Works 1 part 4/7

Behold, I will give recompense upon you according to your most wicked devices. He also commands the shepherds to howl and the rams of the flock to mourn, for their days are fulfilled for the slaughter. But why do I linger, bringing forth so many things from the ancients, as if indeed the rules of Paul did not suffice, which he established concerning bishops and presbyters? He bids them to be watchful and sober, not given to wine, not strikers, apt to teach, in all things blameless. But that other chapter I dare not even bring forth into the midst, in which the Lord, sending forth his disciples to preaching, designated how they ought to act in each particular case:

what manner of men they themselves ought to be, with what garments and what shoes they ought to be furnished, how unencumbered, how almost stripped of all things, and, so to speak, how heavenly they should walk upon the earth, so that they might teach virtue no less by the example of their life than by their words, and the truth of their deeds might prove the faith of their sayings. But that also moves me no less, when the Pharisees and scribes are reproved, whom assuredly we ought far to surpass in virtue and righteousness. And I now fear lest perchance we surpass them in wickedness, so that it might fit us too to have that said:

'Serpents, generation of vipers and blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel, and whited sepulchres, as those who are within unclean and without religious, dishes clean on the outside'—and whatever other things were either said or reproached against them. Revolving these thoughts with myself by day and night, I am, so to speak, wasted and consumed in my very marrow, and with continual sighings I waste away in my flesh and dissolve in my whole body.

This anguish does not permit me to walk with breast erect and thrown back, and with eyes lifted up and lofty, but it humbles my soul and contracts my mind, it lays bonds and reins upon my very tongue, nor does it permit me to think how I ought to be set over others, nor how I might amend or correct others, but how I myself, if it be possible, may escape the coming wrath of the future judgment and may draw myself away even a little from the son of perdition and make myself a stranger to him.

For one ought first to be cleansed and so to cleanse others, first to become wise and so to make others wise, to be made light and thus to enlighten others, to draw near to God and thus to lead others to God, to be sanctified and thus to sanctify others, to have upright hands and so to stretch out a hand to those in need, to be of upright counsel and so to give upright counsel to others. And when, they say, shall these things be?—they who prefer all things to be swift rather than careful, who build as quickly as they destroy. And when, they say, shall the lamp be set upon the lampstand? When shall the talent be given to the money-changers? The grace of God, they say, has no need of long times and a roundabout course.

These are the things said by those who are more fervent toward friendships than toward religion, to whom everything that is deferred seems slow, as if it were not better even in the last age to find something of prudence than to push forward an untrained youth, because a lawful kingdom of a short time is much better than a tyranny of long time, because also a small portion with righteousness is much better than many possessions with injustice. Or is not a little gold reckoned more precious than lead of much weight?

And every part that is forced forward in the first stages will not be well directed in the end. For that also which was sown upon the rocky ground sprang up quickly indeed, but because it had no depth of earth, it withered at once at the first heat of the sun. And the house whose foundations were not carried down to the solidity of the rock could not bear the onset of rains and the assault of rivers. Moreover, 'Woe to you, O city, whose king is a youth,' says Solomon. And again: Be not swift in words. But if he commands that one not be swift to words, how much more is it not expedient to leap forth swiftly into so great and so vast a work!

As if, indeed, a teacher of truth ought to be brought forth suddenly, as it were formed from clay in a single day—he who surely ought to stand with the angels before God and to glorify Him with the archangels, and to offer sacrifices to Christ upon the heavenly altars, and with Him and beside Him to exercise the priesthood, that what has fallen may be reformed, that the divine image in man may be restored, that to the higher world its inhabitants may be given back and—to say the whole at once—that from men they may pass into the number of gods. We know whose ministers we are, and where and in what priesthood we serve, where we are and whither we send those whom we prepare. We know the height of God and human weakness and the strength given to weakness. Heaven is high, but the earth is deep.

And who of those who have been cast out for sin shall ascend thither? Who, surrounded by darkness and obscurity and wrapped in the grossness of the flesh, shall purely behold the whole mind with his whole mind? Who is there who may mingle with the standing and invisible beings, while he is still among the things that are seen and where nothing stands? For scarcely can anyone set here among those who are greatly purified see a certain image and likeness of the good, like those who gaze upon the sun in the waters. Who therefore is he who can worthily behold Him who measured the water with His hand and the heaven with His palm and the whole earth with His fist, who set the mountains in a balance and the hills in scales? What place shall be the place of His rest, and to what shall He be likened?

Who shall be able to comprehend Him who by word and wisdom fashioned man and brought together and composed into one things mutually at variance, who mingled earth with spirit and joined together an animal visible and invisible, temporal and immortal, earthly and heavenly, touching God yet not comprehending Him, drawing near yet set far off? I said, says Solomon, I shall be made wise; and wisdom itself was made far from me, far more than it was. And he who adds knowledge adds sorrow, because the things found out through knowledge do not gladden so much as those which escape and cannot be comprehended bring sadness, as is wont to happen to those from whom, while they still thirst, the cup is snatched away.

These are the things which persuaded me that it is better to hear the voice of teachers than to become a teacher beyond one's strength: if the height of heavenly things and the purity of the supernal can scarcely contain the brightness of God, whose abyss is His covering, whose darkness is His hiding-place, since He Himself is wholly light and dwells in light inaccessible, who is in all things and outside all things, who is all good and above all good, who illumines the mind and escapes the mind, withdrawing as far as you have approached—by sense, that is—so that, while He Himself flees further and departs, He may provoke and invite the one who loves Him to the inner things, and may be the more desired, while now, as it were comprehended, He slips away.

Since therefore He whom we seek and whom we desire, whom we follow and to whom we hasten, is such and so great, of what sort must he be through whom souls that desire ought to have access to Him who is sought and desired? For me indeed there is an immense fear, lest even from the very bridal chamber of the Bridegroom I be cast forth, bound hand and foot, like one who has not prepared for himself wedding garments, but who has rashly crept into the midst of those reclining at the feast.

And indeed—to disclose something of those things which lie hidden among us—I too was from boyhood invited by God and was cast upon Him from the womb, and from my mother's belly was offered as a gift of my mother's promise, and after these things was confirmed through perils, and the desire of Him grew strong in me, and unto this all things ran together. Whence I too offered myself into the possession of Him to whom I had been delivered from the cradle and by whom I had been freed from perils; I offered Him all that was mine. Why do I say all? This, which alone I seemed to have: letters and the liberal disciplines, from which I had this gain alone, that I might seem to have something which I might despise and to which I might prefer Christ.

I delighted rather in the words of God, and His sayings became to me like the honeycomb, and I called upon prudence and gave my voice to wisdom. But neither in other things did I neglect, that is, to restrain anger, to bridle the tongue, to keep the eye more chastely, to govern the belly more frugally, to trample upon human glory. But I speak as one foolish, while I do not wish it to be hidden from you that in these things, in which we exerted zeal as far as we were able, it is not enough to be inferior to others. But truly to philosophize according to God, and to know how to hold the helms of souls, and to be set over the rest and to rule others,

while I myself have not yet learned to obey those who rule rightly—this I judged to be a task above me, especially in this present time, in which we see men turned this way and that and throwing all into confusion, so that nothing seems better than to flee from the midst and to lie hidden. For the enemy assails and disturbs all things, and as in a blind gloom he stirs up war, the more that the members may strive against one another, so that the remnants of charity, if any there be, may be put to flight, while new names are acquired for new priests, and, as it is written, reproach has been poured out upon the princes.

All fear has been driven out of our minds, and everywhere shamelessness holds sway. Whoever wishes claims for himself the highest knowledge and reckons the deep things of the Spirit to lie within his own grasp. And we all want to seem learned and orthodox by this means: if we rebuke others and judge them impious. Sometimes we even choose as judges concerning God those who do not know God; and we cast holy things to dogs and throw pearls before swine, publishing the divine mysteries to ears and minds that are defiled. And this, of course, falls out just as our enemies would wish, for though they are not permitted to enter our Church, yet through us they trample upon our holy things. We have therefore opened to all, not the gates of righteousness, but the way of cursing and of detraction and the path of insolence.

And we judge those alone to be the best, not such as for the fear of God have not uttered from their mouth even one idle word, but whoever has been able to disparage his brethren more widely and more bitterly, or at least those who have bitten subtly and figuratively and have set toil and grief beneath their tongue, and the poison of asps has been under their lips. 80. We diligently watch one another's sins—not our own but others'—not that we may bewail them but that we may charge them and reproach them, not that we may heal them but that we may wound the more. We judge men evil and good, not from their character nor from their manner of life, but according to party; and the things that pleased us today in someone will, tomorrow, if he be of the opposing party, displease us; and he who was praised yesterday will be blamed today.

But then those very things which are blamed in others are held by us in admiration. We pardon all things easily and gladly to our own supporters, even if they be committed impiously, that we may appear kindly and magnanimous toward the wicked. 81. All things have come to pass as in the beginning, when the world was not yet set in its order and forms, but when all things were confused and disordered and called for the mighty hand and power of the Creator.

We are therefore as in a night battle, using the very scanty light of the moon, and that itself sometimes darkened by the constant intervening clouds—no recognition of allies and foes, no distinction—or as in a sea-fight, when both the fury of the winds bears down and the surge of the waves rises, when the thrusts of the boat-poles rebound, the sailors' cry resounds, the crash of ships clangs, the groans of the wounded and the very roar of the air confound everything, and there is neither time for valour nor place for counsel: so we too—wretched that I am!—rush upon one another and bite and tear one another, doubtless that we may be consumed by one another. 82. But perhaps the common people indeed are so, while the priest is otherwise.

Nay rather, it now seems to me that what was said is being fulfilled: "The priest has become like the people"—a thing once spoken in the place of a curse. Or perhaps the ignoble and unskilled crowd is beset by these evils, while the more noble and the greater ones among the people act otherwise. But indeed these very ones assail the priests yet more openly and more strongly; though perhaps, since these too are still men of this world, therefore they do such things, while our continent ones, who, as they say, devote themselves to God for this very purpose, conduct themselves more quietly.

But these wage even open war and shameless contention against the priests, the more so because, under the appearance of a religious habit, the crowd more readily believes them even when they slander—especially when they stir up questions concerning the faith, which is the highest of all things. I do not speak of those of whose number I myself also wish and desire to become one, who with whole and sound purpose take up the contest for the truth, who lay down their necks and their soul for the faith of God; for better is such a battle, which brings a man near to God, than that peace which separates from God. For this reason the Holy Spirit commands even the warrior to be gentle. I do not, then, speak of warriors of this kind, among whose number I too desire to be found. 83.

But there are certain ones who stir up huge quarrels out of small matters or words, or who are even incited by motives not divine but human. These enlist as many comrades as they can for their madness, while they impose upon their contention and insolence the name of faith—a name magnificent and venerable to all—colouring the cause of their most foul intention with the appearance of this most honourable word. From these, then, as it seems to me, we are both held in hatred among the nations and—what is more grievous—we have not even the confidence to say that they hate us without cause. But by these we are also most ill commended to the people of our own, and especially to those who seem either honourable or religious among the populace. 84.

For when these people have heard from those who construct things upon our back anything blameworthy or reprehensible against any of the priests or ministers of God, they receive as more abominable, as though out of regard for the honour and religion of their own soul, what is alleged; and what they have once believed of one, that they think of all. And we have become a kind of public spectacle, not to angels and men, as the athlete of God, Paul, used to say, who sweated out his contests against principalities and powers, but a spectacle we have become to all the abject and the unworthy and, so to speak, to monsters and beasts, through all time and in every place—in the streets, in the taverns, at the banquets, in the councils.

We are dragged down even to the very stage—a thing I say with tears—and are mocked by the most base and most shameless actors; and now nothing is performed so delightfully in the mimes, nothing sung so pleasingly in the comedies, as the Christian. 85. And this has come down upon us from this source: that we assail one another, that we seem to ourselves too orthodox, too faithful, and roused by zeal for God—but not as is fitting—and that we contend for God—but not as is right nor as the law of contests prescribes; because our contest comes to this, that we win an infamous victory, that we then the more lose the palm when in the contest we have conquered. Or have we not read that no one is crowned unless he has striven lawfully?

For the contender, valour alone does not suffice unless he has also kept the rules of the athletic art. But you, as I see, fight for Christ against Christ. For the name of God is blasphemed among the nations because of you, as it is written. 86. The demons indeed to this very day tremble when the name of Christ is invoked, and not even our wickedness has made the power and authority of so great a name to vanish; and we do not reverence this name, but do all things to the injury of so great a name. And whereas we have a commandment so to act that men, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father who is in heaven, we, turning the force of the precept into its contrary, cause through our contentions the name of God to be blasphemed among the nations. 87.

And indeed I do not fear external wars, nor do I dread that beast which has now risen up against the churches—in which is the fullness of the devil—though it threaten with fires, though it brandish swords and beasts, though it prepare crosses and precipices, though it become more cruel than all the persecutors who were before it, though it devise new kinds of tortures: I have one remedy against all these things, one victory—gladly to have undergone death for Christ. 88.

But for this intestine war, I know not what I am to do, what aids I am to procure, what word of wisdom may succour me, what gift of the Spirit I may invoke, with what spiritual arms I may gird myself against the wiles of the devil; what Moses, with hands stretched out on the mountain and even then foreshadowing the images of the cross, may restrain these wars; what Joshua, the approved captain of the militia of the camps of God; what David, either playing on the harp or fighting with the sling and girded with strength by God for war and with fingers fitted for battle; what Samuel, by his prayers stirring heaven, drawing down rain, moving thunders—who shall worthily lament and bewail these things? 89.

Let some Jeremiah, composing a new lamentation for this our new captivity, cry out again to God and say: "Spare, O Lord, thy people, and give not thine inheritance to reproach, that the nations should rule over them." Who will pray for us to the Lord, as Noah and Daniel and Job, that this devastation may cease and rest a little while from us, that at length we may return to ourselves and, as though the mist were dispelled from our eyes, may recognize that we are sons of one Father, that we are brethren—so that the people of God may no longer be called Judah and Israel, nor Rehoboam and Jeroboam, nor Jerusalem and Samaria, which now are delivered into captivity, now lament at home? 90.

And I indeed confess that I am most feeble for battles of this kind, and for that reason I confess that I turned my back. Wherefore, veiling my face in confusion, I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness. I sought even to be silent, as one understanding that the time is evil, because the beloved have kicked back and have become sons who depart. The vine too, joyful with its branches, and the true vine, wholly fruitful, has been turned into bitterness, and the diadem of beauty has been turned into ignominy; the signet of my right hand and the crown of glorying has been made into confusion for me. But if there is some other who is ready boldly and bravely to undergo the contests of such battles, him I both call blessed for his confidence and set before myself. 91.

But of those wars I make no mention as yet by which we are assailed within ourselves by our own vices and passions, and by which we are pressed day and night by the fiery goads of this body of lowliness and this body of death—now secretly, now even openly—while the enticements of visible things everywhere provoke and irritate us; this mire of dregs to which we have clung breathing out the stench of its filth through more capacious veins; and also by the law of sin, which is in our members, warring against the law of the Spirit, while it strives to lead captive the royal image which is within us, that whatever it be may yield as its spoils—that which flowed into us by the benefit of that divine and primal creation.

Whence scarcely anyone, perhaps, governing himself by a long and rigorous philosophy and little by little recalling the nobility of his soul, the nature of the light which is in him, joined to this lowly and dark mire, may recall and bend it back to God; or, if at least he act with God's favour, he will recall both alike, provided that by long and assiduous meditation he accustom himself always to look upward, and to raise up, with tighter reins, the matter bound to him that drags downward and weighs him down for ill.

But before he attains this, and before he surpasses other men, as far as may be, in purity of heart, he ought not to wish to preside over those than whom he does not feel himself the purer, nor to think it safe to be made a mediator of the people before God—which is the special office of the priest—unless he sees himself near and a friend of God. 92. But whence I came into this fear, lest perhaps you suppose me to be more timorous than is right, I ought to make known to you, that you may judge me not so much timid as taking counsel for myself.

When God spoke to Moses on the mountain, He commanded several others also to ascend with him, among whom were Aaron with his sons the priests and seventy presbyters from among the elders, all of whom, standing at a distance, were bidden to worship; but Moses alone is bidden to draw near, and no other to ascend with him. From this it is plainly indicated that it is not for everyone to draw near to God, unless he be such a one as Moses, who can contain in himself the glory of God.

And even before, when the giving of the law was first being prepared, the sound of trumpets and lightnings and thunders crashed about the rest, smoke too and the gloom of the burning mountain and dread and horrible terror, so that even a beast, if it touched the mountain, was to be stoned—and so for those standing afar off it was a great thing even to hear the sound of the voice, and this for men sanctified with all diligence and caution—but Moses alone both ascends the mountain and enters the cloud and is nowhere scorched by the blazing flames and receives the tablets: for the multitude of the common people, the tablets of the letter; but for those who grasp the things which are of the Spirit, tablets written by the Spirit of the living God. 93.

But Nadab and Abihu, because they had offered strange fire for the incense of the altar, for this alone are consumed by fire, and they had almost the same place of penalty and destruction as of their fault and impiety. And not even Aaron was fit to intercede, although he was indeed their father and, second after Moses, drew near to God by the honour of the priesthood. Eli too, the priest, is condemned for the iniquity of his sons, because he chastised them, as they profaned the divine sacrifices, with too little severity of correction. Wretched man that I am! He indeed restrained and indeed rebuked them, but with the gentleness and meekness of a father, not with the severity and authority of a high priest.

What of that Uzzah, who, when the heifer impatient of her offspring had swerved aside from the track of the straight path and the ark of the covenant of the Lord was now on the very point of falling, steadied it with a busy and solicitous hand—was he not, only for this, that he had touched the holy thing, punished with death by God? 94. I know that not even bodily blemishes are passed over in the priests, but that all things are examined and searched out by the law, lest either the victim or the priest have any bodily defect. And these surely are figures of that perfection and purity which ought to be in the heart and soul of the priest. But not even the priestly vestments or the vessels of ministry is it lawful for anyone at all so much as to touch or handle.

The sacrifices themselves too are not granted to all indiscriminately to consume, but to certain particular ones, and within a fixed time and within a prescribed place. But not even the compounding of the oil of chrism is it lawful for anyone to imitate, nor the mixture of the incense. And what shall I say further? Not even into the temple itself is one permitted to enter who is not, in even the least matters, pure in soul and body. And how do we, rashly and inconsiderately, rush into the very Holy of Holies, into which it was lawful for the high priest alone, and he but once a year, to enter—to whom alone it was permitted to approach further within the veil and to see the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat and the Cherubim—things which now all men think it lawful for themselves both to see and to touch! 95.

Knowing these things, therefore, and that no one is worthy either to be a priest of the most high God or to be a sacrifice, who has not first presented himself as a living victim, holy, pleasing to God, and has rendered his reasonable service and has offered to God the sacrifice of praise and a contrite spirit—which alone is the sacrifice that God desires, all others being cast off and despised—how could I dare to approach the priesthood and to the offering of victims and to the celebrating of the image and figure of the heavenly sacraments?

Or how could I take upon myself the priestly habit and name, who had not first known that I had finished my hands in holy works; who had not yet taught my eye rightly to behold the creation of God; who had not first opened my ear to the instruction of the Lord, so as to deserve to have an ear added to me which would not hear with difficulty, and that a precious sardius earring might be in my ear—which is the word of the wise man in the ear of the obedient? Who had not first opened my mouth and drawn in the spirit, or widened my mouth, that it might be filled with the spirit for uttering the mysteries and doctrines of piety?

Who had not offered my tongue, that it might be loosed in due time and filled with exultation in the psalms and songs of the Lord, rising up like the morning plectrum upon the psaltery and the harp, rising at dawn and crying to the Lord until my throat grow hoarse and my tongue cleave to my jaws? Before my feet stand upon the rock and be made perfect like the harts' feet, that my steps may be directed according to God, that my footsteps be not weakened nor a little well-nigh poured out? Before all my members become weapons of righteousness and all mortality in me be swallowed up by life and the flesh be made subject to the spirit? 96-99.

Who would dare to approach this rank, before his heart be kindled by the chaste oracles of the Lord, tried by fire, and his mind, while He opens to him the Scriptures? Before he write them threefold in the breadth of his heart, so that he may have the mind of Christ? Before he deserve to enter the treasures of knowledge, hidden, invisible and obscure to the rest, so that, having received riches thence, he himself may also enrich others, comparing spiritual things with spiritual? Before he contemplate, as it is worthy to contemplate, the delight of the Lord, and visit His temple—nay rather, himself become the temple of the living God and a dwelling-place of Christ in the spirit?