As an avenger, Felix bound him with a fitting bewilderment, and whirled the madman about with such giddiness that, ever departing, he went nowhere away, and when with a leaping step he had begun to depart, he returned. Wondrous truth! He went by standing still, he remained by going, not knowing that by this very thing, on account of which he was preparing to flee, his fleeing was prevented, and that his bonds remained with him, and that his own crime was a chain broken open for him. For the spoil he carried in his closed bosom held its implanted weight, and from this, greedy as a captive in mind, seeking a hiding place, he nevertheless wandered by daylight in the open fields, and thinking himself hidden he stood plain to view upon the bright plain. So had conscious impiety blinded his mind, that neither did he escape by fleeing, nor was he concealed by wandering astray.
With his senses turned against him, fear on this side and stupor on that had mingled within his guilty soul; he avoided the paved roads; sluggish, he dreaded to approach the secluded glens. Even the silences themselves in the woods he feared, lest by chance they alone should cry out his crime aloud, or he thought grim monsters of avenging beasts would meet him in their shapes. Therefore the wretch, withdrawn from the crowded highway, wandered apart for himself in a certain field nearby, feigning safety in his heart before the unknowing while harboring fear, as one hiding a misdeed beneath his garment: for the garment, girt up high, had stored the gold shut within its folds. For he had not dared to commit his theft even to the silent earth, nor to hollow caverns after the manner of robbers, the miser fearing the betrayal of a fraud entrusted to them.
Thence the wicked man had entrusted his thefts only to his own tunic, by which he had knotted up his gathered cloak, hanging the loose garment from his bared knee. This pouch of crime the robber had then built for himself within his very self, and he was fittingly bound by such dread, that he would trust the fellowship of his wretched theft to no one, so that he alone might bear the contagion of so great a crime, and his own bosom became the guardian of the theft, whose hand had dared the sacrilegious plunder. He himself bore his own burden upon himself, and alone weighed himself down, and the deadly load of his spoil polluted him, so that nothing in him remained free from impiety—he who, enclosing the spoil of crime taken from the holy sanctuary, bound it fast within his girt garment, and himself displayed the very token of his own chains.
For shortly, being caught, he exchanged his girdle for fetters; and as the gold fell from his folds when the garment was loosed and ungirt, by the very strap with which he had been girt he was bound; those hands which the bold robber had stretched out against the sacred offerings, caught by the knot of his own thong, brought back the spoils—empty of plunder, yet filled with the rope. But if we wish to gaze thoroughly upon the whole sequence of the completed order, more and more in every aspect—both where the crime lay hidden, and how, once unlocked, it shone forth—we shall behold the hidden things of God, wondrous, wrought by the hand of Felix. We have already said much before, how in fleeing he did not flee, and how, his steps drawn back, he so often retraced the courses he had measured along his own footprints, in vain, the thread of his task winding back, shut out from far places and thrust back to the neighboring ones.
Now another work of Felix, which the right hand of Christ brought forth, to show the merit of His dear foster-child, I shall recount—a marvelous proof attested by a like sign, which the trembling culprit himself betrayed by his confessed daring. Yet first, since the matter so demands, I shall describe the figure of the Cross itself, such as painting too is wont to fashion it in twofold form: either two-horned with an upright shaft, or spread out through five horns by means of the rods. The form of the Cross is composed of a twofold appearance, and now it unfolds the likeness of a ship's yardarm, in the image of a mast, or it sets forth the mark by which the Greeks customarily signify three hundred, when it is fixed upon a single stem, and wherever it has its top, it is joined by a crossbeam. Now the same Cross, fitted together with a different arrangement, proclaims the Lord Christ as if by a monogram.
For the mark by which the Latin reckoning, counting, denotes twice five—this among the Greeks is written as chi, and the rho is set in the middle, whose summit holds also the signs, because, curved back again toward the very rod, it makes as it were a completed circle. For the slanting upright produces what in Greece is the iota. The very stroke, drawn back with a short point behind, forms likewise the tau; and thus six elements, by which the Name is expressed loftier than every name, come together under one symbol, and one letter is established by three rods. So one mark expresses six signs at once, that one letter by three rods may signify that the Lord is at once thrice one. And God is in Christ, whom the concord of the threefold Mind willed to be born for us, having taken a body.
