The Instructor (Paedagogus)

IN HUMAN LIFE: there are these three things: habits, actions, and passions. Habits belong to exhorting speech, which guides people to piety. Like a ship's keel, it is laid underneath to build up faith. In this, we rejoice greatly. We reject our old opinions, and through salvation we become young again, singing with the prophetic hymn, "How good is God to Israel, to those who are upright in heart!" All actions, in turn, belong to instructive speech, while persuasive speech is applied to heal the passions. Yet it is one and the same word that rescues a person from the custom of this world, in which he has been raised, and trains him in the one salvation that comes through faith in God.

WHEN: then, the heavenly guide, the Word, was inviting people to salvation, it was proper to describe Him as hortatory. This same Word was also called rousing, the whole being named from a part. For the whole of piety is exhortative, producing in the kindred faculty of reason a longing for true life, both now and in the life to come. But now, since He is at once curative and instructive, and follows in His own steps, He makes what had been prescribed a matter of persuasion, promising the cure of the passions within us. Therefore let us appropriately give this Word the one name Tutor, or Pædagogue, or Instructor.

THE INSTRUCTOR IS CONCERNED WITH PRACTICE: not theory. His purpose, then, is to make the soul better, not simply to teach it, and to train it for a virtuous life, not merely an intellectual one. Even though this same Word also teaches, that is not His role here. In matters of doctrine, the word that explains and reveals is the one whose task is to teach. But our Educator is concerned with practice. First, He urges us to gain right attitudes and character. Then He persuades us to carry out our duties with energy. He lays pure commandments on us, and for those who come afterward, He sets before them examples of people who once wandered in error. Both of these are very useful: the one given in the form of advice leading to obedience, and the one given in the form of example. This second form is itself of two kinds, matching the first twofold division. One kind aims to lead us to choose and imitate the good, and the other aims to lead us to reject and turn away from its opposite.

THEREFORE: the healing of our passions follows from the calming effect of those examples. The Instructor strengthens our souls and, by His kind commands, like gentle medicine, guides those who are sick to a perfect knowledge of the truth.

THERE IS A GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEALTH AND KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge comes through learning, but health comes through healing. A person who is sick cannot study any subject until he is completely well. The instructions given to learners and to the sick are not always spoken in the same way. They are given to the first group in a way that leads to knowledge, and to the second in a way that leads to health. So then, just as those of us who are sick in body need a physician, those who are sick in soul also need a pædagogue to cure our sicknesses. Then we need a teacher to train and guide the soul into all the knowledge it needs, once it has become able to receive the revelation of the Word. Since the all-kind Word eagerly desires to bring us to perfection, by a step-by-step order that leads to salvation and is suited for effective training, he follows a beautiful order: first he exhorts, then he trains, and finally he teaches.

NOW: my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose Son He is: sinless, blameless, and with a soul free from passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father's will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father's right hand, and who, with the form of God, is God. He is to us a spotless image. We are to try with all our might to make our souls like Him. He is wholly free from human passions. Therefore He alone is judge, because He alone is sinless. However, as far as we can, let us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent, first of all, as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the checking of our tendency to fall into sins that have become habitual. It is best, therefore, not to sin at all in any way. We say that this is the prerogative of God alone. Next is to keep clear of voluntary transgressions, which is characteristic of the wise man. Third is not to fall into many involuntary offenses, which is peculiar to those who have been excellently trained. Last is not to remain long in sins. But even this is salutary for those who are called back to repentance, so that they may renew the struggle.

AND THE INSTRUCTOR: I think, says very beautifully through Moses: “If anyone dies suddenly by him, at once the head of his consecration shall be polluted, and shall be shaved,” Numbers 6:9, designating involuntary sin as sudden death. And He says that it pollutes by defiling the soul. Therefore He prescribes the cure with all speed, advising that the head be shaved at once. That is, He counsels that the locks of ignorance which shade reason should be shorn clean off, so that reason, whose seat is in the brain, being left bare of the dense stuff of vice, may hasten its way to repentance. Then after a few remarks He adds, “The days before are not reckoned irrational,” Numbers 6:12, by which sins contrary to reason are plainly meant. He calls the involuntary act sudden. He calls the sin irrational. Therefore the Word, the Instructor, has taken charge of us in order to prevent sin, which is contrary to reason.

SO CONSIDER THIS EXPRESSION IN SCRIPTURE: "Therefore these things says the Lord." The sin that had been committed before is presented for condemnation by the following word, "therefore," and in keeping with it, righteous judgment follows. This is shown clearly by the prophets when they said, "If you had not sinned, He would not have spoken these threats." So also, "Therefore thus says the Lord," and, "Because you have not heard these words, therefore these things says the Lord," and, "Therefore, behold, the Lord says." For prophecy is given because of both obedience and disobedience: because of obedience, so that we may be saved; because of disobedience, so that we may be corrected.

THEREFORE: our Instructor, the Word, heals the unnatural passions of the soul by giving exhortations. It is very fitting that the treatment of bodily diseases is called the healing art, an art learned by human skill. But the Father’s Word is the only Paeonian physician for human weakness, and the holy charmer of the sick soul. “Save Your servant, O my God, who trusts in You. Pity me, O Lord, for I cry to You all the day.” For a time, the physician’s art, according to Democritus, heals the diseases of the body. But wisdom frees the soul from passion. Yet the good Instructor, the Wisdom, the Word of the Father, who made man, cares for the whole nature of His creature. The Savior, the fully sufficient Physician of humanity, heals both body and soul. He said to the paralyzed man, “Rise up; take the bed on which you lie, and go home.” Mark 2:11 At once the disabled man received strength. And to the dead man He said, “Lazarus, come out.” John 11:43 And the dead man came out of his coffin just as he had been before he died, after undergoing resurrection. Further, He heals the soul itself by commands and gifts. He heals by commands over time. But since He is generous in His gifts, He says to us sinners, “Your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2

WE: however, became His children as soon as He conceived the thought. By His orderly arrangement, He assigned us the best and safest place. This arrangement first extends around the world, the heavens, and the courses of the sun. It also concerns itself with the movements of the other stars for the benefit of man. Then it turns its attention to man himself, on whom all its care is focused. It regards him as its greatest work. So it ordered his soul by wisdom and self-control, and shaped the body with beauty and proper proportion. And whatever is right and orderly in human actions is the result of the inspiration of its uprightness and order.

THE LORD GIVES EVERY GOOD THING AND EVERY KIND OF HELP: both as man and as God. As God, He forgives our sins. As man, He trains us not to sin. Therefore, man is rightly dear to God, since he is God's workmanship. God made the other works of creation by His word of command alone. But He formed man Himself, with His own hand, and breathed into him what was unique to Himself. What, then, was formed by Him and after His likeness was either created by God Himself as something desirable for its own sake, or formed as something desirable for the sake of something else. If, then, man is desirable for his own sake, then He who is good loved what is good, and the charm of love is present even in man. It is that very thing which is called the inspiration, or breath, of God. But if man was desirable for the sake of something else, God had no other reason for creating him than this: unless man came into being, it was not possible for God to be a good Creator, or for man to come to know God. For God would not have accomplished that for which man was created in any other way than by creating man. And whatever hidden power God had in His will, He fully carried out by putting forth His power outwardly in the act of creation, receiving from man what He made man to be. And whom He had, He saw; and what He wished came to pass; and there is nothing that God cannot do. Man, then, whom God made, is desirable for his own sake. And what is desirable because of him is closely connected with the one for whose sake it is desirable. And this too is acceptable and loved.

But what is worthy of love and is not also loved by Him? And it has been shown that man is worthy of love. Therefore, man is loved by God. For how could the one not be loved, for whose sake the only-begotten Son was sent from the Father's bosom—the Word of faith, the faith that is overflowing? The Lord Himself plainly admits this and says, "For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me," John 16:27; and again, "And You have loved them as You have loved Me," John 17:23. Therefore, what the Master wants and declares, and how He is disposed in deed and word, how He commands what is to be done and forbids the opposite, has already been shown.

CLEARLY: then, the other kind of speech, the teaching kind, is powerful and spiritual. It is precise and concerned with thinking about mysteries. But let that wait for now. We ought to return the love of Him who lovingly leads us to the best life. And we should live according to the commands of His will. This means not only doing what is commanded, or guarding ourselves against what is forbidden, but also turning away from some examples and imitating others as much as we can. In this way, we do the works of the Master according to His likeness, and so fulfill what Scripture says about our being made in His image and likeness. For as we wander through life in deep darkness, we need a guide who cannot stumble or go astray. And our guide is the best one, not blind, as Scripture says, leading the blind into pits, Matthew 15:14. But the Word is sharp-sighted and searches the hidden places of the heart. So then, just as that is not light which does not give light, nor motion that does not move, nor loving that does not love, so also that is not good which does not help us or guide us to salvation. Therefore let us aim to fulfill the commandments by the works of the Lord. For the Word Himself also, having openly become flesh, John 1:14, showed the same virtue, both in action and in contemplation. Therefore let us regard the Word as law, and His commands and counsels as the short and straight paths to immortality. For His precepts are full of persuasion, not fear.

LET US: then, embrace this good obedience more and more, and give ourselves to the Lord. Let us hold fast to what is most certain, the cable of faith in Him, and understand that the virtue of man and woman is the same. For if the God of both is one, then the master of both is also one. There is one church, one self-control, and one modesty. Their food is shared, and marriage is an equal yoke. Breathing, sight, hearing, knowledge, hope, obedience, and love are all alike. And those whose life is shared have shared gifts and a shared salvation. Love and training are shared by them as well. For in this world, he says, "they marry, and are given in marriage," Luke 20:34. In this world alone the female is distinguished from the male. But in that world, this is no longer so. There the rewards of this social and holy life, which is founded on marriage, are stored up not for male and female, but for man, because the sexual desire that divides humanity is removed. Therefore, the name "man" is also common to both men and women. For this reason, I think the Attics called not only boys but also girls παιδάριον, using it as a word of common gender, if Menander the comic poet, in Rhapizomena, seems to anyone to be a sufficient authority, when he speaks as follows:

MY LITTLE DAUGHTER: For by nature, a child is very loving.

