Poems 1

FIRST POEM. While Paulinus was still living in the world, he sends birds to Gestidius. PAULINUS to GESTIDIUS, deservedly to be esteemed as lord. It is indeed an affront to a head of household abounding in the delicacies of the sea to offer something earthly and rustic; but I, so that I might have occasion to converse something with your kindred heart, and that I might seem to add some service to this discourse, have sent a very few from the very fewest figpeckers which the little serving-boys bring in at evening: and since I blushed at their scantiness, I have woven still more words into the little verses, as though indeed I would make up the number by loquacity. But because both are blameworthy, you, by pardoning both kindly and familiarly, will bring it about that neither the scantiness seem inhuman nor the garrulity odious.

Take then the birds fed in the thorny countryside, which the cunning fowler, lurking beneath the shelter of a flint, while he counterfeits and deceives the birds with a like whisper, hangs up, credulous, upon limed twigs. Then, bringing back his slender prey with no small gain, he arranges his catch on the boards, and the first row of fat ones shines, gradually thinning toward the bottom of the little board, so that the leanness may give less offence; the grace preferred to fatness gladdens, with a plump bird, eyes that were forestalled. SECOND POEM. While still living in the world he sends oysters to the same Gestidius. So that the dear gift of a poor friend may please you, do not reckon as gifts what rich things you send to us. For what worthy thing should I render to you in return for those fish, which the neighbouring shore with its wealthy gulf supplies to you, set apart in wondrous appearance and form?

But for me, scarcely in the deep, over the rocky shallows, is a rare spondylus bred in the dark seaweed. Sharing it with you from here, I have sent across to you twice five and twice three shells, fragrant with sea-nectar, which a most sweet flesh fills with two-coloured marrow. I pray you take them willingly; nor disdain as worthless things which are now small but measured out with great love. FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD POEM. On the kings collected from Suetonius.

Europe and Asia, the two or greatest members of the earth, to which Sallust doubtfully adds Libya, joined to Europe, since it might be called the third—ruled by many whom fame has blotted out, and whom barbarous names do not hand down to the Roman tongue: Illibanus, and Numidian Avelis, and Parthian Vonones, and Caranus, who gave the Pellaean kings their names, and Nechepsus, who taught the empty mysteries of the magi; and Sesoostris, who soon reigned without a name. ................................. And bold the one who gave his name to the Icarian sea, and he who sailed temperately to the Chalcidian citadels. FOURTH POEM. A MORNING PRAYER TO GOD.

A little after his conversion from the world, in this prayer he asks of God an honourable character, and entreats a happy posterity for himself and his own. Almighty Father of things, to whom belongs supreme power, hear me if I pray for just things, let no day be sorrowful to me, let no night break my peaceful rest. Let things belonging to others not please me, nay rather let my own things profit suppliants, and let no one have toward me prayers of doing harm—or have things that would harm me. Let there be no power to will evil, and let a tranquil power of being able to do good be present. Let a mind content with its own, and not given over to base gain, conquer the bodily enticements, chastely well-conscious of an untainted bed; and let it, harmful, hate base jests and obscene words, and let my tongue, ever guilty, much pleasing to malignant ears, hate its poison ever poured out.

Let me not be afflicted by anyone's death, nor let us grow great by a funeral. Let me never envy anyone, nor ever lie. Let a glad household be present, let a well-fed home-born servant sport at unbought feasts, and a faithful companion, and a neat attendant, and a complaisant wife, and children from a dear wife. May God grant these things to chaste characters; these characters pledge to you perpetual life in the age to come. FIFTH POEM. ANOTHER PRAYER TO GOD. He enumerates various attributes of God, and prays for grace from God whereby he may avoid sins, so that he may meet God's judgment secure. Almighty One whom I worship with my mind, sole Father of things, unknown to the wicked, and to none of the godly unknown; lacking beginning and end, more ancient than the age, than what has been or will be: whose form and measure neither mind can grasp nor tongue declare:

whom only the One has the right to behold and to hear face to face as He commands, and to sit at the right hand near the Father—Himself the Maker of things, Himself the cause of things to be created; Himself the Word of God, the Word God, anticipating the world which He was about to make: begotten in that time when time as yet was not; brought forth before the radiance and the ruddy Dawn-star lit the heaven; without whom nothing was done, through whom all things were made, whose throne is in heaven, to whom, as He sits, the earth is subject, and the sea, and the insuperable chaos of dark night; restless, Himself moving all things, the quickener of inert things; God not begotten from the Begetter, who, offended by the deceit of a proud people, called the nations into the kingdom: to be worshipped by the better stock of an adopted lineage. Whom it was permitted our forefathers to behold:

by which Godhead being seen, it was granted also to have seen the Father—He who bore our contagions, and, suffering the mockeries of dread death, taught that there is a passable way back to eternal life. And that not the soul alone returns, but with the whole body enters the heavenly regions, and leaves the void of the sepulchre, its secret laid bare, covered over by the empty earth. Son of the most high Father, and bringer of salvation to our age: to whom the Begetter handed over all the Father's powers, retaining nothing out of envy, and full of gifts, open a way to my prayers, and bear these things to the Father's ears. Grant, Father, a mind unconquered against all crimes, and turn away the serpent's wickedness of a poison that would harm: let it be enough that the serpent ruined ancient Eve, and joined the deceived Adam to her.

Let us, the late seed of descendants, the age foretold by truthful prophets, avoid the snares which the death-bearing serpent entangles. Open the way by which, after the chains of this sick body, I may bear myself on high: by which the milky path of pure heaven surpasses the wandering lights of the windy moon: by which the godly chiefs departed, and by which once Elias, untouched, was caught up and penetrates above the ether in a four-horsed chariot, and Enoch, going before, with his solid body. Grant, Father, the hoped-for breath of eternal light, if I swear not that stones are gods, and revering a single altar of the holy rite, I bring undefiled offerings of life: if I acknowledge You as Father of the Lord and only-begotten God, and the Spirit, mingled with the two, who hovered over the watery waves.