And this belongs to the mystery: that of the twin rods on either side, just as they slope their tips apart with equal spacing, yet below, with footing placed at a like distance, they stand on an equal base, and being fixed to one another they cohere at the middle joining, and the separated summits look upon each other with equal tops. While these meet at the midpoint, a rod set in between stands forth more proudly, as a royal scepter, signifying that God Christ reigns over all things—He who, with the Cross spread out, by the four extremities of the wood touches the measured globe in its four parts, that He may draw to life the peoples from every shore.
And because by the death of the Cross God-Christ stands forth as all things to all—for the rising of life and the end of evils—Alpha stands about the Cross, and each letter, by a threefold reckoning, with three rods, perfecting its diverse figure, because perfection is one mind, a threefold power. Likewise to me Christ is the Alpha, who, embracing the heights with the loftiest bounds and equally the depths, victor over both the nether and the heavenly things, and the abysses shattered, penetrated the opened heavens, bringing back victorious salvation by death overcome. And as victory joined Him to the Father's right hand, He set up a bodily trophy in the heavenly seat, and fixed the banner of the Cross above all the stars.
That figure, therefore, which the thief, driven by greedy frenzies in vain, had unfastened with the hanging hook, and with polluted hand had stolen away from the holy hall—this has been perfected by such a work that, fashioned in wondrous fashion, it marks out each likeness of the eternal Cross: so that now, if one wishes, faith may gaze upon it at close quarters, ready to the eyes; for restored, it shines in the very place where it had been fitted before, and with the token of piety it adorns the face of the veiled, enclosed altar.
Therefore that same figure displays the form of the Cross: it marks a balance poised level on an even beam, and beneath the lifted pole it shapes a harmonious yoke; or it imitates the eyes that, joining the countenance, are arched from the brow, with the lofty tree's crossbars—that tree on which the Lord hung, while the world trembled, pouring out His innocent blood for the sinner. And to this, with what solid weight a double bar joins it, at the far end of the drawn-out metal a little crown is set beneath, encircled with various gems. This Cross of the Lord too, as though girt with a diadem, gleams with the eternal image of the life-giving wood.
This one piece the thief left whole, untouched by the iron with which he had broken the rest, of all the substance of his theft; and as the gold, with the garment loosed and ungirt, slipped down from his folds, then he too, caught and ungirt, the fragments of the escaping spoil fell out. The appearance of the thing, when seen, then confounded the very finders' hearts with a twofold stirring. They rejoice at what is found, but grieve at what is broken; then they begin to seek the cause, marveling at the robber at once cautious and bold, blind toward the broken things, cautious toward what was left intact. Then he, before the astonished, confesses the crime and the divine power: for in his mind he considers the whole; yet this one thing he had preserved by divine power, in that the enclosed Cross forbade any robber, however bold, with feeble strength.
He himself confessed the crime of his mind and the power of the Cross, testifying that, as often as he had armed his hands against that crown joined into the Cross by its allied framework, so often, as if broken, they fell back with a recoiling blow, and his sick arms grew numb with their sinews slackened. Here it is fitting to rise up in a few words against the wretched thief. Unhappy man, what so great madness had turned your mind, that, rebuked by so great a light of truth, you would not hasten to anticipate the whole course by your flight, flying back to restore the theft of your own accord? Did so great a force oppress your greedy soul with darkness, that you would dare to hide in your bosom that portion which, with God so often forbidding, you feared to violate? Tell me, whither was that fear of yours fleeing? And whence?
Again, how badly your headlong audacity hardened your senseless mind—you, fearful and yet a despiser, departed differing from yourself in the very appearance of the same crime, and mingling faith with treachery in your divided heart, you believed the power of the Cross and the inviolable sign of Christ to be touched in fear by the iron, and what you feared in knowing, you denied in carrying. Yet your impiety profited you nothing, and you, having confessed, made us exult over your folly and the divine signs in the great triumph of the Cross. Therefore let us cease now to attack the captured thief, for whom the destitution of his despoiled fraud is punishment enough. Now to you, venerable Cross of God, I turn my speech, and giving thanks I shall conclude my discourse with your praise.