The word "arnes," meaning lambs, is also a common simple name for both the male and the female animal.

NOW THE LORD HIMSELF WILL FEED US AS HIS FLOCK FOREVER: Amen. But without a shepherd, neither sheep nor any other animal can live, nor can children live without a tutor, nor servants without a master.

SO THEN: that pædagogy means the training of children is clear from the word itself. It remains for us to consider which children Scripture points to, and then to place them in the care of the Pædagogue. We are the children. Scripture speaks of us with praise in many ways, and describes us with many figures of speech. It gives variety to the simplicity of the faith by using different names. So, in the Gospel, the Lord was standing on the shore and spoke to the disciples—they were fishing at the time—and called out, "Children, do you have any food?" John 21:4-5 In this way He addressed as children those who were already disciples. And it is said that they brought children to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and bless them. When His disciples tried to stop them, Jesus said, "Let the children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 19:14 The Lord Himself will explain what this means. He says, "Unless you are converted and become like little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 In that place, He is not speaking figuratively about regeneration, but is setting before us, for us to imitate, the simplicity found in children.

THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT ALSO MARKS US OUT AS CHILDREN: It is said that the children went out to meet the Lord, carrying branches of olive trees or palm trees, and crying out, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," Matthew 21:9. This means light, glory, and praise, along with a prayer to the Lord. For that is the meaning of the expression "Hosanna" when it is translated into Greek. And it seems to me that Scripture, referring to the prophecy just mentioned, sharply rebukes the thoughtless by saying, "Have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise?'" In this way, the Lord in the Gospels also stirs up His disciples and urges them to pay attention to Him, since He was hurrying to the Father. By hinting that He would leave soon, He made His hearers more eager. He showed them that they needed to make fuller and more determined use of the truth than ever before, since the Word was about to ascend into heaven. So again He calls them children, for He says, "Children, a little while I am with you," John 13:33. And again, He compares the kingdom of heaven to children sitting in the marketplaces and saying, "We have played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we have mourned, and you did not lament," and whatever else He added that fits with this. And it is not only the Gospel that teaches these things. Prophecy agrees with it too. So David says, "Praise the Lord, O children; praise the name of the Lord." And Isaiah also says, "Here am I, and the children God has given me," Isaiah 8:18. Are you surprised, then, to hear that people from the nations are sons in the sight of the Lord? If so, you do not seem to be listening to the Attic dialect. From it you may learn that beautiful, graceful, and freeborn young girls are still called παιδίσκαι, and servant girls παιδισκάρια. Even these servant girls are also called by the pleasing name of young maidens because of the bloom of youth.

AND WHEN HE SAYS: "Let my lambs stand on my right," in Matthew 25:33, He is referring to simple children. He speaks of them as sheep and lambs by nature, not as men. And He counts the lambs worthy of special honor because He values that tender and simple disposition in people which makes up innocence. Again, when He says, "as suckling calves," He is again speaking figuratively about us. And when He says, "as an innocent and gentle dove," in Matthew 10:16, this also refers to us. Again, through Moses, He commands that two young pigeons or a pair of turtledoves should be offered for sin. By this He says that the harmlessness, innocence, and gentle nature of these tender young birds are acceptable to God. He also explains that like makes atonement for like. Further, the fearfulness of the turtledoves is a symbol of fear in relation to sin.

SCRIPTURE ALSO SHOWS THAT HE CALLS US CHICKS: "As a hen gathers her chickens under her wings," Matthew 23:37. So we are the Lord's chicks. In this way, the Word wonderfully and mysteriously describes the simplicity of childhood. Sometimes He calls us children, sometimes chicks, sometimes infants, and at other times sons, and a new people, and a recent people. "And my servants shall be called by a new name," Isaiah 65:15-16. By "a new name," He means one that is fresh and eternal, pure and simple, childlike and true, "which shall be blessed on the earth." Again, He figuratively calls us colts not yoked to vice, not trained by wickedness, but simple, and leaping with joy to the Father alone. We are not like horses that neigh after their neighbors' wives, that are under the yoke and mad for females, Jeremiah 5:8. Instead, we are free and newly born, rejoicing through faith, ready to run to the truth, swift to hurry to salvation, and trampling underfoot the things of the world.

“Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion. Cry aloud, daughter of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming to you, righteous, meek, and bringing salvation. He is truly meek, and riding on a beast of burden, on a young colt.” Zechariah 9:9; Genesis 49:11 It was not enough to say only “colt.” He also added “young,” to show the youth of humanity in Christ, and the everlasting nature of simplicity, which will never grow old. And we, who are little ones and are like such colts, are raised by our divine trainer of colts. But if the new man in Scripture is represented by the ass, this ass is also a colt. “And he bound the colt to the vine,” it says, after binding this simple and childlike people to the Word, whom He figuratively presents as a vine. For the vine produces wine, just as the Word produces blood, and both are a drink that brings health to men: wine for the body, blood for the spirit.

AND THE SPIRIT: speaking through Isaiah, is a clear witness that He also calls us lambs: "He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with His arm," Isaiah 40:11. By using the figurative name "lambs," which are even more tender than sheep, He is expressing simplicity. And we too, because we honor the fairest and most perfect things in life with a name taken from the word "child," have called training paideia, and discipline paidagogia. We say that discipline, paidagogia, is the right guidance of a child toward virtue. Therefore, our Lord showed us more clearly what is meant by the name "children." When a question came up among the apostles about which of them would be greater, Jesus placed a little child in the middle and said, "Whoever humbles himself like this little child will be the greater in the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 18:4. So then, He does not call them children because of the very small amount of understanding they have at that age, as some have thought. And when He says, "Unless you become like these children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God," His words should not be understood to mean "without learning." So we, who are infants, no longer roll on the ground or crawl on the earth like serpents as we did before, dragging our whole body around in senseless lusts. Instead, we stretch upward in soul. Freed from the world and from our sins, and touching the earth only with our toes, so that we seem to be in the world, we pursue holy wisdom, although this seems like foolishness to those whose minds are sharpened for evil. Therefore, those are rightly called children who know Him who alone is God as their Father, who are simple, and infants, and guileless, and who love the horns of the unicorns.

THEREFORE: to those who have made progress in the Word, He has proclaimed this saying. He tells them to dismiss anxious care about the things of this world, and urges them to hold fast to the Father alone, in imitation of children. Therefore, in what follows He also says, “Take no anxious thought for the morrow; sufficient to the day is the evil of it.” Matthew 6:34 In this way He commands them to lay aside the cares of this life and depend on the Father alone. And the one who fulfills this commandment is truly a child and a son to God and to the world—to the one as deceived, and to the other as beloved. And if we have one Master in heaven, as the Scripture says, then those on earth will rightly be called disciples by common consent. For this is the truth: perfection is with the Lord, who is always teaching, and infancy and childishness are with us, who are always learning. Thus prophecy has honored perfection by applying to it the name “man.” For example, by David, He says of the devil, “The Lord abhors the man of blood.” He calls him “man” as one perfect in wickedness. And the Lord is called “man” because He is perfect in righteousness. Directly to the point is the example of the apostle, writing to the Corinthians, when he says, “For I have espoused you to one man, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,” 2 Corinthians 11:2 whether as children or as saints, but to the Lord alone. And in writing to the Ephesians, he has unfolded this point in the clearest way, saying, “Till we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we be no longer children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by the craft of men, by their cunning in stratagems of deceit; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up to Him in all things,” Ephesians 4:13-15. He says these things for the edification of the body of Christ, who is the head and man, the only one perfect in righteousness. And we, who are children, guard ourselves against the blasts of heresies, which blow for our inflation. And by not putting our trust in fathers who teach us otherwise, we are then made perfect, when we are the church and have received Christ the head. Then it is right to notice, with respect to the name infant, νήπιος, that τὸ νήπιον is not said of the silly. For the silly man is called νηπύτιος. And νήπιος is νεήπιος, since he that is tender-hearted is called ἤπιος, and so it means one who has newly become gentle and meek in conduct. The blessed Paul showed this most clearly when he said, “When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, we were gentle (ἤπιοι) among you, as a nurse cherishes her children.” 1 Thessalonians 2:6-7 Therefore the child, νήπιος, is gentle, ἤπιος, and therefore more tender, delicate, and simple, guileless, and without hypocrisy, straightforward and upright in mind. This is the basis of simplicity and truth. For He says, “Upon whom shall I look, but upon him who is gentle and quiet?” Isaiah 66:2 For such is virgin speech, tender and free from fraud. From where also a virgin is commonly called a tender bride, and a child tender-hearted. And we are tender when we are pliant to the power of persuasion, and are easily drawn to goodness, and are mild, and free from the stain of malice and perverseness. For the ancient race was perverse and hard-hearted. But the band of infants, the new people that we are, is delicate as a child. Because of the hearts of the innocent, the apostle says in the Epistle to the Romans that he rejoices. He also gives, so to speak, a kind of definition of children when he says, “I would have you wise toward good, but simple towards evil.” Romans 16:19 For we do not understand the name child, νήπιος, in a privative sense, although the sons of the grammarians make the νη a privative particle. For if they call us foolish because we follow after childhood, see how they utter blasphemy against the Lord, by regarding those as foolish who have gone to God. But if, which is the truer meaning, they themselves understand the name children to mean simple ones, we glory in the name. For the new minds, which have newly become wise, which have sprung into being according to the new covenant, are infantile in relation to the old folly. Of late, then, God was known by the coming of Christ: “For no man knows God but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him.” Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22

