the dew, waters from the rock. For lest few miracles should flow for devout causes, the rocks vomit waters, and the clouds rain down loaves, and the airy liquid hardened into solid foods, and the throngs which had long held their jaws empty are sated with fruit-bearing waters; and the clouds, as husbandmen, give banquets, and they devour the rain, and the shower is eaten.

Thus the unconquered hand, thus the full grace of the Creator knows how to nourish querulous flocks, and to set the holy choirs in a better fatherland, that the fruit of the pleasant belly may blossom unto the seeds of eternal life. For sprung from the Davidic stock, with Mary as mother, Christ is present, whom all the oracles of the prophets sing as the God who would come under flesh, and who, the Creator, would enter a virgin's womb. Unroll whatever your Sabbaths cover — you discern the proofs of the typical figure shining in the mangers of the sacred Lamb, from whose fire the aged prophets drew their sayings, and He granted them to speak beforehand what He afterward began to be born as. John the Baptist, mighty in power, cried out: "I am not He; after me will come One whose sandal-straps I am not worthy to touch, nor to loose

the lowly strap by which it binds the lofty soles." How well the voice of Paul sang the precepts of the laver, mingling the ancient with the new! Nor does the Epistle cease, teaching, to repeat these things: "Our fathers in baptism shone forth in the Red Sea under the name of Moses through the Law, when the rock at once followed them as they went; for the rock was Christ." What more, O hard race, do you seek? Behold, it sounds in your books: do not be slow to believe. Reflect now on the mystic gifts which the salt waters whisper would come in the times of the cross, when with His blood Jesus dyed the waters, and from one wound of His side increased it, that He might give the three gifts of life: that redness of the sea was to be the cause to come; thus the Creator washed all; thus He redeemed.

Here the color of the price is in the gulf of the sea, and to the shallows appear the miracles owed to the wood. Burning often to pour rays into dark minds, Paul again recalled these things in order: "After Christ, clothed in the garment of flesh, everywhere gave the signs of God, making manifest that He Himself had come as salvation to the world, the impious crowd, raging, driven by the goads of fury, sought from the authority of Pilate that He be hanged and fixed to the cross — earthly offspring! Because they could not bring all things to Him who desired it, of His own accord the gifts of the saving Christ withdrew, who came to you from the stars as the price of liberty, restoring the lost and raising up what lay in the tombs; consider how liable you remain to your own king; lest you perish, He Himself wills to die."

After these mournful deeds, moreover, with a guard set, they willed to seal the tomb unto a double wickedness, and to condemn the way prepared for the Lord rising: O blind will, that supposes the Eternal to be held by mortal law, and that He cannot restore His limbs to Himself after death, who so often raises up another's! You remember it sounding from the mouth of the Davidic lyre: "You will forbid Your Holy One to know corruption." Could He bear delays in the dust of death, who abides as life? Whom the Author raises up, God suffering nothing of death. Death at last was conquered, having overstepped the measure of conquering, which, the Judge being touched, was bidden to leave the guilty; emptied of its old spoils it falls through its own wars; and coming to absolve the bound, He was not to be held back.

From the spring the final lot began — now to die with life present — and that which before subjected all things, then itself perishes; and the three days being completed, He enters the way of light which He made, by which all nature rises again in its own Lord. From the law you see that deaths cannot be loosened; seek Him by whose blood we, being cleansed, are made partners in the lordly kingdom, in whose part we already are, under the pledge of the flesh which God willed to bear. Then these doctrines give certain men to the Church; they forbade pious words to be uttered further. O ever empty! O barren Judaea, for you! who flee the seeds of life, lest you be able to bring forth fruit — to whom, the Master being on his lips, Paul says: "It indeed behooved you to know these things, but to others this light shall be — for the Scriptures confess:

"I have set you to be a light among the farthest nations." The Gentile throngs were astonished, and following the font they desire to take the honor of the promised newness, and, begotten by the mothering water, they earned to be reborn. I am compelled by the reasoning of the place, for so great a gift, to strike at the faith of the history which once disclosed it, when Rebecca bore two peoples and nations in her belly, and shut up the bands within narrow walls, and consulting, praying, the Thunderer the heart of her who prayed, she merited the answer of God: "The elder," He says, "among these remains the inferior and the shorter-lived, and the greater shall serve the lesser, and the youth shall obtain the honor of the palm." Whatever the fruitful mother did in this womb, the conceived Church holds, and the gathering of the Gentiles enacts a matching form, which grows in the belly, in which it shall be victor.

Which it is now necessary to remember, and to celebrate with good zeal, that we may serve Him from whose affection it befell us to be called before we were born — He who grants gifts before the times. And now, advancing on foot through the Lycaonian fields, Paul comes to Lystra. There was then in this city a lame man, sprung with punishment accompanying him, not knowing how to bear his steps from the womb: a part of his sick limbs had begun, at his very birth, to die. Having learned the doctrine of Paul, by whose admonition devout minds stretch toward the stars, soon he willed to follow the divine things: well, O lame one, were you lying down; you who shall first walk these ways; you seek the heavens with your sense, though you cannot yet move from the ground, and with feet denied you are able to go farther.

Paul, having discerned in his inmost breast what he desired, and that the faithful lame man's love now stood firm in the word of God, thus more clearly begins: "Rise quickly, and stand upright upon your own soles!" Salvation carries out the command, and the old person advances by a new road, and with frequent motion strikes the ground everywhere, and trying to run through all things, often fears the way he does not know, the old man newly sprung with his steps from his aged feebleness; which when the throngs perceive, they cry out and call them gods, and furnish garlands, that the victim of a wild bull might come forth to be sacrificed. Paul at this hastily rends his tunic, thus forbidding the men by open reason: "Why, I pray, do you give us these solemn rites? — us whom it is plain are pressed under earthly law with frail body;

once impious was the honor of religion, when craftsmen feared the deities poured out of metals, when they dedicated temples with gods cut from the rock; then perchance it was pleasing to sacrifice innocent flocks, and to consult their warm entrails, and to seek the voice of the dying beast in its inward parts; now let it be pleasing, with the vain altars ceasing, to obey the eternal God, who furnished the seeds of life, and stocked the fields with varied yields, by whose command the crop rises with full ears from the prompting grain, and the pruned vine-shoot more fruitfully calls forth the grapes conceived from its wound; by whose moderating of the sky the rains succeed the suns, seasons follow seasons, which, when fleeting they recur after their own backs, the constancy of the wandering year abides.

