Eucharisticos 1 part 1/2

PREFACE. I know that certain men of renown, on account of the splendor of their virtues, have handed down to memory a daily record of their own deeds, composed in their own words, in order to perpetuate the dignity of their glory.

Although I am set far apart from their most excellent merits—as far, indeed, as I am separated by the very antiquity of time—it was assuredly no fair judgment of counsel that prompted me to weave together a little work of nearly the same kind; for I have no deeds so splendid from which I might catch some small portion of glory, nor such confidence in eloquence that I should easily dare to rival the work of any writer. But—what I am not ashamed to confess—long ago, as I was wasting away in long exile through the grief of a wretched leisure, the divine mercy, as I trust, enticed me to seek such consolations as would befit both an old age conscious of itself and a religious purpose: namely, that I, remembering that I owe my whole life to God,

should likewise present all the acts of my life as devoted to his service, and, by reviewing the seasons granted me through his grace, should compose for him this little eucharistic work in the form of my daily record. For I know assuredly that it belonged also to his kindly mercy toward me, that I too in my early youth did not lack those temporal pleasures granted to the human race; and that in this part also the care of his providence profited me, in that, by training me with moderation through constant adversities, it clearly instructed me neither to love present happiness too eagerly, since I knew I could lose it, nor to be greatly terrified by adversities, in which I had proved that his mercies could come to my aid.

Therefore, if ever this little work of mine should come into anyone's hands, he ought clearly to perceive, from the very title prefixed to the booklet, that I have devoted this little meditation of mine, which I dedicate to almighty God, rather to my own leisure than to another's business; and that it is more among my desires that this poor offering of mine, such as it is, should be accepted by God, than that an unpolished poem should come to the notice of the more learned.

Yet if perhaps someone more curious should have so much leisure to spare from his own affairs that he wishes to learn the toilsome course of my life, I desire to entreat him that, whether he finds something or perhaps nothing in my deeds or in my verses that he can approve, those very things which he chooses he would rather consign to oblivion than commit to memory for judgment. A THANKSGIVING TO GOD, IN THE FORM OF MY DAILY RECORD.

Preparing to recount the years of my life that have slipped away, and to set in order the deeds of my days—those days which I have run through amid the uncertain lot of life—I beseech you, almighty God, be gracious and present to me; and breathing upon my work, prosper the undertakings that are pleasing to you, granting fulfillment to my writings and success to my vows, that by your help I may deserve to run through your gifts. For I owe to you all the seasons of my life, from the time when I first drew the breath of the vital light; and tossed often amid the contrary storms of this unstable world, growing old under your protection, with the eleventh week of my years now running into the twelfth, I have, by your gift, O God, seen six blazing solstices of the summer sun and as many cold seasons of winter—you who, restoring the years of fallen time, renew them in the course of the revolving age.

Be it lawful for me, then, singing your gifts in verse, to compose and also to render thanks expressed in words—thanks which indeed we know lie open to you even when shut up within the heart; yet, of its own accord bursting through the inmost recesses of the silent mind, the conscious voice brings forth the fountain of an overflowing vow.

You gave me, while still suckling and feeble in body, the strength to endure the uncertainties of road and sea, so that, born once at Pella amid the cradles near the walls of King Alexander's city of Thessalonica, while my father held the office of the illustrious prefecture, I might be carried to the lands of another part of the world divided by the sea, entrusted to the trembling arms of my nurses; and so that, over the snowy ridges and the Alps cleft by torrents, over the strait of the Tyrrhenian Ocean and the waves of its deep, I might come even to the walls of Sidonian Carthage, before the monthly moon in its ninth return should, with renewed light, complete its orbit from our setting-out. There, as I learned, when thrice six months had passed, under my father now proconsul, I was again summoned back to the sea and the well-tried roads, to behold the renowned walls of Rome, glorious in its lofty summits.

