'Everything that is not of faith is sin' — and whether, when you see bishops of noble places, or behold mighty men of the world, or rich men under religious profession, you indulge nothing at all, captivated either by flattery or by fear or by hope in the acceptance of persons, nor anything in which your own heart should reprove you and your conscience sting you, nor whether you answer any words accommodated to the occasion rather than to the truth. This too I ask: whether you love all Christians equally as yourself? For we, under one head, which is Christ, and under one Church, which is Christ, are all brothers and one body in Christ. Whether therefore you love as yourself all who hope in the mercy of God, those at least whom you know — confess;
for I do not ask you concerning those unknown to you, whom you suppose you love on this account, that, because you do not know them, you do not hate them. But why do I exact these things from your confession, when the common people recognize your manner of life? You, perfect without weakness; you, able to bear the whole pack of the law; you, I say, O man puffed up but empty, hear, if you deign, the Lord and Savior calling you back — if at least you are able — to holy things: 'Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall not enter into it.' The infant has nothing in itself except that it loves the one who caresses it, and that, hoping for its bread not in its own sweat but in entreaties, it obtains the nourishment of life by simple petition, which it does not earn by confident work:
by which comparison admonished, turn to infancy, that you may return to life. And since I said above, concerning the possibility of sustaining the burden, 'I examine your own meaning first, and afterward, if it seem good, I explain my own' — my opinion is that in this too we sin, who, when we are weak, complain of our weakness, even as the apostle says: 'Doth the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why hast thou formed me thus?' For the complaint of weakness is the ambition of one's own virtue, since he secretly disdains the help of God who seeks a strength peculiarly his own. And this is the devil, who says, 'I will do it by my own strength.' But I, according to the apostle, will glory always in my weaknesses, that my heart may ever say to God:
'In the covering of thy wings I will exult; my soul hath cleaved after thee; thy right hand hath upheld me.' Whence also it is written: 'Let your requests be made known before God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and bodies in Christ Jesus.' I have therefore weakness, and I rejoice in the knowledge of my weakness. For when I am weak, then am I strong, by invoking the mighty God, who hears me in my weakness, who most faithfully promised us: 'But I am with you all the days, even unto the consummation of the age.' It is the peculiar work of weakness to pray always in every place, that the almighty God, who pledged Himself not to forsake, may also not cease to help. For behold, Scripture cries to the weak:
'Seek the Lord and be strengthened; seek his face always.' To whom a pious and true confession replies: 'Behold, as the eyes of servants are upon the hands of their masters, so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy upon us.' Great and certain is the confidence concerning perfection, when the Almighty does what the lowliest desires; and again, great and certain is the security concerning confirmation, when the Almighty preserves and does not lose the weak; as it is written: 'But to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in Christ Jesus.' Wherefore the apostle admonishes: 'Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth;
for you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.' The fruit of life is holiness, and holiness indeed is to be without sin. If therefore the glory of incorruption is hidden from all men in this time, how do you in this same time boast that you can be clothed over with that very incorruption of glory? For as the beginning of corruption was for man to turn aside into sin, so the beginning of incorruption will be to have no sin. Who then has hidden that glory before the judgment of God, or stolen it from the bosom of Christ and handed it to you? Or do you perhaps understand that you do not deserve it in the future from the hand of the Lord?
Paul instructs us in these expectations and says: 'But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Now the sting of death is sin.' By which the apostle shows that in no way can anyone exult over death and sin until immortality follows mortality and incorruption follows corruption, and where, weakness being destroyed, perfect virtue succeeds, where there shall not be male and female, but all shall be like the angels of God.
Furthermore, if anyone now grows up to so great a height of holiness that, while living in this flesh, he knows not whether he is male or female; if, having received the fullest purity of himself, and having garments not defiled, he is like the angels of God; and if he is now girt about with that brightness of the splendor of the sun which is promised to the saints — then let him worthily profess this perfection, not by voice but by his very condition. Yet this presumption is perdition; nay rather it is expedient for such a man that he hear and follow not his own heart but Paul, the teacher of the nations, and at the same time pray with him, to whom as he prayed the Lord replied: 'My grace is sufficient for thee; for virtue is perfected in weakness.'
Therefore — what alone, and in which alone, free choice avails — let each one of us offer himself to God as willing soil; for we are God's husbandry, we are God's building. Let the true husbandman cast into His own field His seed, the word; let Him believe in the heart, let Him plant, let Him water, let Him make fruitful, let Him give the increase. Yet what alone our voluntary devotion can do in us is to minister faithfully to the holding in itself of the root of the seed and to the nourishing of abundant offspring, and ever by its prayers to rouse up its husbandman, lest the enemy be able to oversow tares. Let this be its cooperation in the work of God, with hope not doubtful and charity sincere. For the Lord Jesus says: 'I am the vine, you are the branches':
whatever it has, it has from the vine. 'For not thou,' says the apostle, 'bearest the root, but the root thee.' Why then does it exalt itself in the fruits which seem to be in it, when the whole pertains to the vine, not only that it can, but even that it is? Otherwise it is cut off and cast into the fire. For not the branch but the vine has power, and what the vine has power to do, the branch displays. It is enough therefore for each one that he have; but whence and where he has it, let him both humbly acknowledge and patiently await, lest, while he has not and believes himself to have, that very thing which he has be taken away from him. The first man, sinning, God cast out of paradise; then the first man believing on the cross Christ led into paradise.
Rightly therefore, so long as I am not in paradise and remain in the land of Adam's pilgrimage, I do not believe myself to be without sin. But if I shall have been led over into paradise by the grace of God, there, my perfection accomplished and death overcome and sin destroyed, I shall proclaim the eternal glory of His power in the sight of God. These things I have set forth as I could, most blessed priests, for the cause of faith and simplicity. Let not those who have been hurt be angry with me, if in anything they are noted by comparisons of names. As for the questions, let them bear it with equanimity, and rather, if they have the fear of God, let them rejoice that what is true has been answered.
I, with Jesus Christ as my witness, confess that I hate the heresy, not the heretic; but, as is just, meanwhile, on account of the heresy, I shun the heretic, because I have both tested and rebuked him. Let him detest and condemn it, alike with mouth and hand, and he shall cling to all by the bond of brotherhood, because it is written: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so shall you fulfill the law of Christ.'