Learn now the truth, to celebrate on earth God born of the holy Virgin, and offer no vows ruinous to the wool-bearing flock, whom the one and only Lamb sets free, who by His blood purchases the cleansed world." By these words faith is instructed; but the use of the body proceeded into a double work, and one salvation sounds forth a twofold figure, because over the whole sea of the world there are two peoples of the Church through the words of the two, for whom the catch makes two keels to be full. For these things, conferred in turn upon the human race, the feet of the lame men taught, in whom an image stands, each bearing its own part, common to either people. Whom Peter granted to rise upon his ancient soles, he was near to the gate;

the circumcised nation came from that place — the Psalm, the Law, and the Prophets, for whom they sang the day of Christ; whom Paul raises from the fields had never sat at the temple's halls, lying in a far-off land, because the beginning was made for the Gentiles. He began from his devout mouth to bring forth into the rude crowds the footsteps of a sound mind, and to heal the people whom the ancient voice of God had escaped. Thus each lame man, when he hastens, lifts up every kind, and the journey of the person signified the salvation of the nation, which the glory of things conferred, that the order might bear Paul as second to Peter, who as architect abides in those foundations. Yet that we may recall to all things the praises of the Author, these two are blind, with the throngs hastening on every side, who said to the Lord together:

"O best Son of David, grant us to come out of the heavy darkness, grant us to behold the light, which we know not yet!" Then that hand, ever the friend of healing, brought in sudden radiance, and night abandoned their eyes, and exiled day illuminates their orbs, and their returning sight grew afraid at the unhoped-for twilight. These peoples are clearly two, whom the noxious nature of their own vein blinded; the clemency of Jesus, when He celebrated the journey, when He willed to have the times of the flesh, renews from the light and purges the figure which the faults had given, and soon the whole image shone forth, which merited to perceive God. The eyes are the greatest part joined to the brain — Christ creates these as a gift, who is the head and the splendor of things;

the lowest part of all are the feet at the end; these the care of the apostolic voice heals upon the highway, since they are called beautiful, the footsteps which bear peace to all lands. The light has risen for the darkness through the gifts of the Master; these set their steps firm, to whom the lot of the word is handed over, that the following medicine may flourish by the goodness of the former, and salvation little by little may pass into the whole world. Now Paul had overcome the raging wraths of men; with faith setting sail, they vomited sudden storms of guile from the Judaic cloud — that the lavers could not first be given to anyone before the circumcision of the flesh should come by the Law of God. Hard nation, why do you further summon to stones and iron? this was the shadow of the figure,

not a species destined to abide; leave behind the things feigned, which you now see as certain. From the mouth of Christ proceeded abiding Life, and He bids all who come to be reborn from the font: why do they cut the members and resolve a part, when they could save the whole? Do not seek to be pressed in the old manner of the help of newness, and that the lights be set turned backward, after the straighter way directs all, and lights up the world, the thorns being cut. Under an ambiguous dispute Paul stretches toward the places of the city for which the monuments of the cross shine, and revisits the holy chiefs of apostolic jurisdiction, to whom he reports all things present, whatever have been done. Peter, whose greatest care it is to increase the entrusted flocks, joyfully calling all to the pastures with himself as leader, unfolds these utterances from his mouth:

"You behold the eternal things, recorded by the ancient saints, which the prophets sang with prophetic mouth to a teachable people — that God fulfilled in us, who chose to be the purchaser and salvation for all, suffering to distinguish none in the price by which life returns: He bade me show this open way to the Gentiles. What does it profit to delay and to slow the vows? or why mingle these riddling shrines with the new light? Whom grace purges, that they may come, no Law forbids; the heavenly matter of love is hastening faith, this Christ adopts, this He makes to be His own, by which each shall merit to enjoy it. The circumcised is present, and is by right reborn in the waters."

They resolved to follow the Shepherd; it pleases therefore that the ministers go together, and absolve the nations by devout writings — that this yoke does not stand for them, yet that it must be guarded against that they worship idols, whose libations would ever be accursed; that they not eat things suffocated, defiled with blood; that lust, fiercer than a foe, not impurely oppress those whom the light cleanses with baptism. That the proofs of this figure may shine forth more clearly, and why the image, having gone forth before, now departs, it helps to remember the beginning: "Abraham," says God, "that you may now establish My everlasting covenant for yourself and for your offspring in the flesh, circumcise willingly the foreskins with iron, and knit the heavenly covenants."

Let us scrutinize the secret help, let us behold in that wound the covenants of God, which the Foreknowing One hides as testaments, that He might join to the lands the fellowships of Olympus — which the boy learned to swear, he who first found Rebecca running to the water of the Church at the font. That part of the body where Abram is circumcised holds wantonness, lascivious, and a minister of vice, lies under the law of nature, he the very father destined for the seed, whence salvation sprouts up to the life of the world; lust, cut off, empties out what fault burdens, and promises a virginal work; for this offspring conceived the divine journey;

hence holy Mary was generated for a new birth, who, devoid of a spouse, abides a mother, and the Son of God flashes forth from the Virgin's womb, and as mediator fulfills man in all things, hence lifting the earthly, there bestowing the heavenly. Therefore the old figure passes away, with Christ being born. This face renews all right, and, the knife being put to flight, the kindling Spirit circumcises the heart in the waters of those who are healed by the waters, lest they fix wounds upon the members. Meanwhile, knowing not to relax his cares into rest, Paul teaches in the world, and with the mattocks of the word cultivates all, and compels the harvest of faith to grow golden, the frost of errors fleeing — which the nourishing Spirit forbids to bring forth in Asia, nor could Mysia, rich in fields, then bear the seeds of this salvation, fasting on its fertile soil;

for indeed a Macedonian man, seen in dreams, said this: "Have mercy, we beseech! Deign to enter the Illyrian bosoms!" O how much does unforeseen grace prepare! Suddenly they are inflamed with love who already have their appointed time; thus, the night being put to flight, the learned speaker turned his journey, and Macedonia, hungering, feeds on the fruit of his speech, and through the gifts of sleep merited to grasp the saving tongue. A frequent question sounds, if, full of a generous gift, the Almighty proclaims: "I came not to destroy the world, but rather to save"; what cause might bring it that these things be denied to some and given to others, when the prodigal piety of Jesus would in common succor all? Abundant is the supply of examples, and the reading teaches us in this part a manifold figure, of which I shall sing a few, Luke narrating the account.