IN CONTRAST: then, to the older people, the new people are called young, because they have learned the new blessings. And in this youth, which knows no old age, we have the overflowing freshness of life's morning prime. In it we are always growing to maturity in understanding, always young, always mild, always new. For those who have become partakers of the new Word must necessarily be new. And what shares in eternity is accustomed to become like the incorruptible. So the name that belongs to us is the age of childhood, a lifelong springtime, because the truth that is in us, and our habits soaked with the truth, cannot be touched by old age. But Wisdom is always blooming, always remains consistent and the same, and never changes. It is said, "Their children will be borne upon their shoulders, and fondled on their knees; as one whom his mother comforts, so also will I comfort you." Isaiah 66:12-13 The mother draws the children to herself, and we seek our mother, the Church. Whatever is feeble and tender, since it needs help because of its weakness, is kindly looked on, and is sweet and pleasant, anger changing into help in such a case. For in this way horses' colts, and the little calves of cows, and the lion's cub, and the stag's fawn, and the child of man, are looked on with pleasure by their fathers and mothers. So also the Father of the universe cherishes affection toward those who have fled to Him. And having begotten them again by His Spirit to the adoption of children, He knows them as gentle, and loves those alone, and aids and fights for them. Therefore He bestows on them the name of child. I also connect the word Isaac with child. Isaac means laughter. He was seen sporting with his wife and helpmeet Rebecca by the prying king. Genesis 26:8 The king, whose name was Abimelech, seems to me to represent a wisdom above the world, contemplating the mystery of sport. They interpret Rebecca to mean endurance. O wise sport, with laughter also assisted by endurance, and the king as spectator! The spirit of those who are children in Christ, whose lives are ordered in endurance, rejoice. And this is the divine sport. "Such a sport, of his own, Jove sports," says Heraclitus. For what other occupation is fitting for a wise and perfect man, than to sport and be glad in the endurance of what is good, and, in the administration of what is good, to hold festival with God? What is signified by the prophet may also be interpreted differently, namely, as our rejoicing for salvation, as Isaac. He also, having been delivered from death, laughed, sporting and rejoicing with his spouse, who was the type of the Helper of our salvation, the Church, to whom the stable name of endurance is given. And surely this is for this reason: because she alone remains through all generations, always rejoicing, since she exists by the endurance of us believers, who are the members of Christ. And the witness of those who have endured to the end, and the rejoicing on their account, is the mystic sport, and the salvation accompanied with decorous solace which brings us aid.

THE KING: then, who is Christ, looks down from above on our laughter. Looking through the window, as Scripture says, He sees the thanksgiving, and the blessing, and the rejoicing, and the gladness, and also the endurance that works together with them and their embrace. He sees His Church, showing only His face, which was lacking to the Church, which is made perfect by her royal Head. Where, then, was the door through which the Lord showed Himself? It was the flesh through which He was manifested. He is Isaac, for the narrative may be interpreted in another way. He is a type of the Lord: a child as a son, for he was the son of Abraham, as Christ is the Son of God; and a sacrifice as the Lord, but he was not immolated as the Lord was. Isaac only bore the wood of the sacrifice, as the Lord bore the wood of the cross. And he laughed mystically, prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy, we who have been redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord. Isaac did everything except suffer, as was right, yielding the precedence in suffering to the Word. Furthermore, there is an intimation of the divinity of the Lord in His not being slain. For Jesus rose again after His burial, having suffered no harm, like Isaac released from sacrifice. And in defense of the point to be established, I will bring forward another consideration of the greatest weight. The Spirit calls the Lord Himself a child, thus prophesying by Isaiah: "Look, to us a child has been born, to us a son has been given, on whose own shoulder the government shall be; and His name has been called the Angel of Great Counsel." Who, then, is this infant child? He is the one according to whose image we are made little children. By the same prophet His greatness is declared: "Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; that He might fulfill His discipline: and of His peace there shall be no end." Isaiah 9:6 O the great God! O the perfect child! The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son. And how shall not the discipline of this child be perfect, which extends to all, leading as a schoolmaster us as children who are His little ones? He has stretched out to us those hands of His that are clearly worthy of trust. To this child John, the greatest prophet among those born of women, also bears additional witness: Luke 7:28 "Behold the Lamb of God!" For since Scripture calls infant children lambs, it has also called Him, God the Word, who became man for our sakes, and who wished in all points to be made like us, the Lamb of God, Him, namely, who is the Son of God, the child of the Father.

WE HAVE AMPLE MEANS OF ANSWERING THOSE WHO ARE GIVEN TO CARPING: For we are not called children and infants because our training is childish and contemptible, as those who are puffed up because of knowledge have slanderously claimed. At once, when we were regenerated, we attained that perfection for which we longed. For we were illuminated, and this is to know God. He, then, is not imperfect who knows what is perfect. And do not rebuke me when I profess to know God. For so it was considered right to speak to the Word, and He is free. For at the moment of the Lord's baptism, a voice sounded from heaven as a testimony to the Beloved: "You are My beloved Son, today have I begotten You." Let us then ask the wise, Is Christ, begotten today, already perfect, or, what would be most monstrous, imperfect? If the latter, then there is still something He needs to add. But for Him to add anything to His knowledge is absurd, since He is God. For no one can be superior to the Word, or the teacher of the only Teacher. Will they not then admit, though unwilling, that the perfect Word, born of the perfect Father, was begotten in perfection, according to divine arrangement fore-ordination? And if He was perfect, why was He, the perfect one, baptized? It was necessary, they say, to fulfill the profession that pertained to humanity. Excellent. Well then, I say, does He become perfect at the same time as His baptism by John? Clearly. Then He did not learn anything more from him? Certainly not. But is He perfected by the washing of baptism alone, and sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? So it is. The same also takes place in our case, and Christ became our example. Being baptized, we are illuminated. Being illuminated, we become sons. Being made sons, we are made perfect. Being made perfect, we are made immortal. "I," He says, "have said that you are gods, and all sons of the Highest." This work is called by various names: grace, illumination, perfection, and washing. It is called washing, because by it we cleanse away our sins. It is called grace, because by it the penalties that come from transgressions are remitted. It is called illumination, because by it that holy light of salvation is seen, that is, by it we see God clearly. Now we call that perfect which lacks nothing. For what is still lacking to the one who knows God? For it would truly be monstrous if that which is not complete should be called a gift, or act, of God's grace. Since He is perfect, He therefore gives perfect gifts. As at His command all things were made, so also when He merely wills to bestow grace, the perfecting of His grace follows. For the future of time is anticipated by the power of His will.

FURTHER FREEDOM FROM EVILS IS THE BEGINNING OF SALVATION: Then we alone, who have first touched the borders of life, are already perfect. We already live because we are separated from death. Salvation, therefore, is following Christ, for what is in Him is life. John 1:4. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My words and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life.” John 5:24. So then, faith alone, and regeneration, is perfection in life, for God is never weak. For just as His will is action, and this is called the world, so also His counsel is the salvation of men, and this has been called the church. Therefore, He knows whom He has called and whom He has saved. And at one and the same time, He called and saved them. For “you are taught of God,” says the apostle. 1 Thessalonians 4:9. It is not allowable, then, to think that what is taught by Him is imperfect. And what is learned from Him is the eternal salvation of the eternal Savior, to whom be thanks forever and ever. Amen. And the one who is only regenerated, as the name itself necessarily shows, and is enlightened, is immediately delivered from darkness, and at once receives the light.