These things, however, did not yet lie subject to me to be perceived by the awareness of one who beholds; but having afterwards learned them through the constant report of those to whom they were then known, keeping to the plan of my work, I thought they should be set down. At length, however, when the end of my long journeys was accomplished, brought into the homeland of my forefathers and to my ancestral dwellings, I came to Bordeaux, whose lovely Garumna (Garonne) carries the back-flowing waves of the Ocean's sea up to its walls through a ship-bearing gate, which even now, spacious itself, encloses a spacious harbor within the city's walls. Then too my grandfather first became known to me there, consul in that same year, in my first three-year span of life.

After this span was completed for me, and growing vigor strengthened my feeble limbs, and the mind, conscious of its senses and grown accustomed to use, learned to recognize the use of things—whatever I have since been able to remember, it is necessary that I myself, with my own trustworthy testimony, should unfold concerning things to be acknowledged about myself.

But what else of my boyhood years—those years which liberty and play and a more cheerful age seem by their merits to have been able to win for me—should I more gladly recall, or more worthily dare to insert into this our little book, which I am forging in verse, than the work of piety and the distinguished zeal of my parents: ever learned, through pleasant means mingled together, to exercise their skilled care, and through fitting moderation to instil in me knowledge of good morals, and to bring swift progress to my untrained talent; so that amid almost the first elements of the alphabet itself I learned to beware of the ten special marks of ignorance, and no less to shun the vices that are shameful.

Although for a long time now no use of those disciplines flourishes—the age being indeed corrupted—yet the Roman antiquity preserved (I confess) pleases me more, and that bygone age is dearer and more acceptable to an old man as his own. Nor late, when the time of my first lustrum had just been completed, was I compelled, by reading, to learn the teachings of Socrates and the warlike fictions of Homer and the wanderings of Ulysses; straightway I am bidden to pass over also to the books of Maro (Virgil), the Latin tongue scarcely yet well mastered, since I had been accustomed to the conversation of Greek servants whom now the long use of my games had joined to me. Hence, I confess, the greater toil for me as a boy was this: to grasp the eloquence of books in an unfamiliar tongue.

This twofold learning, just as it is suited to the better talents and adorns the skilled with a double splendor, so, from a heart too barren—as I now perceive—of mine, the dividing of it easily drained my slender vein. This now my page reveals, even against my will—rashly indeed, since I expose it of my own accord to be read; yet (so far as I am confident) it is not a thing to bring me shame as regards the matters whose knowledge I am trying to weave together in writing: for the skilful care of my chaste parents so trained me from boyhood that my good name should never fear to be harmed by anyone's malicious speech.

Although this learning, well acquired, possesses its own proper grace, yet it would have adorned me with a more excellent honor, if in this matter too, at that first time, my parents' vows had remained in harmony with our own; that they might keep me ever a child for you, O Christ, having more rightly this care of piety on my behalf, that, free from the briefly present allurements of the flesh, I might receive eternal fruits in the time to come. But since it is now right rather to believe that what you proved you willed has been to my advantage—almighty, eternal God, who govern all things—by renewing for me, guilty as I am, the gifts of life, for this I now owe you greater thanks on my behalf, in proportion as I recognize the guilt of my greater errors.

For indeed, whatever blameworthy thing I have done unwarily, and whatever unlawful thing I committed as I wandered through the slippery seasons of life, I know that it can all be remitted to me by your indulgence, ever since, condemning myself as fallen, I fled back to your laws; and if ever I was able to avoid any sins which, once committed, would have brought me greater guilt, this too I know I have obtained by your divine gift.

But I return to the sequence and to the times of that age that have passed by, in which, intent upon the studies of literature, freely and of my own accord I already seemed to myself to perceive some progress in the work I had vowed and bestowed, with the Argive (Greek) and Latin master alike pressing me on; and I should perhaps even have reaped a worthy fruit too, had not a sudden bitter quartan fever, falling upon me, deserted the pleasing endeavors of my studies—the fifth three-year span of my age scarcely completed. Then, my parents' devotion being dismayed on my behalf—since to them the cure of my feeble body seemed more important than the instruction of a learned tongue—at first, on the physicians' advice, that constant cheerfulness and all things pleasing to the mind should be provided for me;