From the people a certain man asked to go as Christ's companion, whom He forbids to come forth with Him; whom then, being silent, He of His own accord calls; the Master, cleansing, knew the inward things, what hearts already bear the word, whom an unjust error yet obstructs within, so that then the doctrine ministers its office when it comes safely: "Lo, what is holy," He says, "let the dogs begin to violate, and the swine, laden with mire, turn their contagions upon the pearls." Another matter also remains, hard in the song; but for those to whom all things have lain open from the ancient font, it is easy to advert to the drops given by a slender mouth.

That book of Exodus recalls the vestments of the sacred high priest, by which indeed he might shine in splendor of robe and array the habit of his office in gleaming adornment, he who stands embroidered in the midst of the altars. Among these garments are reckoned, with like covering upon the thigh, the coverings by which, advancing to the temple, the priest sets in place the raiment of modesty and takes care, with loins girded, to approach the mysteries in chastity. This the ancient law rather established, and it commanded that those members then be covered which dark lust possesses, when one hastens to make offering to God.

Yet after the sacred rites he leaves the marriage bond relaxed, lest a too-sparing use should stand against the work of begetting offspring, and lest the love of wedlock grow cold in a barren husband, since the appointed lineage, bearing this solemn office, should never admit men of foreign stock from an external line, where by ancient name the honor endures from the sanctuary, and the offspring to be sanctified returns through the ages—a succession to be filled by turns of begetting. Now the kindly faith of the Church bids her pontiffs to be chaste without end, and cautiously seeks throughout every tribe those whom she may duly approve; nor shall the succession be of blood, but of merit.

Yet that figure, without which the old letter cannot stand, abides at last better in this newness, and as it recurs it varies the changes by an alternating principle: lest perchance the priest should wish to beget at a time when he does not yet perceive flocks present capable in mind; and when a noble ardor presses upon him, and a hunger for learning, that he may more openly unloose his lips, lest anyone go fasting—for Paul too often says that offspring can be given by the seed of the word, saying 'my little children.' It profits therefore to restrain the generative speech for a little while, and for the teacher to dispense his zeal, slackening for a time the powers of his mind, and bearing them restrained, lest what is poured out be trampled and worn away by the profane—keeping holy things in reserve for the cleansed. The divine law forbids complaint from this; let the punishment of his own vein charge this to Adam's faults.

For what could offspring rightly claim for itself from a guilty throat of parents? Unless that kindly Sower willed to grant it, whatever rash error and corrupted birth has brought. The only way of salvation will be the disposition of One who spares; mercy is ever free of all condition, bestowing things undue. To these the merciful Christ hastens, and the just One twice delays His gifts. In the lands of the Macedonians, when He celebrated the doctor's journey through the well-known walls of Philippi, a girl raving under the goad of the Python cried out: 'Know that Paul is the minister of the eternal God!' A true profession sounds from a lying witness, and the treacherous author holds a faithful voice—yet it is not granted to honor, because fear compels it to speak, nor does it cleave in mind: a bare fear without love.

Paul, pitying hearts pressed by the dark demon and unwilling that the divine ways should be opened to the profane, said: 'Flee, and beware to tempt these things further!' Delaying nothing of the command, the enemy departs, and the wicked possessor deserts the emptied house; and the woman, healed of her fleeing peril, fell silent concerning the man's praise. What she began, she carried through, teaching more by being silent that this was so. From the gift of the crowd, of those whom turbulent madness fills—the madness which she now lacks—her masters used to make their gain; and in the ear of the insolent people they rage in sedition, that sacred rites opposed to the Roman rites are being given, and that new rites are going forth through the world, and that the old gods have fallen.

Then the mobs swiftly assemble, the body of Paul battered with countless cudgels, where the prison was; in its lowest depths they shut him, with Silas accompanying, whose footsteps, sunk in the hollow wood, blessed chains held fast. O place happy in its disaster! for which bright lights shine instead of darkness, in which ancient night gave to be perpetual day—translated into the snow-white hall of the Church, now bearing to all the gifts of salvation. How well it was a prison! The whole city runs together: who first may seek the new dwelling, who may fix his kisses upon the doorposts, and be hallowed by touching the part of the cylinder. Now nocturnal rest had begun to creep over weary bodies;

the earth leaped up, threatening ruin, shaken in its own bowels, and, loosening the bars, the moved ground wanders, and the tempest, serving the soil, ministers to those singing the hymn. O how great a faith is laid open, to be surpassed by none! As the peril came, the punishment fled, and with twofold fear the perils increase, so that the torments may lose their place. The keeper, terror-struck, shaking his limbs from the couch, when free, beheld the caves of death; with the sword's point drawn, he wishes to bring his hand against his own throat, but it is not granted him to die—Paul being witness, by whose solace he found life, and earned to be loosed from his own prison; and descending to his house he ministers soothing remedies to the sacred wounds, and, restored, prepares for himself the flowing wave, about to obtain the heavenly water;

for Paul, loving to fix hearts upon salvation, washes them all at once in the flowing stream of heaven, to whom the grace of light, that cannot be destroyed, lay open before, and life grew thereafter to be reborn. Once Eve was captured by flattering speeches, about to deceive her husband; now the wicked demon, who then drove Eve's mouth, returning to crimes that sex from which it gained its prey, was the conceiver of sin by foretelling many things to come; but the Apostle, an Adam now better, lifting the heavenly sign in image—he who had been an earthly man—did not receive sure things, for what comes from the enemy deceives. Let us all fear to dare this wickedness, nor be corrupted by the bitter honey of guile, even if he sings true things who ministers false ones.