O Cross, great mercy of God! Cross, glory of heaven! Cross, eternal salvation of men! Cross, terror to the wicked, and strength to the just, and light to the faithful! O Cross, you who granted that God should serve salvation on earth in the flesh, and that man should reign in God in the heavens; through you the light of truth lay open, the impious night fled. You destroyed the shrines uprooted for believers, you, the concordant clasp of human peace, reconciling man, set in the midst, through the covenants of Christ. You have become man's step, by which he may be borne into the heavens. Be ever a pillar to the godly, and an anchor to us, that our house may stand well, and our fleet be well steered, our faith fixed upon the Cross, or having gained from the Cross its crown.
Often good masters serve their dear foster-children with a pious mind, and slaves protect those subject to a father's love; and these they favor with closer care, to be cherished—those whom, with searching affection, they see to be more in want of help and lacking in strength. And if any of them, as the customary practice of human usage demands, wishes to celebrate some vow, yet cannot accomplish it with his needy means, the poor and helpless servant is provided for by his master's zeal: to him the master, rich in wealth, supplies the means for piling up the table with the things in which the poor man was lacking. This condition has been given to me under my patron Felix: that nothing be mine from myself, that all things be mine through him.
For now, toward his Birthday-feast, as indeed before in past years, in which this day has bloomed for me, there was nothing from which I might prepare the solemn banquet for my vows, and the day was pressing, nor was any ready means at hand for me from any source: when, behold, the bountiful patron suddenly gave, that I might furnish a generous feast, twin swine together with their sow; from whose flesh, the poor being fed, we ourselves took material from those same animals—since God lately brought forth wonders by remarkable signs through the very beasts, prompting men by a deep reason to attend to Christ, and not to set the craving of the flesh before faith. For that the most high God gave signs through cattle, which lack human reason, unto the tearful reproach of our greed, the tale to be recited will show.
I shall not sing things feigned, though I employ the art of poetry: I shall narrate with historical fidelity, without a poet's deceit; for far be it from a servant of Christ to utter lies. Let these arts please the nations, as worshipers of falsehood. But for us, one art is faith, and Christ is our music—He who taught a wondrous peace to concur with itself out of a once-discordant harmony, which He brought together into one body by taking on man, who mingled the kindly God with infused power, that He might found two in Himself, and render natures far distant into one. That God might be man, God was made man by Him who is God, by God the Begetter—to whom it is not grace, but nature, that He is the only heir of the most high Father, alone possessing as His own that which He grants others to have by gift, to those to whom kindly faith has granted to merit divine things.
He therefore is truly to us the author of music, He the true David, who restored the lyre of this body, long lying with rotten frame, and the Lord, by taking it up, repaired for His own use the lyre fallen silent with its strings broken by the ancient transgression; and mortals being joined to God, He made all things grow green again into the appearance of their first form, so that all might be new, the old decay departing from all. About to renew this lyre, God Himself the Master hung it, laid aside, upon the tree of His own wood, and by the Cross, with the sin of the flesh slain, He made it new. And thus He composed the mortal lyre, fitted to heavenly numbers, one out of diverse nations, joining peoples of every kind into one body.
Thence, when the strings are stirred by the plectrum of the Word, the voice of the Gospel lute fills all things with the praise of God: throughout the whole world the golden lyre of Christ resounds in countless tongues with one melody, and new songs answer God with equal strings. But let me bring my foot back to my undertaking; for it is time, and the hour is here, to offer the promised feast, to set before you the repast to be partaken chastely through attentive ears. I shall not, in what I am about to tell, fetch it from an ancient age. I shall speak of things witnessed here a few days ago. There had come hither a certain stranger from the borders of the city of Abellinum to our seat, to discharge a vow that pleased him. He had brought a pig prepared with eager care, and long deferred, that it might grow at once in years and in fattening; from here and there he had led it.
And when he arrived, he slaughtered the fat beast of his vow according to the custom of those making vows. The report of the swine had kindled a keen hunger in the mouths of the needy throng, and all, gaping with the hope of a great share, the old men stretched out their throats toward the rich banquet.