Grant, Father, pardon, and purge my tormented breast, if I seek You not by the entrails of cattle, nor by shed blood: nor do I conjecture the deity beneath secret innards. If I abstain from wickedness, myself liable to error: and if I wish rather than trust to be approved good and pure, deign to acknowledge the soul that confesses: if I execrate the perishable limbs, and if I am silently penitent, and a deep dread torments my senses, and anticipates the late torments of Gehenna, and my wounded mind suffers its own shades. Grant, Father, that these vows be made ratified by my prayer: let me fear nothing, and desire nothing: let me reckon this enough, which is enough: let me will nothing base, nor be to myself a cause of shame: nor do to anyone what at the same time I would not wish done to me: nor let me be wounded by a true crime, nor stained by a doubtful one:

the suspected seems to differ but little from the truly guilty. Let there be no power to be able to do evil, and let a tranquil power of being able to do good be present. Let me be of slender fare and dress, let me be dear to friends: and ever a father without wound to that name. Let me grieve neither in soul nor in body, let all my limbs discharge the offices of rest: nor, wounded in any parts, let use long for anything lost. Let me enjoy peace, let me pass my days secure, let me deem the earth's marvels as nothing: when my last hour comes, let a life well-conscious neither fear death nor desire it. Pure from hidden faults, when by Your indulgence I shall appear, let me despise all things, when the sole pleasure shall be to hope for Your judgment:

which, while it defers its own times, and the day delays, drive far off the savage serpent that lies in wait with its alluring errors. These pious vows, but trembling with sorrowful guilt, do You, O Christ, before the eternal placable Father, espouse, Saviour, God and Lord, mind, glory, Word, Son, and true Light from true Light, abiding with the eternal Father, reigning unto the ages; whom the people celebrate with measured song, and strike the air with answering voices: Amen. SIXTH POEM. (Concerning Saint John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ.) Highest Father of things, and eternal power of heaven, with whom is our salvation, O Christ, glory of the saints, and Spirit cleaving alike to the Father and the Son, who rule minds and tongues, and minister strength, which faith alone has merited:

to whom belongs full power to pour intelligence into brutes, and a voice into the mute, grant that John, drawn from the Gospel fountain, may run down into our songs with an arid stream. He indeed was so great as he could give to the world, who by new miracles commanded such a one to be born: but it is permitted to spend slender cares on great things, nor do heavenly things disdain humble praise: it is part even of merit to celebrate the merit of the godly: nor do I now sing new things, or my own: the prophets foretold all beforehand, and the holy men in loosened speech consecrated the promised one's rising, his life and death: if that was a death which by blood merited heaven. We have only vowed to unfold the sayings in tuneful measures, and to relax the minds of readers with verse:

Thus (for it is allowed to compare great things with small, ancient with new, perfect with unlearned, eternal with perishable) whatever the men of old, with God inspiring, declared, the venerable name David fitted to harps, composing harmonious measures with a heavenly plectrum: us too it is right to be mindful of God, although our breasts, beset with many crimes, are slow to admit the heavenly sense. Zacharias, once a priest from the Syrian race, tended the entrusted temples with solemn array. The man's life was worthy of God by piety, faith, gravity, modesty, and observance; his wife was kindly Elisabeth, sprung from the ancient stock of holy men, and equal to so great a husband in virtues.

But (which the men of old set down as a reproach to mothers, being childless) she led a sad and barren old age, and the time now past had shut out all hope of offspring. By chance all the people were bearing the solemn holy rite to God, and the priest had above the rest burned the sacred fires, adorning the inmost altars with divine flames: behold, beside the holy altar a heavenly messenger stood, and remarkable in vesture, venerable in face, by countenance and bearing he proved himself sent from heaven, then loosed his holy breast into such words. Receive, O priest beloved of the heavenly Lord, the commands of the eternal God, whose care for the godly is perpetual, the unceasing guardian who in a pure breast knew how to bestow well-earned love upon the saints. And first:

He does not will that your lineage perish with the seed extinguished, and has made fruitful the bowels of your wife, who already was ceasing in a worn-out age. Why nevertheless do you, you too with mortal sense, doubt that God can do all things? But you will believe; He will prove it. There will be born, worthy of so great a sponsor, a blessed and ever-perpetual boy, who, straightway from his earliest age greater than you, by the Author's gift more than the begetter's will have sacred powers in an unconquered breast. Nor indeed is it of your judgment and right what first names you should set for the new-born: God Himself assuredly, who bids him be born, the same bids him be John. This is the title of his name, the boundless offspring of his merits, which, not yet begotten, He alone could foreknow, who will give him, and grant you joys in so great a son:

Nor indeed will He grant only this much to you—small is a glory enclosed within one house; but as far as it stretches from the rising to the bounded twilight of the late light, the whole world will rejoice with you through your offspring. What wonder? He will be wholly free from the dregs of vices, leading a heavenly life without stain and without crime, keeping an abstemious breast from raging wine, and avoiding all cups of ill-counselling juice. And when he shall pledge salvation to the human race even after their errors—to whoever shall be renewed from the holy water—he himself will have nothing in himself by which he might be purified.

And lest I tell you more in various roundabout ways, you, a learned priest, cannot fail to know the merit of Elias, who, with the law of hateful death remitted, leads an eternal life with his own body, whom a fiery chariot bore aloft to the lofty ether, gathered up by the swift effort of flaming horses: him your son will equal in the lineage of his merits, and will have just as much of praise at once and of virtue. Therefore, to fitting thanks for so great a gift, do not hang up your faith in doubt, lest the moved anger of the favouring God appoint a deserved punishment after the rewards. Thus he spoke, and the winged one slips away into the thin air, and pours forth from afar a fragrant air with holy perfume.

The priest grew stiff, confused with trembling mind, and while his hesitant heart turns over the promise, while he distrusts that he has merited so great a favour—that he should be the care of the most high God, that a messenger sent from high heaven should report to a servant such clear commands from his Lord—and he fears it is mockery, and thinks those things dreams, while he too sparingly esteems his own character, and does not confess himself to have merited it: faith itself makes him faithless, while he will not believe himself worthy, and earns penalties by his unbelief. Straightway the tongue is bound fast against the hesitating palate, and, forgetful of its own motion and the labour of the voice, the articulate sound clings in sluggish numbness. And while he longs to recount the marvels to his people, having striven in vain, he fell silent with fixed mouth.

Sad he departs, and turns over the grief shut in his mind, and in his secret heart he prays pardon for his faults. How great is God's mercy! and how entreatable the Deity! To have repented is enough. He who grants ratified things—the order of time rolls on, and (a marvel) Elisabeth is distended with gravid womb, and her pious bowels bear the holy burden, and a youthful gift comes beneath a worn-out age. Then another, holy Gabriel, who had been the same messenger to Zacharias, pondering far greater things, fashions his journey to Mary, who, betrothed to a husband but rather chosen by God, about to bring forth the salvation of the world, a chaste virgin kept her purity inviolate: before whose eyes, after a form distinguished by heavenly grace had stood, with downcast modest face, she dyed her ruddy cheeks with suffused blood. He says:

'O maiden more blessed in the world than all virgins whom the sun's circle encompasses—those who were before, those who are, those who will follow after—chosen by the great God, that you may be called His mother, whose Father He also is! Happy, come, conceive a burden, unpolluted by man and free from all union, made fruitful by the Word of God: let your bowels furnish a body to Him who made heaven, lands, sea, stars: who ever was, and now is, and in all time will ever be: Lord of the world, and creator of light, and Himself the light of heaven, will through you put on mortal limbs; and will come beneath the eyes of men, and the assemblies of men.