Paul enters Athens, renowned for its talents and tongues, and with a torrent of eloquence presses the city swollen with fierce disputes; the crowd, marveling that he spoke in learned-sounding measures, says: 'From what shores does this sower of words flow?' The people, not knowing Paul, call him a bearer of seeds, and they enjoy error as their master while he speaks truth; for here this eloquent traveler walks through the world and tills, whose labor is bent on all, that the divine field may grow, and the cleansed human mind may bear fruit, lest it be foul with weeds of darnel—the mind which it befits to carry crops. A rival hand compels this man to go at once to the chief men, to whom, standing before them, he declared:

'Sons of Cecrops, whom fame proclaims to flourish in eloquent speech in your own schools, where a lofty love of sacrilegious novelty presides—we behold that you have set up an altar to an unknown God, who founded the stars, who gave the sea and the lands, whom life has as parent, that we may move, from whose fire we draw breath, whose image we are, of whom the poets sang that the race of men consists from Him; whom I proclaim, He sanctioned all things from His own mouth. Why do you call these things divine, which you yourselves make, and think empty heavenly help to be a goal—help which the earth begets? The nature of metal lies hidden deep in the bowels of the soil, from which, dug out, it takes the aid of the fashioning craftsman, whether deities come thence to the temples, or vessels for the hearths; for itself a cause of fear, art has wrought gods.

No one can enclose the Lord, who is poured out over all things, nor confine Him in small figures; what is contained is less than the space of the container; in the gold there is matter, but the Maker of all things does not endure the use which they feign whom He Himself creates. What hard crimes shall you pay! how foolish shall your wisdom feel itself on the day of judgment, when Christ bids all bodies to rise, and the torments shall lack an end, and that He may torture the guilty He preserves those whom the fire shall devour. Thus the flesh, joined to God, expiates carnal deeds, and the avenger examines before it the things committed to it, in that body in which He willed to suffer by dying—the body which, free of death, willing to make alive, He restored to the stars after the underworld. These things call many to His gifts.

Dionysius himself, first in the citadel of the place, that new rewards might be joined to honor, and having embraced the faith, thus begins to be a sage: 'O ravening wolf, Paul! the blessing of Jacob granted you to have this name; what now shall remain in the world that you do not draw by your mouth, after Greek cunning has yielded, and you conquer unconquered Athens in doctrine? Why do the Epicurean or the Stoic alone stir up impious wars? It is needful to disclose by what name many flocks of sects have come together: both chose to follow the blessed life—the one cherishes it in the body, this other cultivates it by virtue of the soul; and Paul's teaching gives precepts for a holy life; thus, with the theme joined, these rather opened their mouths in alternating voices:'

Man, committed to the parts of body and soul, goes forth complete; but now, following diverse pursuits, both wish what neither has. The vessel full of light submits both to God: 'I see,' he cries, 'how hostile the flesh is to my mind,' and again healthfully he begins: 'that what grace bestows is not wrought from one's own part.' Let us celebrate this way, since Christ is life, and He calls Himself to be the Way, that through Himself we may walk to Himself. And lest the holy lamp be able to cease for the feet, the herald given to the faith supplies footsteps to the world. Paul, departing, had now left the Attic ranks, overcome by his pious eloquence, and seeking the joined walls of two-sea'd Corinth, he finds a populous city, which, though it touched the waves of an alternating sea, thirsted for perpetual waters;

there that Pontic Aquila was then a teacher, a man bearing many instruments of praise, to whose friendly hospitality Paul betook himself, deigning to approach the home as a companion through love of the craft; for both were tent-makers, mighty in the pursuits of the work and in the doctrine of the law. Christ says: 'Now teach, Paul; no one stands in your way, with Me accompanying you; what a crowd I have within these walls, you see; press on speaking; I strengthen hearts.' These things warn that no one can ever complain of slow gifts, since the mercy of Christ gives them freely. Lest the dwelling lie hidden under an ambiguous figure, by what reasoning it shall be given I will sing; the sacred Scriptures sang that arguments are often drawn from a name, and that the greatest proofs are begotten:

It profits therefore to seek more deeply who this guest is, dear to Paul, joined and made a companion in the craft, under whose image the cause was so named, and with what excellence he is adorned, pleasing in this part also: the eagle's faithful nature of its own accord bears what its form holds; for the bird, weak with age and with sight now dimmed by old age, lies beneath the flame-vomiting sun, and in its fire warms its heavy wings, and opens its nocturnal eyes, and thrusts its ailing eyes against the burning rays, about to return to the old day; thus the languid bird takes the gifts of heat, from whose kindling it receives strength, and repairs the losses of the former age.

And lest those things alone be its lot which the fervid heat strikes upon it, to be cleansed by the ford of waters, three times it is plunged in the waves, and lays aside old age in the waters, and raises from the fountain the youthful image of its beauty. What act of religion could be plainer? When we are touched by the light of the true Sun, we dissolve the contagions of the ancient age, our faith being kindled: soon reborn of the water as mother, we are beheld fresh in newness: infancy again becomes recurrent for the old man; for those who flow from a twofold origin, here a better birth is present, well conscious of this bird's example, whom the Spirit moved to ply his rich hand upon the lyre: 'You shall be renewed,' he said, 'after the manner of the eagle.' By which law it is granted to the approved to feel that they please by the praise of the type, which the songs of the just confirm.

Nor is Paul's craft idle, celebrated under that same companion, by the virtue of a hidden good, for he used to fashion strong tents with movable coverings upon a heap. The pilgrim traveler, going farther, everywhere sets these up, and wards off the winters and suns with these skins. We too, driven from our first seat through fault, are cast into the exile of the world; a way is at last given back by which we may seek again our fatherland's journey; our defenses are in your camp, Paul, lest the worldly tempest bring the rains of crime, and the fiery tempter drive the vapors of wickedness; under such a covering safe salvation receives no stroke of peril, nor, laid low, does it succumb to the powers of the fierce enemy. The leaders send mystic signs ahead with the praises of the craft. Peter, driving the fish, captures men;

the guest of the sea persists in the sacred waters; Paul, while he raises earthly dwellings, teaches how to found heavenly ones, and what was often made by hand he now builds by word as halls. Following on farther, having traversed the borders, Paul, coming to Ephesus, teaches the fields, and there, seeing certain men standing by, the inquirer asks: 'Has the kindly Spirit come to these?'—men who say they had long ago been wetted at the fount of John; for being without this name they had been drawn thus far, whom he washes in the sacred stream, and soon the Holy Spirit filled their mouths, and gave the shower of words with the accustomed powers.