Meanwhile the needy giver divides the cut meats in unequal portions; he takes for himself the middle, the half of the head, and cooks only the inner parts of the slit belly; and he distributes to the poor only the vitals of the slaughtered pig, and leaves the whole body to keep for himself, and thinks he has fulfilled his vow, and joyful begins to return, having dared to load those remains upon his beast with him, and in these to carry home, ill-trusting, the holy pledges of the vow that pleased him—in which the same greedy man bore the soul's loss and the snare of the road. At length, presently, not even allowed to go a thousand paces on his way—the day shining, the road level, not stumbling in darkness nor tripping over rough places—he slipped from his horse, and as if fixed to the ground, rising again to stand, with strength restored, he could not, and began to cry out that his feet were bound, and to prove it as he lay, his soles as if joined by a fetter.
1:251
Hicaliudmirumcasusociaturinipso:
在這禍患本身之中，又有另一件奇事相伴而至：
Here another marvel is coupled in the very mishap:
For while a sorrowful crowd of his own kinsmen stood around him as he lay with such infirmity, the beast, upon which the pork alone remained as a load, left empty of its rider and abandoned by its driver, of its own accord, with none guiding it, reining itself in—as though it recognized the cause of the obstacle of its own will, or had seen someone forbidding the way by which it had begun to go—thus fled its journey and turned back its course, and with hastening step ran back to the hosting roof, outstripping all whom the anxious care of the fallen man held. Him—as he, with body as it were broken, strove forward and refused to advance on his stiff knees, and confessed with tearful voice both the blind bonds of his feet, and the merit of his ruin, and the cause of his punishment—a faithful band, openly in the light, with hands bearing up the sick man's heavy body, was carrying back into the holy halls, as he prayed to be brought back to the very thresholds of Felix the physician, soon there to find a sure remedy.
Him, borne by men's hands and through the throngs into the sacred courts, amid wondering crowds, the old men—arranged in a threefold company along the long benches, the pitiable multitude of the poor, and the gray-haired mothers seated in a hoary band with their companions—stood amazed. Moreover, many whom their own devotion had brought from afar to the holy buildings, from diverse shores, beheld the pious wonder, since at the same time, indeed on the same day, so marvelous a change of circumstances had occurred. The same man, who a little before had departed from these very thresholds on his own step, now is himself carried back upon another's feet, hanging with his body borne up.
On another side, sprawled out, with none of the followers tending it, the horse, even now laden with the swine's flesh, stood before the host's doors; nor had anyone better known to it stood by, whose care it might be to relieve it, weighed down by its burden, and to lead the returned animal away into the familiar dwellings. Yet it, as if filled with human reason, had stood as though seeking and forthwith awaiting its own people, keeping its footprints fixed in a sure spot, at once flicking its ear and snorting through its nostrils, seeking the known scents of accustomed men.
It was a marvel to the hosts: what was that flight, what that posture of the horse, and the strange aspect of the matter made the well-known animal a puzzle to its friends; nor was there any informant of what had befallen, while all crowded him within—him who had been carried by hands into the holy hall of the Martyr, where, sick, poured out before the holy threshold, his body cast down, and clinging with arms embracing the doorposts, as a suppliant he pressed kisses, and washed them with weeping; and recognizing himself to be the head and source of his own pain, he uttered such complaints in accusing himself: 'O wretched me, who have deserved to take up such a punishment in this seat—where, if any wretched man arrives, he is made happy!'
'But it is just, and equal to my evil merit, I confess, that I have taken and suffer destruction, that I, the guilty one, even now amid these very thresholds may be punished, burning—the fire consuming my feet at once and the pain constraining—wherein, alas, madman that I am! the offered gifts of my vow, violating faith by fraud, I turned into the loss of my salvation. Yet there is, there is something, I confess, that I can say is now changed for me, my sorrows for joys by a welcome turn, and that to my soul now beholding more prosperous things, my very punishments have begun to grow sweet, the evils being broken; out of which this very grace now comes well to me, by which it has been brought about that even now, wretched as I am, I am permitted so quickly to touch again the venerable thresholds of Felix.'