Lift up undisturbed spirits to the rewards of such great praises; He will give you both strength and faith, who willed (for He rules all things and governs by His nod) to be your Son, though He was the Son of the Lord.' He had spoken, and at the same time left both the lands and the sight, and seeks the ether accustomed to him with an easy effort. The commands of God are fulfilled, and the maiden straightway believes, and prompt faith augments her merit and her former life: the latent elements, with silent causes, form the divine body, and the burden to be consecrated grows: the pious womb cherishes the heavenly Lord. Meanwhile the offspring, though not yet brought forth, urges holy Mary, that, going forth, she revisit Elisabeth, who, now venerable through a long age, was bearing a boy beloved of the Lord, about to bring him forth.

The mother hearkens to her son—so great is the force of faith—and comes whither she was bidden: John moved his mother's bowels, and filled her breast with a divine sense. Already a seer, not yet begotten, enclosed in the womb, and now a prophet, he was beholding deeds past and things to come. When she from afar caught sight of Mary shining with the conceived light, with swift step driven on from afar she advances to meet her, and, reverent, stretching out her arms: 'Hail, O mother,' she says, 'of the Lord, hail, pious virgin, free from the bridal chamber and ignorant of manly union, yet about to bring forth God: so much was it worth to be chaste, that, untouched, you should bear the titles and rewards of a wife. Why is the honour of duty paid to me, undeserving and not worthy of so great a gift?

Why does the glory of heaven, brought down to our dwelling and lowly roofs, bring so great a light into the obscure inner chambers? But let Him, gentle and placid, be present to His worshippers, and let Him, the begotten, furnish also this favour which He bestowed before.' She spoke, and, encircled in arms, joined embraces, and now, having reverenced God, gave kisses to the pious womb. Come, say now, guilty Judaea, defiled with the blood of your king: if no faith is to be lent to the words of those of old, if you believe that the sacred seers deceive, and Moses himself, if the impious harshness of a perverse nation thinks David deceives—believe those not yet born: shut in the maternal womb, what John sees, he teaches by his mother's holy mouth.

Who, I pray, taught him whom a virgin contains in her chaste womb, how great an offspring awaits the new ages? But hidden things lie open to the holy, nor are they seen by the profane. But, having gone beyond measure, my track seeks the broad plains, and, forgetful of myself, dares to run on too far. I hope that it will be possible for me one day, with strength confirmed, to drive a four-horse chariot through this space too. Now let us return to the path begun: let the mortal page speak mortal things; let things divine speak of the Lord. And now, the time being thus accomplished as much as nature required, the renowned boy is brought forth from the mature womb, and a sure faith fulfils the great promises of God, which were not believed under threat of punishment, and the new-born infant confirms it.

The neighbouring kinsfolk assemble after custom, that they may fit to the boy names sought from the comparison of causes, derived from the name of the old parents: but the mother, conscious by her son of the heavenly command, denies that the choice is left to the kinsmen. Therefore it pleases them to consult the father, long silent with voice shut off—the sole means of disclosing the indication which the tongue cannot, if the letter signify it. He is consulted, takes the tablets, and writes 'John.' All marvel, and recall that none of the forebears had a prescribed name from the parents' stock. How greatly the late faith availed! Because the right hand noted what the mind had believed, the penalty of sin was remitted. The loosened bars of the bound tongue are released.

Now the old man answers with his voice, and discloses to his kinsfolk the commands of God long hidden, and pledges the future, while he proves the past accomplished. Who would doubt that such a one would be, whom one might see could have been born by the Lord's commands, with the law of nature remitted, by an unwonted birth? An example to be celebrated by all of unbelief he set before the eyes of all—either the penalty of the parent, or the pardon: and at once fear presses upon the spirits from this side, hope from that. Meanwhile the time of the cradle slips by: in these very things stands forth the manifest appearance of divine vigour. Caresses and laughter are silent, and uncertain murmurs cease: a seriousness, herald of a playful sense, now forms the tender face with future characters. Then, when the boy had fixed his first footsteps with steady effort, and words marked a sure speech:

his custom was either to hearken to the sayings of his holy parent, or to learn by heart the illustrious deeds of the ancients, or those laws which God Himself, with Moses as interpreter, had established, which the page of sacred stone preserves. These, and whatever else might strengthen his tender mind, he was handling, recalling them: for he is not to be believed to have been ignorant of former things, to whom the Lord had granted to know things to come. But after strength accrued to his limbs from age (for a mind full of God had outrun the slow years): even then he resolved that those things must be learned by himself which men cannot teach: likewise that the harmful contagions of foods and drink, hostile to a holy life, must be shunned.

He therefore forsook the dwelling of his holy parent, though it was unstained, and fled the throngs of men and their harmful gatherings; he made his way to lonely, pathless lands, where his unpolluted mind might behold only itself, and, free from cares, might be at leisure for the sacred commandments. His garment was woven from the bristles of the curved-backed camel, that it might harden his soft limbs against luxury and, with his body thus pricked, ward off heavy sleep. A coarse girdle bound this garment to his rugged loins. The forest's honey afforded him an easy nourishment, with fruits and herbs sprung up from the uncultivated rocks, and a running stream relieved his parching thirst. What place is here for vices? What entry could perverse desire find amid these holy things, these inmost recesses of the mind? Wherein should he sin who desires nothing?

Whither should the perverse mind betake itself to its hiding-places, when one lacks nothing? Thus lived the first men, and to the newly-made world the Author had given these manners for the ages to come, until ill-counselling pleasure insinuated itself, and with it riot, and brought in the love of possessing. Hence hatreds, hence strife, hence fraud, hence envy and wrath, slaughter, arms, bloodshed, conflict, battles, deaths; hence the offence against God, which the savage depths of hell shall expiate. But why do I overmuch arraign the faults that are common to all, forgetful of myself, whom it befits not that my own deeds should weigh me down, but that I should hope for pardon?

Rather let us marvel, more fittingly, at that unconquered example of the ancient age, an example imitable by none, who in human toil surpassed mankind—a man half-divine, who, free from every stain, when he so tormented his own body with such cruel pains, prescribed what should befit us even after our sins. But when, by such means strengthening his unconquered mind, he had spent a generous span of time and had established what things ought to have been sought once they were found, a voice was uttered to him from heaven: 'Already enough of time has been spent, beloved prophet, in which to profit yourself; now the time given you is, as you perceive, that you may profit others, and that you may preserve what was already perishing. Go forth therefore to the holy waters of pure Jordan. Here, whoever among men repents of the deeds committed in his former life and at last turns over better things in his understanding—cleanse him as he confesses.'

'Whoever shall have believed with faithful mind that you blot out his sins by the holy washing, he shall be born again, provided such a life follows as may prove that those who are washed have condemned their former life.' John obeyed what he had heard with a servant's mind, and forthwith went down to the banks of the river he was bidden. Here he preaches the commandments of God with awesome speech, and pours new salvation into the hearts of believers. He washes away the sins of believers with the waters poured upon them, frees men from their fears, remits their punishments, and quenches fire with water; he counsels forgetfulness of errors, and grants new bodies for a new life. O Father, O eternal Creator of men and of all things, by how many degrees does your mercy spare us! What father ever endures to forgive his erring son so many times?