Often the profane move their arms from this quarter, and prepare to wage war, against whom that I may pour forth opposing weapons by speaking, do you now, kindly Spirit, water my mouth more abundantly, that the doctrines I speak may be worthy of you, which you shall have given! You are the way of the voice, you the path of life, you the One who is to speak—come! who through your gifts always work in us what we may render, and again take back the gift's use. As forerunner in the world by the name of the one to come, John displayed his own baptism, and himself prepared the way for the Lord, recalling to all the baptism to come, after which another is rightly given, which the threefold Power is wont to illumine;

but because Christ rather chose to touch these waters of His, He makes a pattern for all to run to Himself, lest mortal kind any further forsake the sacred wave of the pious fount, than which the Lord too had deigned to be cleansed in the stream with clean body, while God immersed Him through His servant: now, the river being touched, this work passed to the disciples, whom songs proclaim to have baptized many; it was right that the servant's washing should cease when God came, the forerunner from whom He had spoken these things before; at the time when Jesus made full baptism to be performed, as John before—why should he give the accustomed and proper one?

What rule compelled Paul that they ought to be reborn at Christ's fount, whom John, intimating with his finger not as one to come but as already come, disclosed to be the heavenly Lamb, singing that He takes away sins from the whole world? Why do you desire to feign a twofold baptism, O profane one? Things that differ are not repeated; repetition holds the very thing, not another, and it would be twofold that which first began to be, and itself returns; for since the origin of the beginning and the following end are in discord, both that single things are said and that it is clear they exist once, and they are burdened by no error, things which, brought together at once, can be proven distinct.

Yet when anyone full of heretical blackness is polluted in the lake of Avernus, if he wishes to have the light of the Church from the pious fount, our faith does not compel this man to go again to the water, because under the threefold name they draw perverse doctrines; nor is it wont to explore who, but what they could give—the truth which placed hands instituted him to confess; and error alone is repelled, drawing into divers ways, which the Spirit makes one. These too the Scripture records to have been twice six. O sacred and happy measure of number! When in the poured-out throng they earned to be born from the seed of losses, the broad glory of the apostolic law was given to so many vessels. Now Paul, mighty in speech, had converted the city of Ephesus, and the glory shone with heavenly signs.

And when bodies, wounded by countless diseases, tottered, nor did the physicians' medicine, wrought by the hand of craftsmen, restore the wretched sick; the absent sought sacred coverings for themselves, to whom the burning one was present, that that vapor of fever might fall, and another flame give an end to the heat; in short, Paul's aprons and handkerchiefs offered openly, spread over the limbs, pressed down the hearths of languors, and the plagues, laid back from the members, flowed away to nothing: the touch was a vigor curing all things, and no houses ceased from the gift which they bear from the healing garment.

Under that same power the threatening throng of spirits too, like an idle part of smoke through the void, flees, lest the fair fabric of the Creator—which, formed from soil after the likeness of the heavenly image, draws and bears the Maker's appearance as a pledge—be polluted by its guest, and the robber's stench infect the temple of beauty; at which time seven men of the Jewish stock attempt new battles. Thus addressing him first: 'Whom Paul preaches by the name Jesus, Him we likewise set before you; quit the place you have invaded.' The voice given back in answer: 'Who Christ is,' it says, 'who Paul is, I perceive, for you I am allowed to shun as unknown; know your madness, hostile race!'

The demon confesses Him to reign whom you deny to have come, and by this very thing you are convicted, by whose goading you rush headlong—Him to whom it is not granted to please with the mouth what he moves by terror; the cause of God forbids speaking contrary things, which the law accompanies with love. This is the true faith. What spectacles were then given to the people, and what triumphal crown, with the Lord conquering, it befell to be won thence! When with raving murmur the demon's gnashing wrath, well harmful to its own, tears the garments, cuts the faces, and the perils of the vanquished flee, and they turn their bared backs in headlong dread. Why, fierce Judaea, will you now no longer fear from disaster? You who thus perish with the enemy as ally, for whom there is the same author of crime and punisher, lest he be cast out by you as judge, in him who is at once a sinner and guilty.

Soon rumor, flying through the city, scattered everywhere that the demon uttered a voice that the power of God is supreme; they rejoice to run together to enter the pious waters, and to wash old stains in the new fount, and to grow bright with holy streams. Of these one is given, an age at once harmless to all. But others set fires to their magic books, that they might earn the waters and shun fires by fires. The flame is too lofty, whose gleam flies above the air, and such embers sought the heaven. They set also the price of fifty thousand pieces of money upon the books, since, being guilty, they earned thus to abolish wickedness; this is the cause of this figure: the sacred number lawfully dissolves offenses, as once David washed away his crimes in the whole Psalm, and puts to flight the contracted ones;

for the fiftieth year, when the Jubilee is at hand, the alienation of one's own land is restored to its ancient owner; lost liberty seeks back those compelled to serve; the creditor remits evil debts, and the exile beholds his fatherland's threshold with eager wishes. In fifty cubits too the ark is stretched out, which, found amid the shallows and safe upon the sea, conducts salvation by its number of piety, and being preserved it grows through the aid of the sparing span, because Christ everywhere founded the Church, capacious through pardon's fashioning, which, thus begun amid the seas, is poured most broadly over the fields. Unhappy Demetrius of Ephesus by his craft placed silver shrines in sacrilegious spots, accustomed to discharge vows for his Diana at a greater price; seeing all the monuments of ancient frenzy yield, he groans, and stirs up various wraths with these words:

'Does it not shame us, O comrades, that our Diana has fallen, whom the honor of the world looked up to? What salvation beyond is to be hoped for by mortals, if the gods cannot be free of an end through the ages? What images now, what incense shall they be able to give to the shrines' hearths? Whom this stranger Paul terrifies, and whatever we wield for the deity of the gods he calls mute metals, from whose world religion departs, and the expelled household gods have sought flight. And now I see the shrines long established about to fall in sudden ruins, and the very fane of the noble temple to be given over to ash and overthrow! What citadel do we grasp, what wealth do we hold? to whom the faculty of works is barred, and it would be a crime to have made Diana. Press on! the time is at hand! the final labor has all things with it, if it despairs;

the only way for the conquered to conquer is to fear nothing; a sure lot of triumph remains, to have moved hands for the gods above; rise up with weapons, and let arms demand back her whom vows celebrate as goddess!' At these words the moved people roar, and call upon great Diana with common clamor, and with swift course they go with sedition into the obscene theater. It befitted to handle the causes and merit of Diana in no other forum than a lascivious one; the base hall takes up the deformed work of the assembly; yet the senseless impulse flowed like one who, gliding into the empty air with the eyes, slips away, and dispersed smoke retains no traces. O pitiable band! for whom do you toil to provide? Why do you think her to be perpetual? With you as witness she is torn fugitive from her own shrines; by what right do you tremble?