'For if no such mishap, or if a slight one, had befallen me, so that I could have pursued my seized course, then I should have been more unhappy in my prosperity: a harmful fault would have remained with me, nor should I have felt the wound driven within into the bones of my soul, with the flesh rebellious; for the vigor of an unharmed body would have hidden the peril of my wicked merit, and a hardened mind would have bound me, the inert culprit, had not punishment fettered me in my fall. Therefore, O mighty physician in the name of the Lord Christ, Felix, let this now be enough for you, and for the mighty Lord, that not anger, but piety friendly to my salvation, has brought forth this chastisement, that with the body bound, fault might be loosed: behold, by right you have drawn back the evil servant, the gluttonous runaway, with bonds cast on for his crime.'
'I am held an unhappy debtor, I am bound fast, I am scorched, set before all as a pattern of divine fear. Attend, all of you, with trembling minds, to these things which now you see me, wretched, bear as a lesson to the rest. For are any free from this error? But it pleased that in one man an example be made, by which my punishment may be a forewarning to those for whom there is no amendment. But now spare your wretched one, I pray, most excellent Felix; spare him willingly, succor him favorably: the utmost pain urges me to repeat my clamorous prayers. Be present in haste, lest death forestall the physician who tarries in haste. But I know that this hand of the Lord, which strikes, will also spare after its manner: only do you now hasten to loose, for me weary and now fainting, the chain which you, holy one, see, and I feel:'
'just as with a hidden bond, secretly and silently, you bound the limbs of the runaway, so by an invisible medicine release him who has returned.' As he was crying out such things, while he clung to the very doorposts of holy Felix, and licking them wiped them with his kisses, the pious throng beheld and heard him with astonished gatherings: he himself, lying there even now, is lifted up by hope, and chides all delays, and the slow obediences of his people, and bids the pig be brought, and presently all the portions to be given back to the poor; he asks only that he be granted to live, and to be fed by the satisfying of the needy. Eagerly his companions quickly attend to his faithful commands. They go to the known lodging; there the load is set down from the beast, the meats are cut into pieces, and the divided portions the fire cooks on others' foaming pots. The cooked meats, many in number, are brought in on wide platters.
The hunger of the needy, fully satisfied, renders grateful words to God, and asks pardon, now appeased toward the giver. Nor was there delay: at once, the reckoning of the vow being discharged, that debtor, within the framework of the deserved chain, is loosed, and his feet being restored by the Lord's mercy, like a free horse, or a bird with its nets burst, he flies forth, and runs in the likeness of a leaping stag. A wondrous truth is set before the eyes. All rejoice at the so easy mercy of God, and at the merit of Felix so prevailing, that Christ is present face to face in him, governing in both ways mightily according to men's deserts, so as to be a physician to the repentant, and an avenger to the wicked.
For behold how great was the injury of that fraud, by which the wretch had earlier divided among the needy himself, the sow, and there where he ought to have rendered the whole vow, he had snatched only the head and the entrails of the pig, and had made the remaining part of the whole body his own, imprudent and wicked man; and yet by that very fraud, by which the wretch had stood forth, he was soon made blessed, God by the scourge of His piety exchanging his fault. For such is the censure of God: thus the Arbiter, both Father and King, tempers the weights of His high judgment, that He may balance for all, by measured examination, a calm justice, and that a power, lighter, mixed with goodness, may warn the guilty before the offenders with a goad rather than destroy them with a thunderbolt, so that, if the blow of the foregoing scourge has profited, salvation may return safe to the man entrusted with it, now repenting.
But if anyone, warned by the holy terror of the scourge, refuses to feel the blow, he will depart uncured, and being preserved for death, he will feel the perfect wrath. That man, therefore, wretched before, thereafter soon himself blessed, healed by such a remedy both in flesh and in soul. But because he recognized the cause, and acknowledging himself lying there repented, by his merit he found care for himself in his own case, and in a brief space experienced both—what awaits all by just law: both the right and the work of God's peace and wrath, so that punishment as an avenger by right may await the proud guilty, and piety, taking pity, may preserve those who confess.
Therefore, his bonds being loosened, brisk in his steps, the same man—from sound, quickly made feeble, and quickly made free; from but now a captive—was returning with joyful voice, exulting like that man of old whom, lame from his mother's womb, Peter and John, by the word of the Lord, bade rise up into a leap upon strong soles. Worthy too was this poor man at the threshold of the Beautiful Gate, whom God Himself, the God of Peter and of Felix, now by the same power of His word healed among us—lately lame from a fall, even as He had healed of old one lame from the womb; by which help he now departed joyful, and he who within his wound had poured out sorrowful prayers, behold, outside, with body restored, was rendering thanks. What could I render to Felix my patron?