You give the nation an understanding by which they may discern both good and evil. That is not enough: you bind upon them the bonds of a law to be kept, and you set forth punishments for the wicked and rewards for the just. Has anyone scorned even this? Whenever he pleases, let him return; pardon is ready at hand. Behold, the holy washing lies open, which renews life, blots out former deeds, and makes men new. What more do we seek? And yet there is still further pardon: should anyone, lapsing with a defiled body, have profaned even this gift—although his error may now have advanced too far—let him cease and return: when he has himself condemned himself, he has earned to be absolved.

If he repents, his guilt is annulled. O how truly is that which you say a light burden, and how truly the yoke that goes with it is sweet, when one and the same man is forgiven so many times! And yet we go astray, and there is no end to the sin of the human race; but your praise increases, for the greater the offender's guilt, the greater the glory of him who spares. Let every mind therefore render thanks to you, and let every tongue sing, and let the human stock, so far as it is able—if it cannot succeed in pleasing—at least labour to become acceptable. An immeasurable deep is opened, if we spread our sails, in your praises, O kindly Father; but the mind, conscious of so great a burden, trembles, and—not unaware of its own powers—consults them, and rather leaves what is worthy to be said to those more worthy. Let us return to what we began. This work is yours, holy John, whereby you renew pure minds when the body has been washed.

It was not the Lord's first decree that gave you this charge, when he admonished you by sending a clear voice through the clouds. Many ages before, God had spoken by the mouth of the holy prophet Isaiah, the greatest of the old age: 'I will send before your eyes, O son, a minister, who, clearing away the tangled obstructions of the thorny paths before your steps, shall make the lofty mountains sink down, and likewise the sunken valleys rise up; he shall make straight what is crooked, and soften what is rough, and smooth the hard, and compel the whole world to become level.' Are you then—I pray—the gift of the most high Father, kindly John, you who come having been promised together with Christ, and whom that One who sent his Son reckons to his own account? Are you that one foretold by the prophets, you who shared the honour of an angel's name? Through you the first clemency of God puts itself forth.

To you was first granted the power of bestowing pardon. When many miracles of the new people sought you out, Christ said concerning you: 'It has been granted to behold such a prophet as no former ages had seen. I declare—I who alone know what has been done and what is yet to be done—that among the mortals whom woman has borne, and those whom she shall bear, born after the wonted manner of men, there shall be none who could set himself before John.' This he reports concerning you, he who clearly perceives whatever lies most inward in the human heart, and all the courses of the ages in their order, just as we see with our eyes the things laid open before them. POEM VII. PARAPHRASE OF PSALM I.

Paulinus, then untrained in the secrets of theology, supposed that all Christians, however wicked, provided they had preserved their faith intact, would obtain some sort of salvation. Blessed is he who shall have set his life far apart from the assemblies of the ungodly, and shall not have remained in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence; but, fixed with his whole heart upon the law of God, turns over the precepts of life by night and by day, and cultivates his mind with chaste ordinances. He shall be like a tree that, planted near a river, is fed by the moisture of the bank that nourishes it, and shall yield its fruit in full at its proper season; and, with foliage never falling away, ever green it shall stand, a living tree with perpetual leaf.

This glory shall not attend the wicked; but as the wind snatches away the cinder of dust, so wrath shall sweep the wicked from the face of God. For this reason the herds of men, scattered throughout the world, shall be divided in such an order that the ungodly shall not rise to be judged—those who have denied to God the worship owed to him—but to be punished; for, seeing his own crime, he shall not need to be uncovered by examination, since they shall bear the impending mark of death, not carrying the sign of salvation upon their foreheads. But the sinner who is yet not ungodly—and that is a great multitude—shall not rise to glory, but shall indeed rise to be assigned to scrutiny. For the judge cannot sit together with the godly, since he must render account for the causes of his own actions, and, according to his various deeds, be either approved or held guilty.

Without the law, the ignorant of the law shall everywhere fall; he who has lapsed within the law shall be judged by the law. The fire, as arbiter, shall run over every work: what the flame shall not have consumed but proved, that shall be repaid with everlasting reward. He who has wrought things to be burned up shall suffer loss, but he himself shall fly forth safe through the fires. Yet the wretch, with the marks of his half-scorched body, shall keep his life, but shall not keep glory; because, overcome in the flesh yet not turned away in mind—even though he had denied to the law the faith it was owed, often rolled down through many crimes—nevertheless, bearing the eternal name of faith, he shall never be banished from the bounds of salvation.

Therefore let us all now, in this present world, while our age runs on and the day of this life lies open, tread the straight paths with firm foot, and not be carried off down the slippery course of the broad way. It is better, contending along the narrow track, to enter in with laborious efforts. The Lord gladly acknowledges the ways of the good, but the headlong road of the wicked shall be destroyed. Why have the nations raged, and why have the peoples plotted vain things? The princes have stood up together with kings, driven against the Lord and against his Christ, bearing frenzied counsels. 'Let us burst their bonds, let us shake off their yokes.' He who abides governing the whole heavens with his eternal sway shall mock them, and shall speak in just anger, and with his terrible word shall throw the wicked into confusion with his threats. 'But I, a King created by him with equal dominion, proclaim the commandment of the Lord upon the nourishing Sion.'

'The Lord himself,' he says, 'said to me: You are my Son; this day have I begotten you. Ask: be my heir over the nations, and let your possession be founded upon all the lands. You have a rod of iron, since by mighty right you rule the swelling peoples over the whole globe; like vessels fashioned of re-baked clay, breaking hearts, that you may reform them to better things. And now behold, all you kings, attend with prostrate minds, and whoever of men govern the serving hearts of others by your judgment and hold the reins of affairs: serve God in trembling, and, being faithful, exult with mingled fear; let there be a concordant discord, joining unlike affections in one breast; lest fear afflict your minds, or joys dissolve them, if, lacking gladness, you tremble at the dread of death.'

Learn righteousness, take up upright manners, and tremble before the just God, rejoice in the kindly One, lest at some time God grow angry, his anger deserved, against the world, and you, driven from the just way, justly perish. From now on hasten to recoil from the wicked way; behold, in a short while, when the great wrath of the Mighty One shall have blazed up, that he may winnow the whole world with the divine examination, and separate the chaff for the fire, the wheat for salvation: then blessed are all who have a sure hope in him. We sat captive by the unknown rivers of dread Babylon, a band of Judea, weeping a pitiable lament. When we drew Sion through our mindful heart, and sighed over an exile deserved from just wrath, there the bank, planted with pliant willows, afforded friendly shadows to the foreign peoples.