For her, by whose perishing you grieve and try to join to heaven her whom you deny to remain on earth? Now the order of the figure must be explored, and seen with the hidden places laid open. Demetrius is said to have, of the soil, madly set up halls of silver for the goddess, when nature brought forth more in her capacious bosom, with which metals he might fashion these things; and from molten countenances the bronzes are animated, and the hands of genius promise that the rocks live. But if we turn over the holy-speaking books from their order, we shall find the way, because Scripture compares gold to pure senses, silver to gleaming speech. For though the Psalm sing these things, yet, O illustrious Moses, you recall them more loftily, when you dictate such words to the people:

'Bring gold and silver for the adornment of the temples,' which lies within for the mind: not the hard matter of metal lurks beneath the heart, but more openly that thing stirs which Christ loves; the mind has offered gold, to whom faith shall have been precious, and likewise it ministers silver, to whom the good timbrels of the heart sound with the voice, that two joined may worship the Lord—from the breast sense, from speech sound; thus gold the doctrines of the law, and silver these things seek to be prepared for the pious temples. We, because we are temples, if all crimes recede, the prescient words admonish, which the Apostle himself reveals: 'With the heart shall be the salvation of the believer, confession with the voice.' For the sacrilegious one there was one thing only;

Demetrius built the houses with silver, whose eloquence moved these minds, so that it might prove by a norm, without the judge of sense, that vain deities are worshiped, and that this work does not come from the virtue of the heart, to which this part alone is dedicated, which, destitute of reason, sows bare speech with the mouth. You too, bearing signs, set down your titles in our song, O Troy, and add to the praises your triumphs, which shine for you more truly and clearly by deed than those which your colonizing tongue resounds in pompous buskin. When the tongue of God scattered seeds teeming for salvation, it prolonged the times into late night, about to make more day for souls; the lamps gleamed flashing, that the faithful might shine with the fire of the word. Eutychus alone, an exile from the living watches, committed his limbs sunk in heavy sleep to the window.

O ill-gotten rest! O hearts ever given to sleep, bare of good! to how great ruins lies he open whom night alone holds, and never raises up his sick head to better things! He knows not to watch in danger who suffers himself to sleep before God! Why, grown one, do you seek the empty chaos of the window, or why do you rest in this part where you shall fall? It is a thing hostile to salvation to follow lofty things hanging, and to wish to pluck stealthy dreams on a downward couch; you could have reclined on a better bed in the word of God, and, as Paul admonishes, willed His entrance, in whom by a right threshold there is the name of a door open and passable, through which the sheep, raised from the fount, walk to life;

Seek this, all of you, if it is profitable to avoid the raving jaws and the bloody bites of the wolf, by whose mouth the fugitive shall be torn from the Shepherd, who calls the scattered lambs with His voice, and does not allow the flock, redeemed by His own death, to be captured again by snares and by the wound of the bitter tooth from the enemy. The hall was loosed in mournful tumult; the crowd, pitying with frequent groaning, runs together to see the place, which, sad with bitter death, shall be about to make joy; clinging to whom, Paul says: 'He lives in his breast'; which voice life followed, and death, repelled, fled: how much, O Christ, does your power, wrought in your servants, accomplish! You, restored to the stars, and equal to the Father in everlasting majesty, rule the supernal laws;

but because the flesh, sprung for you from the body of a virgin mother, despoiled the realm of Avernus, and you recalled living members from your own sepulcher, and, proving that you willed to die, in the part where you rise again, and where you were born, you now loose the firm chains. Alternating light returns to others by your authorship, and likewise granted by your example, who long ago compelled the subjected things, and bid the underworld yield to the elect's servants. Meanwhile the happy corpse rises from death, and by a better way is conducted safe through the three upper rooms to Paul, in whose sight the harmless boy began to be present, now worthy of life's honor, when he turned the journey of death, where the glory of the deed instructs us to open the causes to the old figure. Noah's ark is described as propped with three chambers, bearing the lessons of the Church;

in the first order stood the part of men, and the cattle held the step of the second; the third lot was assigned to the wild beasts, all which the four-cornered ark bore through the waves, just as in the baptism of the fount there is now one salvation for all, but for characters one place cannot suffice, for Noah is said to have built nests in it, whom the Hebrew calls just and a rest, because Christ is therein, who as an equal divides the sure rewards of His own: whoever is a lover of virtue is joined to Noah seeking the heights; he stands next below, of lesser genius, less; the lot given to the savage holds the lowest, Tartarean bosom of the deep:

thus Eutychus therefore, falling from the first part, perished and clung to the mouths of hell, and, empty of human reason, began to hold the place of beasts; over whom after Paul leaned with his breast, and wisdom poured forth its own word, lifting up by the mouth the soul slain by the carnal law, he returns from death to the Lord, which the Epistle proclaims: 'You who sleep, now rise quickly!' and again it urges: 'And, watchful, lift yourself from death!' Above the three lofty rooms the boy now earned to stand, because by the threefold doctrine he learned what is the substance of eternal life. And now, the stations of the world traversed, Paul was about to come to Jerusalem, whither the Spirit often warns him to go, desiring on the well-known shore to recall a perpetual farewell; at once he summons from all sides the sacred ones, rendering these words from his dear breast:

'O beloved band, that wars with Christ's arms! O people born to the most high God! you remember the proofs of my love and zeal; readily I bore Gentile ranks and Jewish furies without end, that I might give the precepts of life, and that no faith narrated might lie hidden among the people; I shall ever be clean from your blood, nor as a debtor of a greedy mouth shall I pay closed talents, and the barren field shall blame the one who fasts in the seed of the word; thence usury convenes you to render a pious return; when the author shall come, who is the examiner of merit, and shall demand back from the servants the increases of His measure; my ardor was to bear seeds to the senses; which, sown everywhere upon the furrows, the bad earth shall grieve over the slender fruits.'