What thanks shall I worthily render to him for so great a gift, healed so quickly from so great a wound? I set no fee for the physician, nor endured the grim weariness of the sickbed, nor through lancets, or fires, or the harshly biting juices from various herbs—medicine more savage than diseases and wounds—did it rage upon my body, as it happens to those whom the human hand visits with suspect art, and ever, with uncertain solace, fondles them, trembling. Lo, I, now borne for a brief space to the very seat of holy Felix, and cast down upon the threshold itself—as cold as it was, broken upon the hard marble—and grieving I lay; and my only speech was that of praying, faith alone was my medicine: I saw no physician at hand, and yet I felt one.
Who is this physician, if not Christ Himself, or Felix from Christ, in the name of Christ, and mighty in His power? Neither did I perceive in that time, and yet He Himself was present in both, as though to convict me, the sinner, quickly, and to heal me, the sufferer. There was for me an equal manner, in a varied appearance, of the Lord chastising and sparing. The Healer and the Avenger lay hidden from my eyes, while punishment and remedy shone forth. Now I, with my vows accomplished in full order, will go home rejoicing, safe in my physician, secure in my patron Felix forever; no longer shall I dread any perils of the roads to meet me, as before: for peril will be absent, because the cause of peril is dissolved. Faith unloosed had bound me, and now faith, rightly loosed, has loosed me.
Yet let your love, I pray, always bind me, Felix: weave for me that chain by which neither death nor life may ever loose me from you. But let all whosoever have seen my sorrows, and have beheld in your merit the lofty hand of Christ with great tokens, know how much good my punishment has provided for them, that now they may beware to spare themselves from earthly things, and, while they grasp at gains, to acquire the losses of salvation. For if it was an evil for me to have defrauded the poor of nourishment from the cheap flesh of a beast, what too of those who embrace riches with much love, and brood upon their metals buried together with their own heart, and reveal that they hide away these superfluities, which they keep far set apart from their own use? What shall they do?
What, pray, shall they say for themselves to you, O Christ?—they who have seized the portion of so many of the needy, and have laid up for themselves no salvation from their surplus wealth. One man departs, dismissed. Now we shall set the welcome dishes of a second course upon the table; but although again we shall bring forth the same flesh, dressed with a different sauce. For another work, which Felix wondrously played out concerning a swine, I shall weave anew for you with marvelous novelty. The matter is earlier in time; but, passed over before in my little books, kept for the present time, it shall now be sung. Nor does it matter under what time the work was done; since He will be one and the same Worker through the various years, who does diverse miracles of things in the praise of His saints, in all lands—Christ.
Certain farmers from our borders, dwelling far off, tilling the Apulian fields across the city of Beneventum, picked out for themselves from the bristly herd, from among many litters, one piglet still tapping the milky teat with its tender snout, and having tended it for a long time, they fed the swine for their vows, and began, when it was ready, to lead the consecrated victim to the hall of holy Felix, that, slain, it might from its great body feed many of the needy, and the Martyr might rejoice in the satisfied poor. But the pig, heavy with grease, with the strength of its feet overborne, could not bear itself for long, and at the very first threshold of the road sank down upon itself; nor thereafter could it be moved by voice, by hand, or by goads: they left it lying, and entrusted it, abandoned, to their hosts, mourning for the Lord. The anxious mind wavers in doubt.
For their devout hearts refuse to call back the path of their vow, and again they are ashamed to make the long journey to revere the threshold of Felix empty-handed of the devoted offering. So upon their wavering minds this resolve fixed itself: that they should choose as many smaller animals from the same kind for their vows as the number of years the older one had reached — that beast which, weighed down by its own bulk, kept lying there sluggish. And so their devout faith, eager to hasten the debt owed by the binding vow, judged by this reckoning that with many modest victims it might balance the one fat one. Therefore they came to this holy place, and once their vows had been fulfilled they returned home not from far off there. For at that time, as it happened, the houses around the martyr's hall had been filled by a packed multitude with the customary throngs.