There, in the midst of the walls of the Assyrian city, forgetful of our glad voices amid sorrowful silences, we hung up our instruments upon the boughs of the willows. For the grievous wrath gave us bitter grief, in that that impious enemy who had carried us off from our home bade us sing for his delights those songs which were wont to be brought forth in the holy temple. Shall we then sing the divine praises and the songs fitted for chaste choirs, amid barbarous rites and foul tombs, amid altars kindled with deadly fires—alas!—evilly making mirth out of our mourning? And shall we make wanton riot out of the holy rite, sounding mystic songs for the enemy's sport? With what countenance shall we wretches now sing the sacred hymns? In what place does Babylon demand for itself the songs of Sion?

But a foreign land is not fit to merit the song of the Lord; the sacred voice turns away from unworthy ears. If, however, as a more violent lord you press upon your captives, and if your longing is so great to know from us the pious songs of Sion—if you go on to compel me to utter what is not yours, and to tell you what the divine songs of Sion may be—then receive what God the avenger pledges to the captured city. Do not hope, impious one, to rejoice long in this triumph, whereby you bid the sacred hymn be betrayed to you: behold what the hymn of the Lord is, what the songs of Sion are. 'If I shall have forgotten my walls, O city of Jerusalem who are my care, let my right hand become unmindful of me, and let my tongue cleave dry to my jaws, unless I embrace you with eternal love;'

'and unless, at the very beginning of the kingdom promised for the ages, and in the first year of my gladness, I remember to prefer you, Jerusalem, above all lands. Be then mindful of the offspring of Edom, that by a reversed lot it may look with confusion upon our day, when your people shall dwell in glorious Jerusalem with its eternal walls—the city to which the nation, now forgetful of you, threatens cruel destruction, saying: Raze the hateful city to its foundations, and empty it by hand, until no traces are left, the walls reduced to nothing. Unhappy daughter of wretched Babylon, blessed is he who shall requite upon you, on our behalf, your own deeds against us. No less blessed too shall he be who shall seize your little ones and at once dash your pledges against the solid rock.'

If you desire to be made blessed by Babylon's stock being extinguished, break by faith, in the first flames, the crimes swelling up within yourself, for already the rock is near at hand—Christ; in him crush the viperous brood with mighty arms. For Babylon means 'Confusion'; its daughter is the flesh, the mother by sins—a throng harmful to salvation, which draws evil seeds from the body's fibres. This you must conquer, if you would conquer death; for if such enemies, enclosed within your bones, be permitted by growing to take on strength, you shall conquer them only with difficult wrestling: forestall them while small, while still raw from the womb of the heart the infancy of vices creeps through the captured breast among tender limbs—which, unless you guard against it, the earthly offspring, grown in strength, shall slay the soul that is in league with vices.

Spare not, therefore, to slaughter such a band. It will be no crime for you to destroy a nation destined to harm you, and to drench the avenging rock with wicked blood; for the just man rejoices if the impious offspring falls: for more and more is the godly man purified by such slaughter, if he destroys the sins that lord it over his members, and triumphs in Christ over the broken throng of vices. POEM X. TO AUSONIUS, PAULINUS. While in his fourth year in Spain, Paulinus received the four letters mentioned above, and to the first, the third (which has been lost), and the fourth he replies with this poem.

This fourth summer now returns for the hard reapers, and as often the winter has stiffened with grey frost, since no letter has come to me from your lips, nor have I seen any writings marked by your hand—until at last the happy page brought, with its health-bringing little book, gifts long denied, now manifold. For a triple letter bloomed with varied texture, but the threefold many-versed page was a poem. A certain pious solicitude had mingled sweet things, somewhat bitter, with manifold complaints anxious in their censure. But to me your fatherly mildness sat more deeply than the censor's harshness, and I weigh the harsh against the gentle in my mind. Yet these things are to be answered in their proper place, and to be handled with the graver sound of an avenging hexameter. Meanwhile a lighter iambic runs on ahead in a few lines, returning mutual words in its distinct measure.

Now the elegiacs bid you fare well, and, the greeting being uttered, just as they made others their beginning and starting-point, they fall silent. Why, father, do you bid the Muses, banished, return into my care? Hearts dedicated to Christ deny the Camenae and lie not open to Apollo. There was once between you and me—not by equal resources, but by equal zeal—this concord: to rouse deaf Phoebus from his Delphic cave, to call the Muses 'divinities'; and to seek the gift of speech, a gift granted by the gift of God, from the groves or the mountain-ridges. Now another power drives my mind, a greater God; and he demands other manners, requiring back from man his own gift, that we may live for the Father of life. He forbids us to be at leisure for vain things, whether in idleness or in business, and for fabulous letters, that we may obey his laws and discern his light:

—a light which the cunning craft of the sophists, and the art of the rhetoricians, and the fictions of the poets becloud, men who steep hearts with falsehoods and vanities, and only equip tongues, bringing nothing whereby to confer salvation, nothing that may uncover the truth. For what good or true thing could they hold who do not hold the Head of the supreme height, God, the kindling and the fount of the true and the good?—whom no one beholds save in Christ. He is the light of truth, the way of life, the strength, mind, hand, and power of the Father, the Sun of equity, the fount of good things, the flower of God. Born of God, the sower of the world, the life of our mortality, and the death of death. He is the master of virtues, and our God, and for our sake a man, who, by clothing himself with us, stripped himself, joining men and God in eternal bond, becoming in both a commerce between them.

When therefore he has darted upon our hearts, as his own, his radiance from heaven, he wipes away the sickly mould of the sluggish body, and renews the habit of the mind; he drains out all that delighted before, in place of chaste pleasure; and wholly, by the Lord's right, he claims our hearts, our mouths, and our times. He wills himself to be thought of, understood, believed, read; he wills himself to be feared and loved. The empty fevers which the toil of the present age stirs up along the path of this lifetime, the faith of the life to come with God abolishes—that faith which casts away the wealth we seem to spurn, not as profane or worthless, but, as far dearer, warns it to be laid up in the heavens, entrusted to Christ God, who has promised more for what is given; that he may repay, with much interest, the present things despised, or rather deposited with himself.

A good debtor without deceit, the guardian shall return the money increased to his creditors; and God shall restore the spurned wealth with much greater interest. Do not, I pray, think me sluggish, perverse, or charge me with impiety—me who am at leisure for him, or zealous and devoted to him, who lay up all things in him. How can piety be absent from a Christian? For it is a mutual proof: to be a Christian is the proof of piety, and the proof of the impious is not to be subject to Christ. When we learn to hold this piety, can I fail to display it toward you—that is, toward my father—to whom God willed that I owe all sacred rights and dear names? To you I owe my training, my dignity, my letters, the honour of my eloquence, of the toga, of my reputation; advanced, exalted, instructed by you, I owe it, O patron, teacher, father.