'I go—behold the city of the cross, venerable to the nations, whither commands call me; here will be given the struggle of a varied contest, to strive thither, for he shall undergo all things who wishes to complete the course; most gentle is the lot of punishments which vows bear, and the faculty of the kingdom is to suffer perpetually for the King: keep, O ministers, the Church of Christ, the price which He made for us with His blood in His own world; let the servants labor to retain what the Lord gave from death; you shall not behold my face and countenance any further—I pray more watchfully—survey the committed flocks, because with ravening tooth the wolves will come to the sheepfold; the guard sins when the robber departs with spoils; by the fraud of the slothful shepherd he seeks what he seizes as prey;

but a fiercer enemy will be within, and discord carries a graver evil, which it creates by vices under peace; do not yield to fictions—rest is harmful to virtue, and no secure honor crowns anyone in the stadium; his own glory shall be the cause of labor to the brave, and rare is the soldier toward the prizes for whom peace alone was; victory takes its seed from the enemy; thence it arises. The Lord can make your plantings fruitful, who through His own gifts causes one to come to His own gifts, and what He aids, He Himself ministers. I bore not riches, proud with deceiving luxury, by alternating reward, nor did I take gifts, seeking you rather than your possessions; you know me, how these hands fed me with my companions; accustom yourselves to bring forth treasures into the ways of light, and to lay up the treasures of works in the seat of heaven.'

It will profit nothing to have sought gold in buried places, if the miser shuts away what the earth concealed: what does not rise up for the poor man lies in the ground and is rolled about in a blind cavern, hidden by a sinning hand. Open your hearts, I pray, to the admonitions from on high, and let no one refuse to provide shelter for the needy flock, for in that guest he receives Christ. When he had spoken thus, he gave them the kiss of peace; then, praying together, he bent his knee to the ground, and all, tight-bound with sorrows, melted into pious tears, and far across the waves, with attending gaze, they were granted to follow the ship. They strain their eyes against the hard, opposing clouds; a path is added to their sight upon the sea, and the vessel, snatched by the gusts, is still recognized, and soothes their minds with its image, and the measure of seeing grows with the heart's affection. But as for what he says:

These precepts of salvation, night and day, I gave for three years: by this reckoning the figure stands plain. He who proclaims the threefold teaching of the Church often sets forth the historical sense, sounding likewise the moral and the typical volume. For thus the six water-jars each hold three measures, which from the old Law glowed red with the new wine. The ancient form of the perfect sacrifice commands three loaves to be offered in the basket; to which is joined that word which Christ spoke to the disciples, when one asked at night that three loaves ought to be given him: that night, in truth, is the world, so that here, if anyone hungers for the food of the word, you may, when sought out, set forth the feast and instruct the willing one, that the Father and the Son, that the Holy Spirit are one God, and that the simple substance triples the number. Nor do the holy commands proclaim this but once. He compels, says he,

whoever asks you to go before him one mile as a guide, go the other two thousand paces with him: do not the commandments seem to speak this? If anyone wandering and ignorant of the way consults you as to what God is, you would do better to bring it forth: set forth the Father, and gladly add that there is the Son, and that there is the gracious Spirit, three in number, and yet one. Hence Judea, lying idle, which is called the barren tree, when awaited for three years brought forth no fruit, because, scorning to handle the volumes in the threefold sense, in these mystic numbers she knows not how to give gifts to Christ. Now Paul had begun to approach the noble temple of Solomon, and to render the solemnities of the old Law.

The Jewish mob seizes him, and in raging tumult they cry out that he is guilty of death; but the tribune flies forth with arms, and orders him bound to go in twin chains, which nevertheless press hard upon his fettered arms. Yet the torments do not bind his soul, as the Epistle of Paul, full of light, proclaims, that ministers can be bound, but faith cannot be bound, and that the word is not given over to be held by punishments. And he took his stand upon the very steps, speaking to the people in the Hebrew tongue: O brothers, and you fathers, men! you know me to have come a novice to these shores; devoted to all learning, I was filled with love of the Law. Now I take you for witnesses, you whose writings I bore when I burned to punish the Christ-worshiping flocks with the slaughter of Damascus, and to forbid this faith from the ends of the world:

but mortal things cannot contend with their Author. A light came down from the stars to close my eyes, and the day, driven off by the flashing fire, lay hidden, and darkening shadows pressed upon my eyeballs, in whose hour a radiance grew for me, coming with the night: the outcome is wont to make things discerned after the deeds. Well did we see the shadows, who were soon to enjoy a new sun. But a cry also clung to my ears from the mouth of God: with my name repeated, 'Saul, Saul,' Christ shakes me with terror, lest as a standard-bearer I should dare to wage war against him any longer. By what right shall I refuse? By whose stroke I fall, by whose gift I am lifted up, cast down, onto a better way, and through steep places I rise, and lofty I follow the happy gifts of my ruin. Now it is enough, O fellow-citizen! we have waged cruel war. That portion teaches nothing doubtful, which, blessed, performs its office with its own enemy as witness:

why does it still please you to be guilty? Shine forth out of my darkness, you to whom faith granted sight from the waters of the font, and the image of death began to live in the waters: alas, O stony earth, never fruitful with your own seeds! and vain are the labors of those who endure a barren soil! At last, afterward, Jesus, appearing, said this to me: Prepare to go far, Saul, far from this city left behind; this people has no faith in our name; rather, to the gentiles sing the words of salvation. At once the complaining phalanxes snatched up this word. They fling off their garments, and, casting dust further off, they roar with windy fickleness, and with varied din the raging crowd resounds against Paul's peril. O guilty Judea! when you longed to destroy the Author of life, thus you gave your words:

there was a choice, O clamorous one, which prisoner you would wish released to you; but from your bloody mouth you demand the sad, ill-counseled outrage, and, the robber being chosen, you keep the joys of the Passover, and you double your fury, savage toward the holy man, appeased toward the guilty. In the whole contest you strip yourself bare and leave yourself empty, when, harder still, you hurl torments upon Stephen, you lay aside your cloak, and now you lack a garment, because the punishment of the first parent is kindred to you, and in your body you bear the burden of the old transgressor, lest you be renewed by the waters that are the font's honor: Adam, at the rise of his crime, knew that he was naked, and thence the proofs of his guilt lay open to the wretched man; upon you the origin of death comes again and again, into whom wrath, full of evils, weaves twice the garment which guilt creates.