things which my father strove so greatly to provide by his own efforts, having recently laid aside his more eager pursuit of hunting—indeed solely for the sake of my studies, lest it should be an obstacle to them, joining me to himself for his amusements, that he might never enjoy his pleasures alone without me—again, for my sake, taking it up with greater care, that he might renew all the equipment of that same sport, by which I might obtain the longed-for health. These things, drawn out long through the seasons of a lengthy illness, brought upon me thenceforth a constant sloth in reading, which, lasting on, would later prove an obstacle even when health was restored, as a new love of the deceitful world succeeded, and the tender affection of my parents yielded too much—my parents, for whom it was enough to rejoice in our health.

By this reckoning our own waywardness too grew as we increased, readily confirmed in pursuing youthful longings: that I might have a handsome horse, made finer by its trappings; a tall groom, a swift hound, a splendid hawk; that the gilded ball, freshly fetched from the city of Rome, might furnish our games as it was hurled about; that my clothing might be more elegant, and each new garment often breathe the gentle fragrance of Arabian myrrh. No less, lively and borne at a gallop, I always delighted to run on a swift horse, and each time I escaped sudden mishaps, recalling them — it is right for me to believe I was preserved by the gift of Christ, though it is to be lamented that I did not then know it, while the world's enticements pressed upon me from every side.

Drifting amid these things, and amid the prayers of my parents, which ever stretched toward our future welfare, now already growing warm rather late for the season of my life, I burst into the new joys of youthful extravagance, which earlier as a boy I had thought I could easily guard against. Yet insofar as wanton license could be checked and bound by a cautious restraint of the rein, lest I should heap heavier crimes upon my faults, by this rule I chastised myself and repressed my incitements: that I should never desire any unwilling woman or one under another's right, and, mindful to preserve my dear sense of honor, that I should refrain even from yielding to those of free birth offered to me of their own accord, content to use the alluring handmaids of my own household — preferring indeed to be guilty of a fault rather than of a crime, and fearing to incur damage to my good name.

But neither will I keep silent about this among my deeds: that I knew of one child born of me at that time, whom however I never saw, since he died quickly; nor was there ever any other afterward who might be my bastard, although a liberty joined with the enticements of wanton youth could have harmed me more grievously by its mastery, had not your care for me, O Christ, been with me even then as well.

Such a life remained for me, lasting from about my eighteenth year, fulfilled until I had completed two decades, until — I confess — the loving care of my parents compelled me, unwilling, to abandon a way of life I had been drawn into by its alluring habit, and forced me to become a new husband; the household of my bride being magnificent rather in its ancient name than such as might please for the present once possessed, being subject to excessive cares, long neglected through the idleness of an aged master, to whom a small granddaughter had succeeded, surviving her dead father — she who afterward yielded to my marriage torches.

But resolving to bear once and for all the task imposed on me, with the studies of my mind aided by the ardor of youth, content for scarce a few days to enjoy the pleasures of the household I had acquired, I quickly compelled both myself and my people to exchange seductive idleness for unaccustomed cares — those whom I could, by inviting them with the example of my own labor, but some unwilling ones by binding them with a master's strictness. And thus, untiring in the duties of the estate I had undertaken, I straightway hastened both to apply cultivation to the recovered fields and to spend swift care upon the worn-out vineyards, having learned the method of renewing them; and — what seems especially bitter to most — paying my fiscal debts of my own accord, gladly and first, at the appointed time, I quickly secured for myself a trustworthy leisure, to be devoted afterward to private rest.

This too was always exceedingly dear to me, and well suited to my disposition, since I desired things modest above all, near to comforts and removed from ambition: that I might have an elegant house with spacious dwellings.

And suited continually throughout the various seasons of the year; a rich, gleaming table; many youthful servants; pleasing and abundant furnishings for diverse uses; silverware excelling more in craftsmanship than in weight; skilled artisans of various crafts to fulfill commands swiftly; stables full of well-fed beasts of burden; and then safe conveyance in handsome carriages — yet not more attentive to enlarging these things than zealous to preserve them, neither too eager to increase my wealth nor ambitious for honors, but rather, I confess, a pursuer of pleasures, provided however that they could be obtained at the least cost and expense and stand with the honor of my reputation unimpaired, lest the mark of luxury should stain an honorable pursuit.