But you reproach me that I dwell so long remote, and in pious emotion you are angry. This is either profitable, or necessary, or pleasing: whichever of these it shall be, it is pardonable. Forgive one who loves you, if I do what is expedient; rejoice, if I live as I please. You upbraid me, moved by holy complaints in your fatherly devotion, that for a whole three years' span I am absent from my native lands, and that, with wandering errors, I have chosen another world, forgetful of the cherished fellowship of your life once cultivated. I embrace these revered impulses with a son's heart, and I count, with my affections unharmed, an anger that should be welcomed. But I would rather you ask my return from him from whom it can be granted. Shall I believe myself to be recalled to you, when you pour out barren prayers, not to divine things, suppliant to the Castalian Muses, while the godhead is turned away? Not by these divinities will you bring me back to you and to my homeland.

What is given (you call upon the Muses, deaf names without godhead, and ask of nothing) the light breeze shall carry off into nothing; the windy storms snatch away these vain vows, which, not sent to God, cling among the empty clouds, and do not penetrate the starry hall of the King above. If you have any care for my return, look upon him, and pray to him—who shakes with thunder the fiery summits of the highest heaven, who flashes with triple-forked fire and mingles no empty murmurings, and who lavishes upon the crops suns enough from heaven, and showers; who, above all that is, or wholly within all things, everywhere poured into all things, Christ, governs all; who holds and moves minds, who disposes our times and places; and if he should establish things contrary to our wishes, he must be turned by prayer toward those things which we will.

Why do you accuse me? If the act which I perform displeases you, while God is the doer, the Author is first to blame, if it be lawful—he who is pleased either to form my thoughts or to change them. For if you recall what my former state was, which is known to you, I shall confess of my own accord that I am not now under that time in which I was, when I was not held perverse—and yet I was perverse, seeing through the darkness of falsehood, foolish while wise in God's eyes, and living on the fodder of death. The more it is right that I be pardoned, since from this it is the more readily granted to be recognised that I am made new by the most high Father, in that what is done is not done after my own manner; I do not think that, having confessed these things, I should be said to be marked for an error of a mind changed for the worse, since I have professed of my own accord that I changed my former life not by my own mind.

A new mind, I confess, has seized me, a mind once not my own, but now mine by God as its author—who, if he has seen in my action or talent anything worthy of his service, the first thanks shall be yours, to you the glory due shall fall, by whose precepts has been brought forth what Christ might love. Wherefore you should rather rejoice than complain that your own Paulinus—sprung from your zeal and manners, you whom he does not deny to be his parent, not even now, when you believe him perverse—that my counsels have been so changed that I have deserved to become Christ's, while I am Ausonius's; he shall bring his own rewards to your praise, and shall first offer you the fruit from your own tree. Whence I pray you think better things, and do not lose the greatest rewards, by detesting good things sprung from your own springs.

For my mind is not a wandering one, nor is mine the fugitive life of men who share in society—that life which, as you write, the rider of Pegasus lived in the Lycian caves; although many, with a divine power working, dwell in pathless places, as renowned sages once did for their studies and their Muses: even as now too those who have taken Christ into chaste minds frequently betake themselves to such places—not poor in mind, nor reading from wildness that they should dwell in desert places, but, turned toward the lofty stars and gazing upon God, intent to discern the depths of the true; freed from vain cares, they love leisure; and they shrink from the din of the forum, and the tumults of affairs, and all business hostile to divine gifts—both by Christ's commands and by love of salvation.

By hope and faith they follow God for the promised reward, which the sure Author shall render to those who do not despair, provided only that present things do not conquer them with empty matters; let one spurn what he sees, that he may merit what he does not see, his enkindled sense penetrating the secret heavenly things. For perishable things lie open to our sight, while eternal things are denied it; and now by hope we follow what we see with the mind, spurning the various spectacles of things' shapes, and the bodily things that evilly solicit our sight as good. Yet this resolve seemed to have settled upon those for whom the whole light of the true and the good has now lain open—the eternity of the world to come, and the emptiness of the present. But for me, who have not the same glory, why should the fame be the same?

My faith is equal to my vow, but for me, dwelling now in pleasant spots and a flattering wealthy shore's tract, whence comes this so hasty envy of places? Would that just envy might begin to carp at me—under the name of Christ, reproaches shall please. A mind made firm by the godhead does not suffer tender shame, and here, with Christ as my judge, the praise that is despised returns to me. Do not therefore, venerable parent, reproach me as one ill-changed by these pursuits, nor carp at me either on account of my wife, or for a fault of mind: my mind is not the anxious one of Bellerophon, nor is my wife a Tanaquil to me, but a Lucretia. Nor have I now (as you wish) forgetfulness of my native heaven—I who look up to the supreme Father; he who worships him alone, he is truly mindful of heaven.

Believe then, father, that we are neither forgetful of heaven, nor live destitute of mind, and that we pass our days in human places. The very pursuits of the godly bear witness to the manners of men; for an impious race could not have come to know the most high God. There may be many of places, many of men's pursuits, untilled, devoid of laws—but what region lacks a rustic custom? Or what harm does another's wickedness do to honourable men? Why do you cast at me the vast forest-passes of Vasconia and the snowy lodgings of the Pyrenees, as though, fixed on the very threshold of the Spanish region, I were to spend my days there, and there were no place for me anywhere, in country or city, where rich Spain lies open to the world's edge, gazing upon the suns sunk in the sea? But suppose it were my lot to have dwelt on the brigands' ridges:

I did not grow stiff in a barbarian household, changed into those very settlers among whom I had a fellowship of wildness. A pure mind does not receive evil, nor do sprinkled stains cling to its light fibres: so in the Vasconian forest-pass, whoever leads a life pure of crime among the wicked draws no contagions of manners from an inhuman host. But why should there be reproach to me from that name—I who dwell, as I have dwelt, in regions joined to proud cities, and most thronged with the glad cultivations of men? And even if my life had been on Vasconian shores: why should not the barbarous race, formed rather after my manner, lay aside its savage rites, migrating into ours?

For in that you set my dwellings among the remote towns of the turned-away Iberians, and in your verse choose out deserted towns, and reproach me with mountainous Calagurris and Bilbilis hanging upon sharp crags, and the hill of low-lying Ilerda—as though I dwell here, an exile from home and city, outside the roofs and roads of men—do you believe these to be the riches of the Iberian land, ignorant of the Spanish world, where that burdened Atlas stood firm beneath the weight of the pole, whose furthest portion is now a mountain and the boundary-mark of the earth, which with its lofty peak walls off the two-sea'd Calpe? To this land Bilbilis only, Calagurris, Ilerda is reckoned—the land to which belongs Caesar-Augusta, to which pleasant Barcino, and Tarraco, looking down upon the sea with its distinguished headland.