Now the tribune, seeing the strife blaze up with these cries, added fierce chains to Paul, and sent him to the wicked camp to be tortured. How a well-known difficulty in those passages is to be overcome, we shall sing. Paul, relating the deeds, says that his companions had at once beheld the light there with their own eyes, yet did not drink in that voice with their ears; but at that time, when he fell blind, the companions are read to have heard the voice. Thus the narrator's account varies: yet it is necessary that both, beyond doubt, agree, for then they are said to have heard, to have received the sound, now indeed not to have heard. This will be the simple path of reason: a confused voice is rightly said not to speak, nor is that believed to be conveyed by speech which the receiver does not store in his heart;

stirred only by a doubtful ear, the ambiguous din strikes the empty air alone; thus they are read both to have heard and not to have heard. One part is of sound, the other part is of a sure voice, and one and the same thing bears and brings back a twofold figure. The cause prompts me to unroll in verses the boiling ranks of punishment upon Paul's body, and the grievous wraths of his penalties; but my tongue is afraid: let us flee deceits from that side, and, fearing so sad an outrage, let us restrain our speech, lest perchance the reader fill his face with tears as he reads, and the page grow wet with copious drops. Yet not even these things could satisfy the bloodthirsty souls; the love of crimes burns, and they desire to ply their sacrilegious hands in Paul's blood. What hard vows of the wicked!

Forty nurslings of the frenzied stock bound themselves to take no drink or food at all until, slaughter accomplished, there should be a feast — that thence the banquet might be greater. O pallid image of the heart! The cups of gore, O Judea, are sweeter to you than of water, and willing to touch no tables, you hunger for the crime, and you seek to have a famine sated with the corpse of the just man. Not such fasts did Moses establish by his example, completed in so many days as you recall — as many days as the weapons you wield; and over so many years you behold that secret ways lay open, where from a rich cloud foods flowed down with the dew, and the dry rock in turn poured forth waters, in which our fathers were granted to enjoy the divine goodness and to nourish their souls with heavenly gifts:

from that very number you come cruel to rage, and you join the polluted covenants of the band, so that one death may make many men guilty. Lysias learned these things, Paul's kinsman revealing them, and in what place they prepared their ambush; therefore he swiftly orders that his commands be secretly concealed, and in the time of night, cautious, he forestalls the dark work, and to chosen companies he commands that they escort Paul under safe honor. Glory from your merits, O honorable informer, would not be foreign to you, and — what is rare for rewards — you win favor by betrayal; nor does steadfastness harm you, which you fear to keep for crime. In a crime, virtue will be a crime, and when the wicked are allied to a deed, loyalty is a fault in you, which true honor then adorns with praises, when the cause is holy.

With arms thronging him, Paul soon comes to Caesarea, whither the mob ran, propped up by their orator, who, having gained the governor's ear, gave forth empty words. Against him at last Paul thus speaks: Most excellent governor, long have we all known you to follow the proofs of justice, and that this modest companion attends your counsels, which grace persuades us to trust, nor to speak doubtfully under such a judge. We have not violated the holy use of the law and the temple, nor with wandering speech have we stirred the popular winds. Coming from the cities of Asia, we began to pay our gifts, ever looking to a pure vow. Who, I ask, will be free, if such a thing makes a man guilty?

I speak fearing nothing, for faith knows not to dread perils — the faith which they dare to call a sect, though it is the way of light, nor do the ancient laws of the fathers clash with the new; it is now lawful for all to believe that bodies can already rise again from the tombs, after Christ, who founded all things, brought his own back from there. Felix was astonished, having lost his name [the 'happy' one], whom another's chains make a defendant, by whose obstacle Paul is bound and is kept for the year of Festus the governor. Here we leave too much aside, lest our joys be delayed. Now come to Latium, O Paul! What contests were stirred up again and again in the forum, and how great the Jewish frauds are read to have flowed; for Paul speaks thus: I appeal you to Caesar's throne; I appeal, says he, as a Roman, for Caesar's aid;

to whom Festus replies: You shall depart, as you wish, the sooner to behold the tribunal of Augustus. Not fleeing dangers with fear urging him, Paul did not shun the burden of judgment; his mind, ever anxious, was to die for a better life; but the Author of grace had once long ago said to his herald and witness that he was to come to Rome. The clemency of Jesus, in all lands, to those thirsting for the draught of faith, gives cups from his own vessel, and bids that all be watered with His abundant-flowing word, and the grace of the western name was granted to grow from the light of the word. The voyager had loosed the fleet from the eastern shore, having gained the help of the south wind, by whose breath, with the way growing glad, and the sail's wings spread wide, the ship cleaved the seas; but when did the deceits of the winds ever hold anything gentle?

Soon, by the blasts of Eurus, the sea's calm was broken, and the feigned peace of the dark-blue deep grew white with swelling crests. The sea rages on every side, and, lifting its masses with an angry whirlpool, it denies sure footing to the snatched-away vessel, which, suspended toward the poles and cast down, is joined to the fields of the deep, following land and sky; the hand fit for the raft lacks the aid of friendly skill, and with icy dread they lay down their spirits, and, blind beneath the black sky, again and again they see shipwreck, and, with the depth closed in, the image of death lies open. I am summoned by the historical method to traverse the vast Syrtes, and to follow the torn ropes and the fragments of the rudder; but I do not commit so frail a tongue to the shoals, and I would long flee to brave the rushing tempests, lest perchance a too-violent wave overwhelm the singer's scanty speech.