AS: then, those who have shaken off sleep immediately become fully awake within; or rather, as those who try to remove a film over the eyes do not supply light to them from outside, which they do not possess, but by removing the obstacle from the eyes leave the pupil free; so also we who are baptized, having wiped off the sins that darken the light of the Divine Spirit, have the eye of the spirit free, unimpeded, and full of light. By this alone we contemplate the Divine, while the Holy Spirit flows down to us from above. This is the eternal adjustment of the vision, which is able to see the eternal light, since like loves like. And what is holy loves that from which holiness proceeds, which has fittingly been called light. "Once you were darkness, now you are light in the Lord." Ephesians 5:8 Hence I think that man was called by the ancients phos. But, they say, he has not yet received the perfect gift. I also agree with this. But he is in the light, and the darkness does not comprehend him. There is nothing between light and darkness. But the end is reserved until the resurrection of those who believe. And it is not the receiving of some other thing, but the obtaining of the promise made before. For we do not say that both happen together at the same time, both the arrival at the end and the anticipation of that arrival. For eternity and time are not the same, neither are the attempt and the final result. But both have reference to the same thing, and one and the same person is concerned in both. Faith, so to speak, is the attempt produced in time. The final result is the attainment of the promise, secured for eternity. Now the Lord Himself has most clearly revealed the equality of salvation when He said, "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in Him, should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day." John 6:40 As far as possible in this world, which is what he means by the last day, and which is preserved until the time when it will end, we believe that we are made perfect. Therefore He says, "He that believes in the Son has everlasting life." John 3:36 If, then, those who have believed have life, what remains beyond the possession of eternal life? Nothing is lacking in faith, since it is perfect and complete in itself. If anything is lacking in it, it is not wholly perfect. But faith is not lame in any respect. Nor after our departure from this world does it make us who have believed, and who have received without distinction the earnest of future good, wait. But having in anticipation grasped by faith what is future, after the resurrection we receive it as present, so that what was spoken may be fulfilled: "Be it according to your faith." Matthew 9:29 And where faith is, there is the promise. And the consummation of the promise is rest. So that in illumination what we receive is knowledge, and the end of knowledge is rest, the last thing conceived as the object of aspiration. As, then, inexperience comes to an end by experience, and perplexity by finding a clear outlet, so darkness must disappear by illumination. Darkness is ignorance, through which we fall into sins, half-blind toward the truth. Knowledge, then, is the illumination we receive, which makes ignorance disappear and gives us clear sight. Further, the abandonment of what is bad is the adopting of what is better. For what ignorance has badly bound is well loosed by knowledge. Those bonds are quickly slackened by human faith and divine grace, our transgressions being taken away by one Paeonian medicine, the baptism of the Word. We are washed from all our sins and are no longer entangled in evil. This is the one grace of illumination, that our characters are not the same as before our washing. And since knowledge rises up with illumination, shedding its beams around the mind, the moment we hear, we who were untaught become disciples. Does this, I ask, happen at the coming of this instruction? You cannot tell the time. For instruction leads to faith, and faith with baptism is trained by the Holy Spirit. That this faith is the one universal salvation of humanity, and that there is the same equality before the righteous and loving God, and the same fellowship between Him and all, the apostle showed most clearly when he spoke in this way: "Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed, so that the law became our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Do you not hear that we are no longer under that law which came with fear, but under the Word, the master of free choice? Then he added the statement, free from all partiality: "For you are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:26-28 There are not, then, in the same Word some illuminated people, that is, gnostics, and some natural men. But all who have abandoned the desires of the flesh are equal and spiritual before the Lord. And again he writes in another place: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and we have all drunk of one cup." 1 Corinthians 12:13 Nor would it be absurd to use the expressions of those who call the remembrance of better things the filtration of the spirit, understanding by filtration the separation of what is baser, which results from the remembrance of what is better. There necessarily follows, in the one who has come to the recollection of what is better, repentance for what is worse. Accordingly, they confess that the spirit in repentance retraces its steps. In the same way, therefore, we also, repenting of our sins, renouncing our iniquities, purified by baptism, hurry back to the eternal light, children to the Father. Jesus therefore, rejoicing in the Spirit, said, "I thank You, O Father, God of heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes." Luke 10:21 The Master and Teacher applies the name babes to us, who are readier to embrace salvation than the wise of this world, who, thinking themselves wise, are puffed up with pride. And He cries out in exultation and exceeding joy, as if lisping with the children, "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight." Luke 10:21 Therefore those things that have been hidden from the wise and prudent of this present world have been revealed to babes. Truly, then, we are the children of God, who have put aside the old man, stripped off the garment of wickedness, and put on the immortality of Christ, so that we may become a new, holy people by regeneration, and may keep the man undefiled. And a babe, as God's little one, is cleansed from fornication and wickedness. With the greatest clearness the blessed Paul has solved this question for us in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing thus: "Brothers, be not children in understanding; however, in malice be children, but in understanding be men." 1 Corinthians 14:20 And the statement, "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child," points to his manner of life under the law, according to which, thinking childish things, he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed the Word, not because he had yet reached the simplicity of childhood, but because he was in its folly. For the word nepion has two meanings. "When I became a man," Paul says again, "I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11 It is not incomplete bodily size, nor a fixed measure of time, nor added secret teachings in things that are manly and more perfect, that the apostle, who himself professes to be a preacher of childishness, refers to when he sends it, as it were, into banishment. But he applies the name children to those who are under the law, who are frightened by fear as children are by bugbears; and men to us who are obedient to the Word and masters of ourselves, who have believed, and are saved by voluntary choice, and are rationally, not irrationally, frightened by terror. Of this the apostle himself shall testify, since he calls the Jews heirs according to the first covenant, and us heirs according to promise: "Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a servant, though he is lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, until the time appointed by the father. So also we, when we were children, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" Galatians 4:1-5 by Him. See how he has admitted those under fear and sins to be children, but has given manhood to those under faith by calling them sons, in contrast with the children who are under the law: "For you are no more a servant," he says, "but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." Galatians 4:7 What, then, is lacking to the son after inheritance? Therefore the statement, "When I was a child," may be elegantly explained in this way: that is, when I was a Jew, for he was a Hebrew by descent, I thought as a child, when I followed the law. But after becoming a man, I no longer entertain the sentiments of a child, that is, of the law, but of a man, that is, of Christ, whom alone the Scripture calls man, as we said before. "I put away childish things." But the childhood that is in Christ is maturity compared with the law. Having come to this point, we must defend our childhood. And we still have to explain what is said by the apostle: "I have fed you with milk (as children in Christ), not with meat; for you were not able, neither yet are you now able." 1 Corinthians 3:2 For it does not seem to me that the statement should be taken in a Jewish sense. For I will set against it this Scripture also: "I will bring you into that good land which flows with milk and honey." Exodus 3:8 A very great difficulty arises when we compare these Scriptures. For if the infancy marked by milk is the beginning of faith in Christ, then it is spoken of as childish and imperfect. How is the rest that comes after the meat, the rest of the man who is perfect and endowed with knowledge, again marked by infant milk? Does not this, as the explanation of a figure, mean something like this? And should not the statement be read somewhat in this way: "I have fed you with milk in Christ"; and after a slight pause, let us add, "as children," so that by separating the words in reading we may get some such sense as this: I have instructed you in Christ with simple, true, and natural nourishment, namely, that which is spiritual. For such is the nourishing substance of milk swelling out from breasts of love. So that the whole matter may be understood in this way: As nurses nourish newborn children with milk, so do I also by the Word, the milk of Christ, instilling into you spiritual nourishment.

SO THEN: the milk that is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that completion which cannot cease. Therefore the same milk and honey were also promised in the rest. Rightly, then, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, so that it may be clearly shown that the Word is both the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, Revelation 1:8, the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Homer too, in an oracle-like way and against his will, says something like this when he calls righteous men “milk-fed.” So too we may understand the Scripture: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal people, as to babes in Christ,” 1 Corinthians 3:1, so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. For he called those who had already believed in the Holy Spirit spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal. He rightly still calls them carnal, since, like the heathen, they also mind the things of the flesh: “For whereas there is among you envy and strife, are you not carnal, and walk as men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3. Therefore also, “I have given you milk to drink,” he says, meaning, “I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to eternal life.” But the expression, “I have given you to drink,” is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. For the Lord says, “My blood is true drink.” John 6:55. In saying, therefore, “I have given you milk to drink,” has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next, “not meat, for you were not able,” may indicate the clear revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. For now we see as through a glass, the same apostle says, but then face to face. 1 Corinthians 13:12. Therefore he has also added, “Neither yet are you now able, for you are still carnal,” minding the things of the flesh — desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath, envy. For we are no more in the flesh, Romans 8:9, as some suppose. For with it, they say, having the face which is like an angel's, we shall see the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise after our departure from here, do they say that they know what eye has not known, nor has entered into the mind of man, though they have not perceived by the Spirit, but received from instruction what ear has not heard, or that ear alone which was caught up into the third heaven? But even then it was commanded to keep it unspoken.

BUT IF HUMAN WISDOM: properly understood, means glorying in knowledge, then hear the rule of Scripture: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him who glories glory in the Lord.” But we are taught by God, and we glory in the name of Christ. So then, should we not understand the apostle to be giving this meaning to the milk of babes? And if we who lead the churches are shepherds after the pattern of the good Shepherd, and you are the sheep, should we not understand the Lord to be speaking consistently in figurative language when He also speaks of the milk of the flock? And we may also apply the words in a second way: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able.” We should not think the meat is something different from the milk, but the same in substance. For the very same Word is flowing and gentle like milk, or solid and firm like meat. If we take this view, we may understand the preaching of the Gospel, which is spread everywhere, as milk; and faith as meat, because faith is built from instruction into a foundation. Since it is more substantial than hearing, it is compared to meat, and it makes nourishment of this kind part of the soul itself. Elsewhere, in the Gospel according to John, the Lord showed this by symbols when He said, “Eat my flesh, and drink my blood,” John 6:34. By metaphor He clearly described the drinkable nature of faith and of the promise. By these, the Church, like a human being made up of many members, is refreshed and grows. It is joined together and made firm out of both: faith, which is the body, and hope, which is the soul, just as the Lord is of flesh and blood. For in truth the blood of faith is hope, by which faith is held together like a life-giving principle. And when hope dies out, it is as if blood has flowed away, and the life of faith is destroyed. If, then, some object and say that milk means the first lessons, like first food, and that meat means those spiritual understandings that they reach by lifting themselves up to knowledge, let them understand this: when they say that meat is solid food, and the flesh and blood of Jesus, their own vain wisdom brings them to the true simplicity. For blood is found to be a primary product in man, and for this reason some have dared to call it the substance of the soul. And this blood, changed by a natural process in the mother during pregnancy, through the mutual affection of parent and child, blossoms and matures so that there may be no fear for the child. Blood also is the wetter part of flesh, being a kind of liquid flesh; and milk is the sweeter and finer part of blood. For whether it is the blood supplied to the baby in the womb and sent through the mother's navel, or whether it is the monthly flow itself, stopped from its usual course and, by a natural spreading directed by God, who nourishes and creates all things, carried to the already swelling breasts and changed by the heat of the spirits, whichever of these it may be, what is formed into food fit for the baby is blood that has been changed. For of all the body’s members, the breasts have the closest connection with the womb. When childbirth takes place, the vessel by which blood was carried to the baby in the womb is cut off. The flow is blocked, and the blood is driven toward the breasts. When a large amount rushes there, they swell and change the blood into milk, in a way similar to how blood turns into pus in an ulcer. Or, on the other hand, if the blood from the veins near the breasts, which were opened during pregnancy, is poured into the natural hollows of the breasts, and the spirit released from the nearby arteries is mixed with it, then the substance of the blood, while still remaining pure, becomes white as it is stirred like a wave. By this interruption it is changed through frothing, like what happens with the sea, which, when struck by the winds, the poets say throws out salty foam. Yet even then, the substance still comes from the blood.