Yet though all these things were pleasing and welcome to me as I enjoyed them, the great love of my parents surpassed them, dearer to me, binding me to themselves with the bond of a mastering affection, so that for the greater part of the year our presence might serve them, enduring in harmony with shared prayers and preparing a common fruit through mutual joys. Oh that a more prolonged enjoyment of that life had been granted us to remain by Christ's generous gift, while at the same time the season of the former peace had likewise persisted! In manifold ways the constant conferring of a wise father's counsel could have profited our youth, and the growing instruction in pursuits by good examples.

But after the three decades of my life had passed, there followed the unhappy burden of a twofold sorrow: for at one and the same time a public calamity, to be lamented in common — the enemy poured into the vitals of the Roman realm — together with a private lot in the death of my father who had passed away: for the last days of his finished life were nearly joined to the times of the broken peace. Yet for me the losses inflicted on my house by the ravaging foe, though great in themselves, were far lighter when set against the immoderate grief for my dead father, through whom both my fatherland and my very house had become dear to me: for indeed, rendering mutual offices to each other with so faithful an affection, we had lived our lives in joined harmony, so that our concord surpassed friends of like age.

Therefore, when this so dear companion and faithful counselor was taken from me in the first season of my youth, at once my untaught brother's bitter discord seized me, as he attempted to undo our father's valid testament with intent to attack my mother's particular interests — whose protection was the greater a care to me as it was the more just, and an affection of filial duty no less strengthened my honorable zeal. Moreover, the ill-omened report of my resources, bursting forth, exposed me to be harassed by many adversities, set amid the alluring enticements of empty ambition, joined with grievous losses and perils.

Though it may grieve me to remember these things, and I would rather that they lay hushed, lulled by their own long-since oblivion, yet my adversities invite me, through them, to disclose in the telling, O Christ, the comforts of your good gifts made known to me, and to bring into the light what is hidden in the heart, having obtained your gifts when those evils were measured out. For indeed I have proved by easy experience how great a favor of the powerful, conferred on me through you, has availed me, often before being matched to the illustrious honor of the great while unaware of it, before I myself, endowed with it, possessed it; and how greatly, on the contrary, with malign force assailing me, the very ambitious endeavors of my own patrons and our honors evidently stood in my way.

And upon me before all, in particular — whose other portion of fatherland was the East, where indeed I seemed to be a native and a possessor by no means of the lowest rank — evils laid their hand, though long owed to me, because they held me even unwilling, with the wandering prolonged. The very sluggish setting-out of my own retinue first, and the at times discordant prayers of my dear ones, and a mind more often struggling against its own desires, whenever a recurring dread of doubtful outcome delayed the preparations begun, with fortune standing in the way; and on the contrary the habit of quiet, familiar leisure, and the house's many particular comforts enticed my mind — all, alas! filled to overflowing with too many alluring and great delights and with every good thing in a hard time, the house which alone then lacked even a Gothic guest;

which afterward turned out, by an outcome not slow to be sinister, that — since no special right protected the house — it fell as plunder, given over to the people departing: for we know that some of the Goths strove with the utmost humanity to be of help to their hosts by protecting them. But to me, beyond the aforesaid condition, was added also a new cause of greater toil: that the tyrant Attalus, seeking vain consolations, burdened me in my absence with an empty name of honor, granting me the office of count of the private largess — which he knew rested on no revenue, and he himself had now even ceased to trust in his own kingdom, relying indeed only on Goths now ill-disposed toward himself, whom he could keep for the protection of his present life but not also of his empire, himself supported by nothing, neither by his own resources nor by any soldier.