Why should I number the distinguished cities, in lands and walls, where happy Spain stretches toward a twin sea—where the Baetis swells the Ocean, and the Hiberus the Tyrrhenian, and fills the broad partings of the distant sea, setting in its own world a boundary at the world's edge? Or for you, my illustrious lord—if you have a mind to write of the region where you dwell—would it please you to keep silent about gleaming Burdigala, and rather to describe the pitch-dark Boii? And while you lavish your leisure on the Marojalic warm-baths, and grant yourself to live among shady groves, glad in your spots and tending wondrous dwellings with their roofs—do you inhabit blackened huts and hovels woven of thatch, deserts worthy of the skin-clad Bigerri? And you, who as consul despise the proud walls of your own Rome—do you scorn the sandy Vasates?

Or, because for you a fertile countryside grows green in Pictonic fields, shall I complain that Rauranum has carried hither the Ausonian curule chairs, and that the consular robe grows soiled with old rags?—the robe which nevertheless gleams venerable in the august city of Quirinus, long-lasting amid the Caesarean palm-embroidered robes with an equal title, on its worn gold, retaining the flourishing honour of its long-lived merit. Or, when you are detained at the summit of a Lucanian estate, dwelling on gables that rival Romulus's roofs, the place affording the theme (which marks the nearest spots), are you said to spend your days in the Condatine village? Let many things lie open to jokes; let it also be allowed to sport with fictions.

But to strike one's heavy tooth amid a soothing tongue, to sport with burning blandishments, and to ferment ill-sweet jests with the vinegar of biting satire, is often becoming to poets, but never to parents. For faith and piety demand that what fame, weaving evils, insinuates into chaste ears, the father's good and devoted mind should not allow to be fastened or to cling fixed in the heart—as the wicked crowd does with crooked rumour. To bend one's manners that were held before is not always—but to bend one's life is a crime: for it is to one's praise to change for the better. When you hear that I am changed, inquire into the zeal and the duty. If the right is changed for the crooked, the religious for the profane, the frugal for luxury, the honourable for the base; if I act sluggish, idle, obscure—then pity your comrade in the evils of one turned to the perverse:

—though anger may stir up the kindly parent, that he may restore his fallen friend to upright manners, and by grave admonition repair him to better things. But if perchance you hear likewise what I read and what I follow—that I have vowed my heart to the godly God, following the venerable rule of Christ with docile credulity, and being persuaded by God's admonitions that eternal rewards are prepared for mortal man, bought at the cost of present losses—I do not think that this has so displeased a sound-minded parent that he should believe it an error of mind, thus to live for Christ as Christ has ordained. This delights me, nor do I repent of this 'error.' That I be foolish to those who follow other things, I care nothing, so long as my judgment be wise to the eternal King. Brief is whatever man is, like a thing of a sick body, of a fading time, and without Christ but dust and shadow.

What he approves or condemns is worth just so much as the judge himself is worth. He himself passes away, and his own error goes as his companion, and, dying with its judge, the verdict passes on. But unless, while the present time is given, our anxious care be to live according to the precept of the Lord Christ, too late shall be the complaint for the man stripped of his members—while he feared the light revilings of the human tongue, that he did not fear the grave wraths of the divine Judge, whom—seated upon the throne and at the right hand of the eternal Father, set over all as King, and to come as the years glide by, that he may judge all the nations with an equalised examination, and render to each his rewards according to his various deeds—I do indeed believe; and, fearing, I labour with hastening zeal, that, if it be granted me anywise, I may be loosed from crime rather than first by death.

Against his coming my heart, believing with sickly fibres, trembles, and my soul throbs—now wary of the future, fore-fearing lest, bound with sickly cares for the body, and heavy with the burdens of things, if perchance the vast trumpet should peal through the unbarred heaven, it might not be able to lift itself up on light wings into the airs to meet the King, flying among the honoured thousands of the saints in heaven—those who, light through the void and not fettered with the world's shackle, shall lift their feet with easy effort into the lofty stars, and, borne by tender clouds, shall go through the heavens, that they may venerate the heavenly King in mid-air, and join their bright bands to the adored Christ.

This is my fear, this my toil: that the last day may seize me, lulled in its black shadows, caught in barren idleness, spending wasted hours on empty cares. For what shall I do, if, while I doze over my sluggish vows, Christ should flash upon me, sent forth from His heavenly citadel, and I, dazzled by the sudden beams of the Lord coming with the heavens thrown open, confounded by the in-rushing light, should seek the dark and dismal refuges of night? Lest either distrust of the truth, or love of the present life, or the pleasure of things, or the toil of cares should beget this in me, I have resolved to forestall such mishaps by my purpose, and to make an end of cares while life yet remains; and, having committed to God the things to come in the ages, to await grim death with an untroubled heart. If this pleases you, congratulate your friend on his rich hope.

But if it is otherwise, leave me only to be approved by Christ. POEM XI. PAULINUS TO AUSONIUS. He answers Ausonius's second letter with the following song. You recall that the silence of my tongue endures unbroken, while you yourself are never silent; you reproach me for the sloth that delights in hiding-places, and on top of that you add the charge of friendship neglected; you cast in my teeth a wife to be feared, and hurl a harsh verse into my very inwards. Spare me, I pray, from tearing your own friend, and do not wish to mix bitterness with fatherly words, as wormwood with honey. My care has always been, and remains, to honor you with every dutiful service, and to regard you with faithful affection. Never has your favor been stained for me by even a slight blemish; I have always feared to wound you even by my look, and to do you injury by an unguarded expression.

And whenever I drew near to you in reverence, I composed my face the more cautiously, and shaped my brow with a glad look, lest any false suspicion should read into the holy father a cloud drawn even from a silent heart. By this example my house has honored and still honors you, and so great is our accord in your love, as in worshiping Christ with a mind knit together. What envy, I ask, has overspread your heart against your own? By what rumor has fickle report broken in upon your devout ears and driven your mind, and against a faith proven by ancient love opened new wounds, that an ill-counseling slander might wound the gentle father through his children? But my mind, conscious of no feigned simplicity, nor the love of a guileless father liable to blame, rejects all that is undeserved, and will not bear to be reproached with a false charge;

indeed the innocent is the more grievously violated by an unjust wound, being as tender to offense as he is free from guilt. You complain that I have shaken off the yoke by which I was joined to you in learned studies. I do not even claim to have borne this yoke: for equals come under the yoke; no one couples the strong with the weak; nor are the reins harmonious, if the measure of those forced together be unequal. If you yoke a calf to a bull, or a horse to a wild ass; if you compare coots with swans, and the nightingale with the screech-owl; hazels with chestnuts, or match the wayfaring-tree with the cypress, then set me beside you: hardly could Cicero and Virgil bear an equal yoke with you; if I am joined to you by love, this alone shall I dare to boast myself your yoke-fellow;

whereby a small thing in love contends with great reins as partner: sweet friendship in an eternal covenant with you, and ever balanced by equal laws of returning love. This yoke upon our neck no sinister tale unbinds, nor has long absence in distant lands sundered it. Nor shall it destroy it, though I be dragged off to the whole earth's end, or by length of time. Never shall I live divided in soul; sooner shall life itself depart from my body than your face from my heart. Through all the age that is given and appointed to mortals, so long as I am held shut within the body, by whatever region I am parted, neither far off in space nor removed from sight, I shall hold you grafted in my inmost being, I shall see you with my heart, embrace you with a devout mind, everywhere present to me.