IN THE SAME WAY: rivers, carried along in a rushing flow and stirred by contact with the surrounding air, murmur and produce foam. The moisture in our mouth also is made white by the breath. So then, how absurd it is not to admit that blood is changed by the breath into that very bright and white substance. The change it undergoes is in quality, not in essence. You will certainly find nothing else more nourishing, sweeter, or whiter than milk. In every way, then, it is like spiritual nourishment, which is sweet through grace, nourishing like life, and bright like the day of Christ.

THE BLOOD OF THE WORD HAS ALSO BEEN SHOWN AS MILK: Milk is provided in childbirth and given to the baby. The breasts, which until then faced toward the husband, now bend down toward the child. In this way, they are taught to provide the substance prepared by nature in a form that can be easily received as healthy nourishment. The breasts are not like fountains full of milk, flowing with it already prepared. Instead, by changing the nourishment taken in, they make the milk within themselves and then release it. God, the nourisher and Father of all who are born and born again, prepares the nourishment that is fitting and health-giving for the newly formed and newborn child. In the same way, manna, the heavenly food of angels, came down from heaven upon the ancient Hebrews. Even now, nurses actually call the first milk that is poured out by the same name as that food: manna. Further, when pregnant women become mothers, they produce milk. But the Lord Christ, the fruit of the Virgin, did not declare women's breasts blessed or choose them to give nourishment. Instead, when the kind and loving Father rained down the Word, He Himself became spiritual nourishment for the good. O mysterious wonder! The Father of all is one, and the one Word is for all. The Holy Spirit also is one and the same everywhere. And there is one only virgin mother. I love to call her the Church. This mother, when she was alone, had no milk, because by herself she was not a woman. But she is both virgin and mother at once—pure as a virgin, loving as a mother. Calling her children to herself, she nurses them with holy milk, that is, with the Word for childhood. Therefore she had no milk, because the milk was this beautiful and lovely child, the body of Christ. By the Word, this body nourishes the young brood, whom the Lord Himself brought forth through the pains of the flesh, and whom the Lord Himself wrapped in His precious blood. O astonishing birth! O holy swaddling cloths! The Word is everything to the child: father, mother, teacher, and nurse. "Eat my flesh," He says, "and drink my blood." John 6:53-54 This is the fitting food that the Lord gives. He offers His flesh and pours out His blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of the children. O amazing mystery! We are commanded to throw off the old and fleshly corruption, as well as the old nourishment, and to receive in exchange another new way of life, that of Christ. We are to receive Him, if we are able, and hide Him within us, so that, by placing the Saviour within our souls, we may correct the desires of our flesh.

BUT YOU ARE NOT INCLINED TO UNDERSTAND IT IN THIS WAY: and perhaps you take it in a more general sense. Hear it in this way also. The flesh figuratively represents the Holy Spirit to us, for the flesh was created by Him. The blood points us to the Word, for the Word, like rich blood, has been poured into life. And the union of both is the Lord, the food of infants — the Lord who is Spirit and Word. This food, that is, the Lord Jesus, is the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh, the heavenly flesh made holy. The nourishment is the Father's milk, by which alone we infants are fed. The Word Himself, then, the beloved One and the One who nourishes us, has shed His own blood for us to save humanity. And through Him, we who believe in God flee to the Word, the Father's breast that soothes our cares. And He alone, as is fitting, gives us children the milk of love. And only those who drink from this breast are truly blessed. Therefore Peter also says, "Laying aside all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the milk of the word, so that by it you may grow to salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is Christ." And if someone were to grant them that solid food was something different from milk, then how would they avoid being impaled on their own spit, because they failed to think carefully about nature? For in winter, when the air is dense and keeps the enclosed heat from escaping, the food, after being changed, digested, and turned into blood, passes into the veins. Then, because there is no outward release, the veins become greatly swollen and show strong pulsations. As a result, nurses then have the most milk. And we showed a little earlier that during pregnancy blood is changed into milk by a change that does not affect its substance, just as yellow hair in old people turns gray. But again in summer, because the body's pores are more open, food more easily passes off through sweating, and milk is least abundant, since the blood is not full and the whole nourishment is not retained. If, then, the digestion of food results in the production of blood, and blood becomes milk, then blood is a preparation for milk, just as blood is for human beings, and the grape for the vine. So then, with milk, the Lord's nourishment, we are fed from the moment we are born. And as soon as we are born again, we are honored by receiving the good news of the hope of rest, that is, the Jerusalem above, where it is written that milk and honey rain down in showers. Through material things, this receives the pledge of the sacred food. For foods are done away with, as the apostle himself says in 1 Corinthians 6:13. But this nourishment of milk leads to heaven, raising up citizens of heaven and members of the angelic choirs. And since the Word is the overflowing fountain of life and has been called a river of olive oil, Paul, using fitting figurative language and calling Him milk, adds, "I have given you to drink," in 1 Corinthians 3:2. For we drink in the word, the nourishment of the truth. In fact, liquid food is also called drink. And the same thing can somehow be both food and drink, depending on the different ways it is viewed, just as cheese is milk made solid, or solidified milk. For I am not concerned here with making a precise choice of wording, but only with saying that one substance provides both kinds of nourishment. Besides, for nursing children, milk alone is enough. It serves as both food and drink. "I have food to eat that you do not know of," says the Lord. "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me," in John 4:32-34. You see another kind of food that, like milk, figuratively represents the will of God. Also, He called the completion of His own suffering a cup, using the term in an extended sense, when He alone had to drink it and drain it. Thus, for Christ, the fulfilling of His Father's will was food. And for us infants, who drink the milk of the word of heaven, Christ Himself is food. Therefore seeking is called sucking, for to those infants who seek the Word, the Father's breasts of love supply milk.

FURTHER: the Word declares that He Himself is the bread of heaven. For He says, "Moses did not give you that bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Here the mystery of the bread should be noted, since He speaks of it as flesh, and therefore as flesh that has risen through fire, just as wheat springs up out of decay and germination. And truly, it has risen through fire for the joy of the Church, like bread that is baked. But this will be shown more clearly a little later in the chapter on the resurrection. But since He said, "And the bread that I will give is My flesh," and since flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively called wine, we are instructed to understand that, just as bread, crumbled into a mixture of wine and water, takes in the wine and leaves the watery part, so also the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven, absorbs the blood. That is, it takes in those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them to immortality, and leaves only the desires of the flesh for destruction.

SO: in many ways, the Word is described figuratively as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord is all these things, so that He may give delight to us who have believed in Him. Then let no one think it strange when we say that the Lord's blood is represented figuratively as milk. For is it not also represented figuratively as wine? "He washes His garment in wine, His robe in the blood of the grape." Genesis 49:11. By His own Spirit, He says that He will clothe the body of the Word. And just as surely, by His own Spirit He will nourish those who hunger for the Word.

THAT THE BLOOD IS THE WORD IS SHOWN BY THE BLOOD OF ABEL: the righteous man, as it pleads with God. For blood would never have spoken with a voice unless it were understood as the Word. The righteous man of old is a type of the new righteous one. And the old blood that pleaded now pleads in place of the new blood. And the blood that is the Word cries out to God, since it showed that the Word was going to suffer.

FURTHER: this flesh, and the blood in it, are moistened and increased by the milk through a mutual connection. And in conception, the process of forming the seed follows when it has mixed with the pure remainder of the menstrual flow that is left. For the power in the seed thickens the substances of the blood, just as rennet curdles milk, and so brings about the essential part of the forming process. A proper mixture leads to fruitfulness. But extremes work against it and lead to sterility. For when the earth itself is flooded by too much rain, the seed is washed away. But because of too little rain, it dries up. But when the moisture is thick, it holds the seed and makes it sprout. Some also propose the theory that the seed of an animal is, in substance, the foam of the blood. They say that, when it is stirred and shaken into foam by the male's natural heat, it is deposited in the seminal veins. For Diogenes Apollionates holds that from this the word aphrodisia is derived.

FROM ALL THIS: it is clear that blood is the basic substance of the human body. The contents of the stomach also are at first milky, a thickening of fluid. Then that same thickened substance is changed into blood. But when it is formed into a solid state in the womb by the natural and warm spirit through which the embryo is shaped, it becomes a living creature. Further, after birth, the child is nourished by that same blood. For the flow of milk comes from the blood, and milk is the source of nourishment. By it, a woman is shown to have given birth to a child and to be truly a mother. By it also, she receives a strong bond of affection. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says in a mystery, "I have given you milk to drink," 1 Corinthians 3:2. For if we have been regenerated to Christ, He who has regenerated us nourishes us with His own milk, the Word. For it is fitting that what has brought forth should at once provide nourishment to what has been brought forth. And just as regeneration was spiritual, so also the nourishment of man was spiritual. Therefore, in every respect and in all things, we are brought into union with Christ, into relationship through His blood, by which we are redeemed, and into sympathy because of the nourishment that flows from the Word, and into immortality through His guidance:

AMONG PEOPLE: raising children often creates stronger feelings of love than having them does.