Wherefore I, I confess, did not follow the party of the wholly weak tyrant, but the Gothic peace — which then, desired by the consent of the Goths themselves, a little later passed to others, redeemed for a price, and remains not to be repented of, since now in our commonwealth we see many flourishing by Gothic favor; yet after many had endured beforehand all kinds of sorrows — of whom I was a great part, myself also stripped of all my own goods, surviving my fatherland. For when the Goths who had been received in peace were about to set out from our city by command of King Athaulf, they inflicted upon us, no otherwise than upon men subdued by the law of war, every harsh thing, the whole city being burned:

in which, finding me to be a count of their prince — under whose command they knew that those allied were not allied to himself — they stripped me of all my goods together with my mother beside me, both subdued by a common lot, believing they spared us captives in this one thing only: that they suffered us to depart unharmed by punishment, together with all our female companions and handmaids, whoever had followed our fortune, with no one's modesty in the least attempted or violated; yet I was relieved of a heavier dread by a divine gift, for which I owe perpetual thanks, namely that my daughter, joined to a husband through me beforehand, had departed her fatherland and so was spared the common disaster. Nor yet was this the final limit of the toil I have endured, which I have spoken of:

for straightway, when we had been driven from our ancestral hearths and our roofs burned, a hostile siege caught us in the neighboring city of Bazas, the homeland of my own forebears as well, with a hostility far heavier surrounding it. A servile faction of a few, mingled with the insane fury of young men — though of free birth — was armed for the special slaughter of the nobility. But you, O just God, turning it away from innocent blood, straightway quelled it by the death of a few of the guilty, and the special assassin pressing upon me you ordered to perish, without my knowing it, by another avenger — being accustomed indeed to bind me to yourself by new gifts, for which I knew I owed perpetual thanks.

But to me, shaken by the lot of so sudden a peril, by which I saw I could be struck down within the city, there crept in — I confess — a new and excessively fearful error: that, by the protection of a king long dear to me, whose people were pressing us in a long siege, I might hope to be able to withdraw from the besieged city, with a great band of my dear ones accompanying me; yet with this hope alarming these our preparations: because I knew that the king, compelled by the command of the Gothic nation, was bearing down unwillingly upon our peoples. Therefore, setting out from the city in eagerness to explore, I made my way undaunted to the king, with no one opposing, yet glad beforehand — before I first addressed my friend in speech — and thinking he would be more gracious to me than he was.

But when I had searched out, as best I could, the inner wish of the man, he denied that he could grant me protection while I was stationed outside the city, declaring it now no longer safe for himself; nor would he suffer me to return to the city otherwise than as I had come, unless he himself should soon be received with me into the city — being well aware that the Goths were again threatening me with dire things, and desiring to free himself from their right. I was struck dumb, I confess, terrified by the proposed condition and by the excessive dread of the peril foretold; but, with God taking pity — who, when implored, is always present everywhere to the afflicted — a little later, my mind recovered, though trembling, I myself boldly took pains, for my own sake, to support the counsel of my wavering friend, dissuading the difficult things which I knew were to be wholly refused, but urging that what was to be granted should be attempted as soon as possible.

These things the prudent man, approving without delay and following them himself, straightway, having consulted on his own the chief men of the city, hastening the undertaking, carried out in a single night, with God helping, whose gift he now possessed, by which he could succor us and his own people. There rushed together likewise from all their dwellings the whole throng of the Alani, joined with their armed husbands. First the king's wife is handed over to the Romans as a hostage, with the king's dear son joined alongside her, and I myself am restored to my people amid the treaties of the agreed peace, saved as it were from the common Gothic foe; and the city's outer bounds are walled with Alani soldiery, faith having been received and given, and made ready to contend on our behalf — they who but lately had themselves besieged us as enemies.

A wondrous sight was the city, whose walls a great throng of both sexes, undistinguished and unarmed, surrounded, set below on the outside; while clinging to our walls the barbarian columns were fortified with wagons and arms. Seeing itself cut off on the side where a band by no means small had been encircled, the surrounding throng of plundering Goths, straightway distrusting that it could delay there, with a domestic foe suddenly turned against its own vitals, daring to attempt nothing further, chose to depart hastily of its own accord. Not slow to follow their example, our auxiliaries too, of whom we have spoken, departed, ready to keep faith of the peace with the Romans, wherever the lot that befell them should carry them.