And when, loosed from the prison of the body, I have flown forth from earth, in whatever heaven our common Father shall place me, there too I shall bear you in my soul. Nor shall the same end that frees me from my body free me also from love of you. For the mind, surviving the fallen limbs, endures from its heavenly stock, and must needs hold its senses and affections together, even as it holds its own life; and as it cannot die, so neither can it forget, living forever and ever mindful.

Glorious Confessor, Felix by merits and by name, a soul mighty in piety, a soul that dwells in highest heaven, yet no less a power proven throughout all the earth: you who, confessing the Lord Christ with steadfast voice, by despising savage tortures earned to escape their penalties, and, bidden of your own will to render to Christ through every torment your devoted soul, your limbs loosed, you left your body empty to the raging executioners, borne without bloodshed into heavenly honor, a martyr. O father, O lord, grant to your servants, unworthy though they be, that at last, while we drag out this life in our frail body, in the longed-for seats and in the hall where you rest, we may be allowed to celebrate this day, to pay our devout vows in your presence, and rejoicing to rejoice amid the throng.

Let it now suffice, I pray, that for our deserved impiety we have borne this penalty—for as many years now as we have lived without you, far from your seat, alas! though not removed in mind. Now take counsel for our longings, wearied by measureless time: now at last, late though it be, mindful of your own, have mercy: and through the world, which sets us far off from you across the plain of the great sea, open easy ways through the hostile things, ground down, that delay us: and, if an envious foe stands in the way of those hastening to you, push aside the bars set against us, stronger than adversities, and speed our friendly course. Or, if a journey by land please, be a companion to your own upon the safe road;

or if great confidence in you should persuade us to go by the long sea, grant us to run over the gentle waves, and to your servants supply servant-winds from the stern, that, borne together to the Campanian shores with Christ as our guide, we may soon be swept by a swift course to your heights, and that there be for us a peaceful harbor at your threshold. There shall we bear the sweet yoke, the light burden, and the gentle servitude under you as lord; and although, being just, you have no need of unjust servants, yet you will both suffer and love those, whatever their kind, who are dedicated to you by Christ's gift, and you will let them serve at your doors, tend your threshold in the morning with cleanliness; and in turn keep watch by night with devout vigils; and in this office, with a body worn out, close a life that has earned its reward. Felix, by this merit, as by name; the same by name as by merit;

the kindly day returns on which the most high Christ took you to himself, having confessed him, as a fellow-citizen into the heavenly hall, and now is the time to pour out thanks to you with full vows. O father, O lord, best to your servants, unworthy though they be, at last my prayer is granted, to celebrate within your thresholds your birthday with us. Three lustres have run their course in long time since at these solemnities, in person, I dedicated to you my vows and my heart in person; and from that time you know what toils, by land and sea, have kept me far from your seat, removed in a distant world; for I have called upon you, ever near to me everywhere, amid the hardships of the way and the uncertainties of life. And I entered the seas with you as guide, because care of peril yielded to love of you, nor without you: for I felt your protections, overcoming the sea's roughness in the Lord Christ:

ever I go safe, both on land and on the waves, for your sake. (Ask, I pray, this day, serene with eternal piety and peace, for your own, you in whose great name you stand—Felix, the blessed. Now it is good to release our minds, poured out into joys: for the dear day has at last arisen here for us who are present, ever and forever to be celebrated by us throughout the world, the day that hallowed you to earth and bestowed you on the stars.) Behold, a varicolored people paints the ways with a many-hued throng: in one city we marvel at countless cities. O Nola, blessed in your Felix, having him as your patron, illustrious in your holy citizen, made firm by your heavenly patron, and after Rome herself allotted the second honors. You who before stood first only by empire and conquering arms, now stand first among the lands also by apostolic tombs.

Be good, O blessed one, to your own, and entreat the mighty Lord, that by the gift of an appeased Christ it may be granted us, after the surges of the sea and the surges of the world driven through, to stand at rest in your station in a peaceful harbor. On this shore I have well moored my fleet drawn up: in you let the anchor of my settled life be fixed. The festal day has come, most celebrated in heaven, most thronged on earth, keeping the birthday of Felix, on which in body he set on the lands, and to Christ was born among the stars on high, gaining heavenly honor, a martyr without bloodshed. For the Confessor died, having won his penalties not of his own will, since God accepted a faithful mind in place of blood;

He who searches the silent heart equates those ready to bear with those who have borne, content to have proved the inward parts, and with just piety remits the punishment of the flesh; martyrdom without slaughter pleases him, if the mind and faith be ready to endure and glow toward God; the will that would suffer suffices, and the highest part of merit is the witness of the vow. Therefore the day which by so great a gift bore Felix back to high heaven is this one, of sacred solemnities: for after the solstice, when Christ born in body changed the seasons of frozen winter by a new sun, and granted to mortals a salvation-bearing rising, and bade the nights, with the advancing day, decrease along with him—from this the twentieth light that rises for us marks the starry honor of Felix's merit.

In short, in nothing inferior to those who shed their blood as witnesses, both by title and by virtue received, he shows the merit of a martyr, when by mighty right he drives out demons and looses bound bodies. For that Felix bears down upon them with unseen penalties, the chiefs of the plague-bearers confess with mournful outcry, and bear witness to hidden crosses with open groaning, and to one veiled from mortal eyes, yet manifest to their ears, and present with much divine power they betray, when, caught within captive bodies, they cry out and prove that Christ shines forth in his holy one; shaken with the convulsing of their limbs and the whirling of their heads, and with their own torments—but they twist bodies not their own, crying out their own pains through alien mouths, begging pardon of the suppliants: the avenger lies hidden, the penalty is seen.

Then, if a more violent foe has bound any with a heavier evil, this day looses them by divine gift. Then everywhere one may see breasts cleansed by sacred remedy laid out at the thresholds, now restored in mind, now giving thanks with their own voice: a trembling crowd of gaping men runs together; amid the joys tears leap forth, mingled for all: there God is believed present to all; Felix is the glory of the boundless Christ. The kindly day is celebrated by great assemblies; all dedicate ratified vows at the sacred doorposts; all things rejoice, of earth and of heaven; the upper air seems to smile with the heavens thrown open; the breezes seem to breathe spring with their silent blasts, and the milky tract to gird the glad sky.

Nor is there any limit to the peoples coming together in a dense column, nor any rest; they hasten from night into the light, and it irks them to wait for the day; with eager vows the delay of night is broken, and torches with their flames conquer the night; it delights one to behold a single city packed with many cities, and so many swarms drawn together by one vow. The peoples of Lucania come together, the Apulian youth comes, and the Calabrians, and all whom either tide washes—who on left and right Latium resounds about with its wave: