So also for us, since two marriages lie before us, and it is not possible to be in both at once — for "the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, but the married man is anxious about the things of the world" — it would be the part of prudent people neither to fail in the choice of what is advantageous, nor to be ignorant of the road leading to it, which one cannot learn otherwise than through some such analogy.
For just as in bodily marriage, one who is eager not to be rejected will take great forethought both for bodily good condition and for fitting adornment and abundance of wealth, and that no reproach be brought upon him either from his manner of life or from his family — for thus especially would he attain what accords with his intent —
in the same way also the one who pursues the spiritual marriage for himself will first show himself new and separated from all oldness by the renewal of the mind, then rich in those things in which it is truly desirable to be rich — not made proud by earthly riches, but abounding in heavenly treasures.
And he too will be zealous to have nobility of birth — not the kind that comes to many, even to base persons, by mere chance of circumstance, but the kind that accrues through toil and diligence by one's own achievements, which alone those boast of who are sons of light and children of God, and who through works of light are accounted nobles from the rising of the sun.
And strength and good condition he will procure not by training the body nor fattening the flesh, but by the complete opposite — perfecting the power of the spirit in the weakness of the body.
Do you wish to learn the names of these gifts? Hear Paul, the good groomsman, telling in what things those who commend themselves in everything are rich — among which, having said many other great things, he says, "and in purity."
And if anyone is going to obey Solomon and take true wisdom for himself as cohabitant and companion of life — concerning whom he says, "Love her, and she will keep you; honor her, that she may embrace you" — he will prepare himself, worthily of this desire, in a pure garment, celebrating together with those who rejoice at this marriage, so that he may not be cast out — seeking to share in the feast while not wearing the wedding garment.
For since, as the apostle says, "there is neither male nor female, but Christ is all and in all," fittingly the one who has fallen in love with wisdom has as the divine aim of his desire him who is true wisdom, and the soul that has cleaved to the incorruptible bridegroom has the love of true wisdom, which is God.
But since it has appeared impossible to draw near to the purity of God without one having first become such himself, it would be necessary to separate oneself from the pleasures by some great and strong dividing wall, so that the purity of heart might nowhere be defiled by this proximity.
For pleasure, being one in kind, as one may hear from the wise, like water divided from a single spring into different channels, mingles itself into those who love pleasure through each of the senses.
Therefore the one who, through one of the senses, has been overcome by the pleasure arising in him, has thereby been wounded in the heart, as the voice of the Lord teaches, that he who has fulfilled the desire of the eyes has received harm in the heart.
But I think that here the Lord has spoken beforehand only in part concerning every sense, so that we, following what has been said, might rightly add that both the one who has heard so as to desire, and the one who has touched, and the one who has dragged down every faculty within us into the service of pleasure, has sinned in the heart.
In order, then, that this may not happen, the temperate person must use this rule for his own life: never to give assent in his soul to anything in which some bait of pleasure has been mixed, and above all to guard, in particular, against the pleasure of taste, because this seems somehow to be nearest at hand and, as it were, the mother of the forbidden pleasure.
For the pleasures of eating and drinking, when they exceed measure through immoderation in food, impose upon the body a necessity of unwanted evils, since satiety, in most cases, engenders in human beings such passions.
In order, then, that our body may remain as calm as possible, not disturbed by any of the passions arising from surfeit, we must take forethought for a more disciplined manner of living, and must set as the measure and limit of enjoyment, not pleasure, but the need in each case.
We see also that farmers skillfully separate the chaff mixed in with the wheat, so that each of the two may be put to its appropriate use — the one for human life, the other both for burning and for the food of irrational animals.
So too the worker of temperance, distinguishing need from pleasure just as wheat from chaff, will cast away the one to those more irrational beings, whose end is for burning, as the apostle says, but of the need itself, according to what is necessary, he will partake with thanksgiving.
Chapter 22. That one must not practice self-control beyond what is needful, and that both bodily corpulence and immoderate mortification are alike opposed to the soul's perfection.
...to incline — it would be well to take care of this matter also, and equally to guard against the excesses arising from either side: neither burying the mind under corpulence, nor again, by imported infirmities, rendering it faint and abject and preoccupied with bodily distresses, but remembering the wise precept, which likewise forbids turning aside either to the right hand or to the contrary side.
I have heard a certain physician setting forth the matters of his art, saying that our body is compounded of four elements, not of the same kind but arranged in opposition to one another — hot and cold, moist and dry.
One must therefore take forethought for the equal balance of these qualities for the maintenance of health, if indeed their account holds any truth, bringing upon no part of those elements of which we are composed either excess or deficiency through irregularity in diet.
For just as the driver of a chariot, if he is in charge of colts that are not in accord with one another, neither urges on the swift one with the whip, nor reins in the slow one tightly, nor again leaves the crooked and hard-mouthed one free to be carried by its own impulses into disorder, but guides the one, checks the other, and reaches the third with the whip, until he brings about in all of them a single, unified harmony toward the course —
in the same way our mind also, holding the reins of the body under itself, will neither, when heat is in excess at the season of youth, devise additions to that burning, nor, when it is chilled by passion or by age, multiply things that cool and wither it; and in regard to the remaining qualities likewise it will hearken to Scripture —
so that "he who has much may not have too much, nor he who has little may have too little," but, cutting away the excess in either direction, he will attend to supplying what is lacking, and will equally guard against the uselessness of the body in either extreme, neither training his own flesh, through excessive comfort, to be unruly and hard to control, nor, through immoderate hardship, rendering it sickly, dissolute, and too feeble for necessary service.
As for the particulars — how the one who has chosen to live in this philosophy must conduct his life, and what he must guard against, and by what practices he must train himself, the measures of self-control and the manner of conduct and the whole life befitting such an aim — whoever wishes to learn these with precision: there are indeed written teachings that teach these things, but more effective than teaching by words is guidance through deeds, and there attaches to the matter no difficulty such that one would need to undergo a long journey or much sea-voyaging in order to meet with the instructor, but "the word is near you," says the apostle — the grace comes from the hearth itself.
And there is great freedom here, both for those who are silent and for those who speak, to be taught this heavenly citizenship through deeds, since indeed every discourse, when viewed apart from deeds, however much it may happen to be adorned, is like a lifeless image displaying some blooming figure in dyes and colors —
For just as one who is eager to learn thoroughly the language of some nation is not a sufficient teacher for himself, but is instructed by those who know it, and thus becomes of one tongue with those speaking a foreign language — so too, I think, since this life does not proceed according to the sequence of nature, but is estranged by the novelty of its manner of conduct, one cannot learn its precision otherwise than by being led by the hand of one who has already achieved it.
And all the other things also, whatever we practice in life, would be more successfully achieved by the one pursuing them, if he were to learn thoroughly the knowledge of each pursuit from teachers, rather than if he were to attempt the matter by himself —
for this pursuit is not so self-evident that one should of necessity entrust to oneself the judgment of what is profitable, since even the daring to venture experience of things unknown is not without danger.
And just as human beings discovered the art of medicine, formerly unknown, through experience, gradually revealed by certain observations, so that both what is beneficial and what is harmful, once recognized through the testimony of those with experience, was thus received into the rational system of the art, and what had been observed by those who came before became a precept for the future — so now the one who has devoted himself earnestly to this art has no need to discern for himself, by his own experience, the power of medicines, whether something is poisonous or protective, but having learned from others what is already known, he himself has thereby mastered the art —
in the same way, in the medicine of souls too — I mean philosophy — through which we learn the cure of every passion that touches the soul, there is no need to pursue this knowledge by certain conjectures and surmises, but with great freedom of learning from one who has acquired the disposition through long and much experience.
For youth is, for the most part and in every matter, an unsafe counselor, and one would not easily find anything worthy of serious effort accomplished successfully, in which gray hairs were not taken along as partners in the deliberation —
and by as much as the aim set before those who pursue it is greater than that of other pursuits, by so much the more must we take forethought for security.
For in the other pursuits, youth, when not governed by reason, has certainly brought loss in money, or has caused one to fall from some worldly distinction or even office —
but in this great and lofty desire, what is at risk is not money, nor worldly and ephemeral glory, nor any other of the external things that attend us — of which, whether they turn out according to one's wish or otherwise, the prudent give little account — but rather the imprudence touches the soul itself, and the danger of this loss is not the loss of some other thing, whose recovery might perhaps still seem possible, but rather that one destroys oneself and forfeits one's own soul.
For the one who has squandered his paternal estate does not despair of perhaps, by some devices, returning again to his former prosperity, so long as he is among the living —
and the one alone is easily overcome by the enemy who lies in wait along the divine ways, and truly "woe to the one when he falls, for he has no one to raise him up."
For already some have made use of a right impulse toward the desire for the solemn life, but as if, at the very moment of choosing, they had already laid hold of perfection, they were tripped up by another fall, through conceit, deceiving themselves through a kind of mental derangement into considering that good toward which their own understanding happened to incline.
From these come those named "idle" by Wisdom, those who have strewn their own paths with thorns, those who consider the eagerness for the works of the commandments to be harm to the soul, those who have set aside the apostolic exhortations and do not eat their own bread decently, but gape after that of others, making idleness their trade in life —
from here also come the dreamers, who make the delusions arising from dreams more trustworthy than the evangelical teachings, and who call their fantasies "revelations" —
from these are also those who creep into houses, and again others who consider unsociability and savagery to be virtue, not recognizing the commandment of love, nor knowing the fruit of long-suffering and humility.
And who could recount all such falls, into how many they are carried out by the unwillingness to associate with those who are well-approved according to God? For among these we have known also those who persist by fasting even to the point of death, as though God were pleased with such sacrifices, and again others who have defected to the opposite extreme, who, practicing celibacy in name only, differ in nothing from common life, not only indulging the belly with what leads to pleasure, but also openly cohabiting with women and calling such cohabitation "brotherhood," thus veiling the worse suspicion under a more solemn name —
for the examples of good things have not failed our life, but greatly now, if ever, has solemnity flourished and become native to our life, refined to the utmost through gradual increments — and it is possible for the one who walks in such footsteps, following after the scent of this ointment, to partake of it and to be filled with the fragrance of Christ.
For just as, when a single torch has been kindled, the spreading of the flame occurs to all the lamps that are brought near, the original light being in no way diminished, and being imparted equally to those illuminated by participation, so also the solemnity of this life is transmitted from the one who has achieved it to those who draw near —
If you see the life of a man exhibited in the midst of death and life — neither turned completely toward death, nor standing with his whole foot on the side of life, but, in respect of those things by which the life of the flesh is proven, numbered among the dead, while with regard to the works of virtue, by which those who live in the spirit are recognized, truly alive, active, and vigorous — look to this one as the rule of life —
And you will see not one alone, but a whole chorus of saints arrayed under the leadership of the foremost one — those making an imitation of the one who has achieved it.
Among them, many who were young in age became gray-haired in the purity of temperance, reaching gray-headed wisdom in reasoning before their time and surpassing time itself in character — they who displayed the love of wisdom more vehemently and forcibly than bodily pleasures, not because they had a different nature (for in all, the flesh desires against the spirit), but because they had rightly heard the one who said that temperance is a tree of life to all who hold fast to it.
Upon this tree, having sailed through the surge of youth as though upon a raft, they have come to anchor in the harbor of the will of God, and now, in fair weather and calm, they keep their soul free from waves — blessed in their fair voyage — they who, so far as it depended on themselves, have made their good hope steady as upon some secure anchor, they who remain undisturbed far from the tumult of the waves, and who, like beacon-fires from a lofty watch-tower, have set forth the brightness of their own lives before those who follow.
Why do you busy yourself over-anxiously with me, asking whether some of those who conceived this purpose were overcome, and on this account despair as though the matter were impossible? Look to the one who has succeeded, and take courage, and dare the good voyage, guided under the breath of the Holy Spirit, with Christ as your pilot.
For not even those who go down to the sea in ships and do business in many waters have made a shipwreck that has befallen someone else a hindrance to their hopes, but, putting forward their good hope, they hasten on toward the completion of their success.
will what comes from these things seem small? For from being crucified together with Christ, there accrues also living together with him, and being glorified together with him, and reigning together with him —
For this is the summit of every hope and the accomplishment of every desire; it is the end and the crown of God's blessing, of every promise, and of those ineffable goods believed to lie beyond sense-perception and knowledge — that very thing which Moses too longed to see, and which many prophets and kings desired.
But only the pure in heart are deemed worthy of this — who for this very reason are truly blessed, both being so and being called so, because they shall see God. Of these we wish you too to become one: having been crucified together with Christ, having presented yourself to God as a holy priest and having become a pure offering in all purity, having prepared yourself through chastity for the presence of God, so that you too may see God with a pure heart, according to the promise of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the might unto the ages of ages.