And thus the matter, rashly begun by me, was completed by the kindly help of the Lord with a favorable outcome, and God turned my error into new joys, the siege being lifted from many together with me — all which things accrue to me at once for rendering thanks to you, O Christ, which, unable to discharge in words, I repay in some part, having professed that I am always in debt. Yet let this be enough that I have spoken of these things over and above — the things I did, exposed for a long time among the barbarian nations.

Many of these adversities, often experienced, persuaded me again, as I lingered, that the dwellings of my fatherland must be left as quickly as possible — which it had been more useful for us to have done sooner — so that with steady course we might seek those shores where a great part of my maternal estate still remained safe to me, scattered through several Argive cities and of Epirus, both old and new, through which estates by no means small, crammed with numerous tenants, spread out and not greatly separated, although their owners were lavish and too lax, might have furnished overflowing revenues.

But not even tardily did the outcome follow my prayers, that I might either migrate hence to the longed-for places, or that some part of my ancestral goods might remain to me amid the barbarian plunderings under a hostile right and the Roman wickedness, which ran riot against all laws, licentiously, at different times, to my loss; from which crime committed even the names dear to me cannot acquit themselves — that which is the greater cause of my grief, since the losses of property are heaped upon me with the losses of love, the love which I know I owe faithful to my nearest kindred, however offended, nor do I deem it right not to render it.

But if I am rightly wise, this lot must now be welcomed by me with gratitude, which has pleased you, O Christ, who are now preparing for me things far better than when, more carefree myself, I thought a propitiated favor stood by our prayers — when my joyful house flourished, abounding in great delights, nor did a lesser pomp of honor prevail, furnished with attendants and propped up by crowds of clients.

That I loved these things, soon to perish, at that time now grieves me, and at last, growing old with better understanding, I recognize that they were profitably withdrawn from me, so that with my earthly and fleeting wealth lost I might learn rather to seek things that would remain forever — late indeed, but nothing, O God, is ever late to you, who, abiding without end, know no end to your compassion, and alone know how to succor the ignorant, anticipating beforehand the prayers of many petitioners and, beyond what we ask, providing good things for us; and even to those in doubt as to what each should pray for himself, you deny many things asked for, being readier to give things more fitting to those who know how to set your gifts above their own wishes.

For indeed, by how much you knew me and my ways better than I knew myself, this you proved by disclosing it within me, whom — daring greater things than my strength allowed before — by foreseeing better through you, you counseled to my good by checking my endeavors that aimed too high: that I should dare to live by the perfected rule of a monk, when my house was full of dear affections — wife, mother, mother-in-law, children, who seemed able to enjoin upon themselves the accustomed care of being preserved for me, together with no small flock indeed of their own handmaids; and to expose all of them alike to a foreign land neither reason nor filial duty nor a religious mind permitted.

But your great hand and divine and provident power, working all things by the counsel of the saints, brought it to pass that I should then keep the ancient custom urged upon me, which, once introduced by the tradition of our forefathers, our Church even now keeps and holds; and so, having confessed the things I knew were to be repented of, I took pains, bound by the appointed law, to live according to it — atoning for my offenses perhaps not by worthy labor, yet not myself unknowing how to keep the right faith, having learned the ways of errors through perverse dogmas, which, rejecting and counting them now among my other faults, I spit out.

Afterward, when the fifteenth three-year period had been completed, at Easter recurring duly at the appointed time, returning to your sacred altars, O Christ God, by your mercy I gladly received your sacraments — this was a hundred and four-and-thirty years before now... [thirty-three years before now: the order of my own household, which had lately existed, being still safe, an order which I could prove could now neither be left nor yet kept, bound continually abroad as I now was with my revenue diminished]; and, that I should pursue my own property less — whose merit and situation I recall I have already set forth in an earlier place — there stood in the way my wife, untaught how to bend to the common advantages, and refusing through excessive fear to sail, whom I deemed it not right to drag anywhere unwilling, and it would be an equal wrong to leave her by abandoning our children.