THEREFORE: the same blood and milk of the Lord are the symbol of the Lord's suffering and teaching. Therefore, each of us little children is allowed to boast in the Lord, while we proclaim:

YET I BOAST THAT I AM DESCENDED FROM A NOBLE FATHER AND NOBLE BLOOD:

IT IS ALREADY CLEAR THAT MILK IS MADE FROM BLOOD BY A CHANGE: Still, we can also learn this from flocks and herds. During the season of the year that we call spring, the air has more moisture, and the grass and meadows are rich and wet. Then these animals are first filled with blood, as the swelling of their veins shows in their enlarged vessels. And from that blood, milk flows more abundantly. But in summer, when the blood is burned and dried up by the heat, it prevents this change. So they have less milk.

FURTHER: milk naturally goes very well with water, just as the spiritual washing surely goes with spiritual nourishment. Therefore, those who drink a little cold water along with the milk mentioned above immediately feel the benefit. The milk is kept from turning sour when it is mixed with water, not because they oppose each other, but because the water agrees well with the milk while it is being digested.

AND THE UNION OF THE WORD WITH BAPTISM IS LIKE THE WAY MILK AGREES WITH WATER: Of all liquids, milk receives water alone and allows itself to be mixed with water for cleansing, just as baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. And milk is also naturally mixed with honey, and this is for cleansing along with sweet nourishment. In the same way, the Word blended with love both heals our passions and cleanses our sins; and the saying,

THE FLOW OF SPEECH WAS SWEETER THAN HONEY:

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS WAS SPOKEN ABOUT THE WORD: who is honey. And prophecy often praises Him above honey and the honeycomb.

FURTHERMORE: milk is mixed with sweet wine, and the mixture is helpful, just as suffering is mixed in the cup for immortality. For the milk is curdled by the wine and separated, and whatever impurity is in it is drained off. In the same way, the spiritual sharing of faith with a suffering person draws off the lusts of the flesh like watery fluid, and places man into eternity along with those who are divine, making him immortal.

FURTHER: many also use the fat of milk, called butter, for the lamp. By this enigma they plainly indicate the abundant unction of the Word, since He alone nourishes the infants, makes them grow, and enlightens them. Therefore Scripture also says about the Lord, "He fed them with the produce of the fields; they sucked honey from the rock, and oil from the solid rock, butter of cattle, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs," Deuteronomy 32:13-14, and what follows He gave them. But he who prophesies the birth of the child says, "Butter and honey shall He eat." Isaiah 7:15 And it occurs to me to wonder how some dare call themselves perfect and gnostics, with ideas of themselves above the apostle, inflated and boastful, when Paul even said about himself, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect; but I follow after, if I may apprehend that for which Christ took hold of me. Brothers, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I do: forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth to those that are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14 And yet he counts himself perfect, because he has been emancipated from his former life, and strives after the better life, not as perfect in knowledge, but as aspiring after perfection. Therefore he also adds, "As many of us as are perfect, are thus minded," Philippians 3:15, clearly describing perfection as the renunciation of sin, and regeneration into the faith of the only perfect One, and forgetting our former sins.

SINCE: then, we have shown from Scripture that all of us are called children, and not only that, but also that we who have followed Christ are figuratively called babies, and that the Father of all alone is perfect, because the Son is in Him and the Father is in the Son, it is now time for us, in proper order, to say who our Instructor is.

HE IS CALLED JESUS: Sometimes He calls Himself a shepherd and says, "I am the good Shepherd," in John 10:11. By a metaphor taken from shepherds, who lead sheep, this means the Instructor who leads the children — the Shepherd who cares for the little ones. For the little ones are simple, and are figuratively described as sheep. And, as it is said, "they shall all be one flock, and one shepherd," in John 10:16. Therefore the Word, who leads the children to salvation, is rightly called the Instructor, or Pædagogue.

ACCORDINGLY: the Word has spoken about Himself with the greatest clarity through Hosea: "I am your Instructor." Now piety is instruction. It is learning how to serve God, training in the knowledge of the truth, and right guidance that leads to heaven. And the word "instruction" is used in different ways. It can mean the instruction of the person who is being led and taught. It can also mean the instruction of the one who leads and teaches. Third, it can mean the guidance itself. Fourth, it can mean what is taught, such as the commandments that are given.

NOW: the instruction that comes from God is the right guidance of truth toward knowing God, and it is the showing of holy actions with everlasting perseverance.

SO: just as a general leads the phalanx with concern for the safety of his soldiers, and a pilot steers a ship because he wants to save the passengers, in the same way the Instructor leads children into a way of life that brings salvation because He cares for us. In general, whatever we reasonably ask God to do for us will happen for those who believe in the Instructor. And just as the helmsman does not always give in to the winds, but sometimes turns the bow toward them and resists the full force of the storms, so the Instructor never gives in to the forces blowing through this world. He does not hand the child over to them, like a ship sent into wreck on a wild and uncontrolled way of life. Instead, carried along by the favorable breeze of the Spirit of truth, He firmly keeps hold of the child's helm — I mean his ears — until He brings him safely to anchor in the harbor of heaven.

WHAT PEOPLE CALL AN ANCESTRAL CUSTOM PASSES AWAY IN A MOMENT: but divine guidance is a possession that lasts forever.

They say that Phoenix was Achilles’ teacher, and Adrastus taught the children of Croesus; Leonides taught Alexander, and Nausithous taught Philip. But Phoenix was crazy about women, and Adrastus was a fugitive. Leonides did not restrain Alexander’s pride, and Nausithous did not reform the drunken man from Pella. In the same way, the Thracian Zopyrus was not able to stop the sexual immorality of Alcibiades. But Zopyrus was a purchased slave, and Sicinnus, the tutor of the children of Themistocles, was a lazy household servant. They also say that he invented the Sicinnian dance. We have not overlooked those who are called royal instructors among the Persians. The kings of the Persians, with the greatest care, choose four of them from all the Persians and appoint them over their sons. But the children learn only the use of the bow, and when they reach adulthood, they have sexual relations with sisters, mothers, and women of countless kinds, both wives and courtesans, practicing intercourse like wild boars.

BUT OUR INSTRUCTOR IS THE HOLY GOD JESUS: the Word, who guides all humanity. God Himself, in His love, is our Instructor. Somewhere in a song, the Holy Spirit says about Him, "He provided sufficiently for the people in the wilderness. He led him around in the thirst of summer heat, in a dry land, and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of His eye, as an eagle protects her nest, and shows her loving care for her young, spreads out her wings, takes them, and carries them on her back. The Lord alone led them, and there was no strange god with them." Deuteronomy 32:10-12 Clearly, I think, Scripture has shown the Instructor in the account it gives of His guidance.

AGAIN: when He speaks in His own person, He admits that He Himself is the Instructor: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Exodus 20:2 Who, then, has the power to lead out and bring in? Is it not the Instructor? This was He who appeared to Abraham and said to him, "I am your God; be accepted before Me." Genesis 17:1-2 And, in a way most fitting for an instructor, He shapes him into a faithful child by saying, "And be blameless; and I will make My covenant between Me and you, and your seed." There is the sharing of the Instructor's friendship. And He appears very clearly as Jacob's instructor. He says to him, "Look, I am with you, to keep you in every way you shall go; and I will bring you back into this land. For I will not leave you until I do what I have told you." Genesis 28:15 He is also said to have wrestled with him. "And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled with him a man"—the Instructor—"until the morning." Genesis 32:24 This was the man who led, and brought, and wrestled with, and anointed the athlete Jacob against evil. Now this shows that the Word was both Jacob's trainer and the Instructor of humanity. It is said that Jacob asked His name and said to Him, "Tell me what is Your name?" And He said to him, "Why is it that you ask My name?" For He kept the new name for the new people—the child—and was still unnamed, since the Lord God had not yet become man. Yet Jacob called the name of the place "Face of God." For, he says, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." Genesis 32:30 The face of God is the Word, by whom God is shown and made known. Then he was also named Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the Instructor, who said to him again afterward, "Do not fear to go down into Egypt." Genesis 46:3 See how the Instructor follows the righteous man, and how He anoints the athlete, teaching him to trip up his opponent.

HE IS ALSO THE ONE WHO TEACHES MOSES TO ACT AS A TEACHER: For the Lord says, "If anyone sins before Me, I will blot him out of My book. But now, go and lead this people to the place I told you about." Exodus 32:33-34 Here He is the teacher of the art of teaching. For it was truly the Lord who taught the ancient people through Moses. But He teaches the new people by Himself, face to face. For look, He says to Moses, "My angel shall go before you," showing the gospel-bringing and commanding power of the Word, while still guarding the Lord's own prerogative. "In the day on which I will visit them," Exodus 32:33-34 He says, "I will bring their sins on them." That is, on the day when I sit as judge, I will repay them for their sins. For the same one who is Instructor is also judge, and He judges those who disobey Him. And the loving Word will not pass over their sin in silence. He corrects them so that they may repent. For the Lord desires the sinner's repentance rather than his death. And let us, like little children, hear about the sins of others and keep away from similar sins, because we fear the warning, so that we may not suffer in the same way. What, then, was the sin they committed? "For in their wrath they slew men, and in their impetuosity they hamstrung bulls. Cursed be their anger." Genesis 49:6 Who, then, would train us more lovingly than He? In former times, the older people had an old covenant, and the law trained the people by fear, and the Word was an angel. But to the fresh and new people, a new covenant has also been given, and the Word has appeared, and fear has been turned into love, and that mystic angel has been born: Jesus. For this same Instructor said then, "You shall fear the Lord God." Deuteronomy 6:2 But to us He has given this exhortation: "You shall love the Lord your God." Matthew 22:37 Therefore this also is commanded to us: "Cease from your own works," from your old sins. "Learn to do well." "Depart from evil, and do good." "You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity." This is my new covenant written in the old letter. So, the newness of the word must not be made a reason for reproach. But the Lord also said in Jeremiah, "Do not say, 'I am a youth.' Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before I brought you out of the womb I sanctified you." Jeremiah 1:7 Prophecy can make such references to us, who in God's sight were appointed to faith before the foundation of the world, but are now babes because of the recent fulfillment of the will of God, according to which we are now born to calling and salvation. Therefore He also adds, "I have set you for a prophet to the nations," Jeremiah 1:5 saying that he must prophesy, so that the name of youth should not become a reproach to those who are called babes.

NOW THE LAW IS ANCIENT GRACE GIVEN THROUGH MOSES BY THE WORD: Therefore Scripture also says, "The law was given through Moses," in John 1:17. It was not by Moses, but by the Word, and through Moses His servant. Therefore it was only temporary. But eternal grace and truth were by Jesus Christ. Notice the words of Scripture. Only the law is described with the words "was given." But truth, being the grace of the Father, is the eternal work of the Word. And it is not said to be given, but to be by Jesus, without whom nothing was, as John 1:3 says. Therefore Moses, speaking prophetically and giving place to the perfect Instructor, the Word, predicts both the name and the office of the Instructor. And by committing to the people the commands of obedience, he sets the Instructor before them. "A prophet," he says, "like me shall God raise up to you of your brothers," pointing out Jesus the Son of God by an allusion to Jesus the son of Nun. For the name of Jesus, predicted in the law, was a shadow of Christ. Therefore he adds, for the advantage of the people, "Him you shall hear," in Deuteronomy 18:15. And he warns that the man who will not hear that Prophet will face God's threat, in Deuteronomy 18:19. Such a name, then, he predicts as the name of the Instructor, who is the author of salvation. Therefore prophecy gives Him a rod, a rod of discipline, of rule, of authority. Those whom the persuasive word does not heal, the threatening may heal. Those whom the threatening does not heal, the rod may heal. And those whom the rod does not heal, the fire may devour. "There shall come forth," it says, "a rod out of the root of Jesse."

SEE THE CARE: wisdom, and power of the Instructor. He will not judge by opinion or by what He hears reported. Instead, He will give judgment to the humble and correct the sinners of the earth. And through David He says, "The Lord has surely disciplined me, and He has not handed me over to death." For when the Lord disciplines and instructs a person, it is deliverance from death. And through the same prophet He says, "You shall rule them with a rod of iron." In the same way, the apostle also, moved in his letter to the Corinthians, says, "What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, in a spirit of meekness?" 1 Corinthians 4:21 Also, through another prophet He says, "The Lord shall send the rod of strength out of Sion." And this same rod of instruction is meant in the words, "Your rod and staff have comforted me," as someone else said. Such is the power of the Instructor: sacred, gentle, and saving.

AT THIS POINT: some people stand up and say that the Lord is not good because of the rod, the threats, and fear. But they clearly misunderstand the Scripture that says, "And he that fears the Lord will turn to his heart," Sirach 21:6. Most of all, they forget His love, shown in this: for our sake He became man. In words more fitting for Him, the prophet prays like this: "Remember us, for we are dust." That is, "Have sympathy for us," for You know by personal experience of suffering the weakness of the flesh. In this way, then, the Lord, the Instructor, is completely good and beyond reproach, because through the greatness of His love He sympathizes with the nature of each person. For there is nothing that the Lord hates, Wisdom 11:24. Certainly He does not hate anything and yet want what He hates to exist. Nor does He want anything not to exist, and yet become the cause of existence for what He does not want to exist. Nor does He want anything not to exist that nevertheless does exist. If, then, the Word hates anything, He does not want it to exist. But nothing exists unless God supplies the cause of its existence. Therefore, nothing is hated by God, nor by the Word. For both are one, that is, God. For He has said, "In the beginning the Word was in God, and the Word was God," John 1:1. If, then, He hates none of the things He has made, it follows that He loves them. Even more than the rest, and rightly so, He will love man, the noblest of all the things created by Him, and a being who loves God. Therefore God is loving; and so the Word is loving.

BUT ANYONE WHO LOVES SOMETHING WANTS TO DO GOOD TO IT: And what does good must in every way be better than what does not do good. But nothing is better than the Good. So the Good does good. And God is acknowledged to be good. Therefore God does good. And the Good, because it is good, does nothing except do good. So God does every good thing. And He does no good to man without caring for him, and He does not care for him without taking care of him. For what does good on purpose is better than what does not do good on purpose. But nothing is better than God. And to do good on purpose is nothing other than to take care of man. Therefore God cares for man and takes care of him. And He shows this in practice by instructing him through the Word, who is the true helper of God's love for man. But the good is not said to be good because it possesses virtue, just as righteousness is not said to be good because it possesses virtue—for it is itself virtue—but because it is in itself and by itself good.

IN ANOTHER SENSE: what is useful is called good, not because it is pleasing, but because it does good. Therefore, everything that is righteousness is a good thing. It is good both as a virtue and as something desirable for its own sake, and not because it gives pleasure. For righteousness does not judge in order to win favor, but gives to each person according to what he deserves. And what is beneficial follows what is useful. Therefore, righteousness has qualities that match all the ways in which goodness is examined, since both have the same properties in the same way. And things that have the same properties are equal and similar to each other. Therefore, righteousness is a good thing.

THEN HOW: they ask, if the Lord loves humanity and is good, is He angry and does He punish? We must therefore speak about this as briefly as possible. This way of dealing with the subject helps properly train children, because it serves as a necessary aid. For many of the passions are cured by punishment, and by teaching stricter commands, and also by instruction in certain principles. For reproof is like surgery for the passions of the soul; and the passions are like an abscess on the truth, which must be cut open by the incision of the lancet of reproof.

REPROOF IS LIKE APPLYING MEDICINE: It softens the hard, calloused parts made by the passions, and cleans away the impurities of a lustful life. It also cuts down the overgrowth of pride, and restores the person to the healthy and true condition of humanity.

ADMONITION IS: so to speak, the treatment for a sick soul. It tells the soul what it must receive, and forbids what it must not receive. And all these things lead to salvation and eternal health.

FURTHERMORE: when an army commander punishes offenders with fines, physical punishment, chains, and the deepest disgrace, and sometimes even puts some individuals to death, he is aiming at what is good. He does this as a warning to the officers under him.

IN THE SAME WAY: he who is our great General, the Word, the Commander-in-Chief of the universe, warns those who cast off the restraints of his law, so that he may set them free from the slavery, error, and captivity of the adversary, and bring them in peace into the sacred harmony of citizenship.

THEREFORE: besides persuasive speech, there are also forms that urge and comfort. In the same way, besides praise, there are also blame and reproach. This last kind is the art of correction. Now correction is a sign of goodwill, not ill will. Both a friend and a person who is not a friend may reproach someone. But an enemy does it with contempt, while a friend does it with kindness. So the Lord does not rebuke people out of hatred. He Himself suffered for us, though He could have destroyed us for our sins. Because the Instructor is good, He also, with perfect skill, moves into correction through rebuke. By His sharp words, as with a whip, He stirs up the laziness of the mind. Then, in turn, He tries to encourage those same people. For those who are not led by praise are driven on by correction. And those whom correction does not call out to salvation, as if they were dead, are awakened to the truth by denunciation. For the blows and correction of wisdom are at all times. For teaching a fool is like gluing a broken piece of pottery together, and trying to sharpen a senseless hopeless fool into understanding is like making earth feel. Sirach 22:6-8 Therefore He adds this clearly, waking the sleeper from deep sleep, which more than anything else is most like death.

FURTHER: the Lord shows this very clearly about Himself when He describes, in a figure, His rich and many-sided care that is useful in many ways. He says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." Then He adds, "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, so that it may bring forth more fruit." John 15:1-2 For a vine that is not pruned grows into wood. So it is with man also. The Word, the knife, cuts away the wild shoots. He forces the impulses of the soul to bear fruit, not to give themselves over to lust. Now, rebuke spoken to sinners aims at their salvation, the word being fitted in harmony to each person's conduct, now with cords pulled tight, and now with cords loosened. Accordingly, Moses said very plainly, "Be of good courage. God has drawn near to test you, so that His fear may be among you, so that you may not sin." Exodus 20:20 And Plato, who had learned from this source, says beautifully, "For all who suffer punishment are in reality treated well, for they are benefited, since the spirit of those who are justly punished is improved." And if those who are corrected receive good from justice, and if, according to Plato, what is just is recognized as good, then fear itself also does good and has been found to be for the good of men. "For the soul that fears the Lord shall live, for their hope is in Him who saves them." Sirach 34:14-15 And this same Word who gives punishment is judge. About Him Isaiah also says, "The Lord has assigned Him to our sins," Isaiah 53:6 clearly meaning Him as a corrector and reformer of sins. Therefore He alone is able to forgive our sins, because He has been appointed by the Father as the Instructor of us all. He alone is able to tell the difference between disobedience and obedience. And while He threatens, He is plainly unwilling to do harm in carrying out His threats. Rather, by filling people with fear, He cuts off the approach to sin and shows His love for mankind. He still delays, and declares what they will suffer if they continue in sin. He is not like a serpent, which devours its prey the moment it seizes it.

GOD: then, is good. And the Lord often speaks many times before He acts. For He says, "My arrows will destroy them. They will waste away with hunger and be eaten by birds. And there will be incurable tetanic incurvature. I will send the teeth of wild beasts on them, along with the rage of serpents that creep on the earth. Outside, the sword will make them childless, and inside their rooms there will be fear." Deuteronomy 32:23-25 For the Divine Being is not angry in the way some think. Instead, He often holds back, always urges humanity on, and shows what ought to be done. And this is a good way to act: to terrify us so that we may not sin. For Scripture says, "The fear of the Lord drives away sins, and he who is without fear cannot be justified." Sirach 1:21-22 And God does not punish out of wrath, but for the sake of justice, since it is not right for justice to be neglected because of us. Each one of us who sins, by his own free will, chooses punishment, and the blame lies with the one who chooses. God is without blame. But "if our unrighteousness shows the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who takes vengeance? God forbid." Romans 3:5-6 Therefore He says in warning, "I will sharpen my sword, and my hand shall take hold of judgment. And I will render justice to my enemies, and repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh from the blood of the wounded." Deuteronomy 32:41-42 It is clear, then, that those who are not enemies of the truth, and do not hate the Word, will not hate their own salvation, but will escape the punishment that comes from enmity. The crown of wisdom, then, as the book of Wisdom says, is "the fear of the Lord." Sirach 1:18 Therefore, through the prophet Amos, the Lord has made His method of dealing very clear. He says, "I have overthrown you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled from the fire. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord." Amos 4:11

SEE HOW GOD: through His love of goodness, seeks repentance. By the plan He follows of threatening in silence, He shows His own love for mankind. He says, "I will turn My face away from them, and show what will happen to them." Deuteronomy 32:20 For where the face of the Lord looks, there is peace and joy. But where it is turned away, evil is brought in. So, the Lord does not wish to look on evil things, because He is good. But when He turns away, evil rises on its own through human unbelief. Therefore Paul says, "See, then, the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but on you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness," Romans 11:22, that is, in faith in Christ.

NOW: hatred of evil belongs to the good man because he is good by nature. Therefore, I will admit that God punishes the disobedient, because punishment is for the good and benefit of the one being punished. It is the correction of a stubborn subject. But I will not admit that He wants to take revenge. Revenge is payback for evil, imposed for the benefit of the one who takes revenge. He who teaches us to pray for those who mistreat us will not want us to take revenge. Matthew 5:44 But everyone willingly agrees that God is good. And after bringing forward the Lord’s words in the Gospel, I do not need many more words to prove that this same God is just. He speaks of Him as one: "That they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us: that the world also may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given them; that they may be one, as We are one: I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." John 17:21-23 God is one, and beyond the one and above the Monad itself. Therefore, the word "You," with its emphatic force of pointing something out, points to God, who alone truly is, who was, and is, and is to come. In these three divisions of time, the one name, "He who is," Exodus 3:14, has its place. And our Lord Himself, in the Gospel, will testify that He who alone is God is also alone and truly righteous. He says, "Father, I will that they also whom You have given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: For You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known You: but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it." John 17:24-26 This is He who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, to those who hate Him, and shows mercy to those who love Him. Exodus 20:5-6 For He who placed some on the right hand and others on the left, when understood as Father, being good, is called what alone He is: good. Matthew 19:17 But as He is the Son in the Father, being His Word, from their mutual relation, with the name of power measured by equality of love, He is called righteous. "He will judge a man according to his works," Sirach 16:12. This is a good balance, since God has made known to us the face of righteousness in the person of Jesus. Through Him also, as by balanced scales, we know God. The book of Wisdom also says this plainly: "For mercy and wrath are with Him, for He alone is Lord of both, Lord of propitiations, and pouring forth wrath according to the abundance of His mercy. So also is His reproof." Sirach 16:12 For the purpose of mercy and of reproof is the salvation of those who are reproved.

NOW: the Word Himself again confirms that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is good. For He says, "He is kind to the unthankful and the evil." And further, when He says, "Be merciful, as your Father is merciful," in Luke 6:35-36. Still further, He also plainly says, "None is good, but My Father, who is in heaven," in Matthew 19:17. In addition to these, He again says, "My Father makes His sun shine on all," in Matthew 5:45. Here it should be noted that He declares His Father to be good, and to be the Creator. And that the Creator is just is not disputed. And again He says, "My Father sends rain on the just and on the unjust." In sending rain, He is the Creator of the waters and of the clouds. And in doing so for all, He holds an even balance justly and rightly. And because He is good, He does so for just and unjust alike.

VERY CLEARLY: then, we conclude in this way that He is one and the same God. For the Holy Spirit has sung, "I will look to the heavens, the works of Your hands." And, "He who created the heavens dwells in the heavens." And, "Heaven is Your throne." And the Lord says in His prayer, "Our Father, who art in heaven," Matthew 6:9. And the heavens belong to Him who created the world. Therefore, it cannot be denied that the Lord is the Son of the Creator. And if the Creator over all is confessed to be just, and the Lord is the Son of the Creator, then the Lord is the Son of Him who is just. Therefore Paul also says, "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested," Romans 3:21-22. And again, so that you may better understand God, he says, "even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ upon all who believe; for there is no difference." And, giving further witness to the truth, he adds a little later, "through the forbearance of God," in order to show that He is just, and that Jesus is the justifier of the one who has faith. And that he knows that what is just is good is shown by his saying, "So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good," Romans 7:12, using both names to mean the same power. But no one is good except His Father. Then it is this same Father of His who, though He is one, is made known by many powers. And this was the meaning of the statement, "No man knew the Father," Luke 10:22; John 17:25. He Himself was everything before the coming of the Son. So it is truly clear that the God of all is only one: the good, just Creator, and the Son in the Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. But it is not contrary to the saving Word to give rebuke prompted by care. For this is the medicine of God's love for man. By it, the blush of modesty appears, and shame for sin follows. For if a person must find fault, it is also necessary to rebuke, when it is time to wound the uncaring soul, not in a deadly way, but in a healing way, gaining freedom from everlasting death through a little pain.

GREAT WISDOM IS SHOWN IN HIS TEACHING: and there are many ways He deals with people for their salvation. For the Instructor bears witness to what is good, and calls those who are invited to higher things. He warns those who are rushing to do wrong not to try it, and urges them to turn to a better life. For the first is not without testimony when the second has been testified to, and the grace that comes from that testimony is very great. Besides, the feeling of anger, if it is proper to call His warning anger, is full of love for mankind. God stoops to human emotion for man's sake, and for man's sake also the Word of God became man.

THEREFORE: with all His power, the Instructor of humanity, the Divine Word, uses every resource of wisdom and gives Himself to saving His children. He warns, rebukes, blames, scolds, corrects, threatens, heals, promises, and shows favor. In a way, He uses many reins to hold back the irrational impulses of humanity. So, to speak briefly, the Lord deals with us as we deal with our children. Do you have children? “Correct them,” says the book of Wisdom, “and bend them from their youth.” Do you have daughters? “Care for their body, and do not let your face brighten toward them,” Sirach 7:23-24. Even so, we love our children deeply, both sons and daughters, more than anything else. People who speak to a man only to please him have little love for him, since they do not cause him pain. But those who speak for his good, even though they cause pain for a time, do him good forever afterward. The Lord is not aiming at immediate pleasure, but at future enjoyment.

NOW LET US GO ON TO CONSIDER THE WAY HE LOVINGLY TRAINS AND CORRECTS US: with the help of the witness of the prophets.

ADMONITION: then, is the correction that comes from loving care, and it produces understanding. This is how the Instructor speaks in His admonitions, as when He says in the Gospel, "How often I wanted to gather your children, as a bird gathers her young under her wings, and you were not willing!" Matthew 23:37 And again, Scripture gives admonition, saying, "They committed adultery with wood and stone, and burned incense to Baal." For it is a very great proof of His love that, although He knew well the shamelessness of the people who had kicked and leaped away, He nevertheless urges them to repent, and says through Ezekiel, "Son of man, you dwell in the midst of scorpions; nevertheless, speak to them, if perhaps they will hear." Ezekiel 2:6-7 Further, He says to Moses, "Go and tell Pharaoh to let My people go; but I know that he will not let them go." Exodus 3:18-19 For He shows both things: His divinity, in His foreknowledge of what would happen, and His love, in giving the soul's free choice an opportunity for repentance. He also admonishes through Esaias, in His care for the people, when He says, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." What follows is rebuking correction: "In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Isaiah 29:13 Here His loving care, after showing their sin, also shows salvation alongside it.

UPBRAIDING IS CORRECTION BECAUSE OF WHAT IS SHAMEFUL: and it urges people toward what is noble. Jeremiah shows this: "They were like horses mad for females; each one neighed after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not punish these things? says the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Jeremiah 5:8-9. He weaves fear throughout, because "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding." Proverbs 1:7. Again, through Hosea, He says, "Shall I not punish them? For they themselves mixed with harlots, and sacrificed with the initiated; and the people who understood embraced a harlot." He shows their offense to be more clear by declaring that they understood, and so sinned willfully. Understanding is the eye of the soul. Therefore Israel means, "he who sees God" — that is, he who understands God.

COMPLAINT IS CENSURE OF THOSE WHO ARE REGARDED AS DESPISING OR NEGLECTING: He uses this form when He says through Isaiah: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten and brought up children, but they have disregarded Me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel has not known Me." Isaiah 1:2-3. For how shall we not regard it as fearful, if one who knows God does not recognize the Lord? While the ox and the donkey, stupid and foolish animals, know him who feeds them, Israel is found to be more irrational than these. And after He had, through Jeremiah, complained against the people on many grounds, He adds: "And they have forsaken Me," says the Lord.

INVECTIVE IS A HARSH AND REPROACHFUL REBUKE: or a scolding form of criticism. The Instructor uses this kind of treatment in Isaiah when He says, "Woe to you, rebellious children. Thus says the Lord, You have made plans, but not by Me, and made agreements, but not by My Spirit." Isaiah 30:1 In each case, He uses the very bitter sharpness of fear to restrain the people, and at the same time to turn them to salvation. It is like wool that is being dyed, which is usually treated first with mordants so that it can take on a lasting color.

Reproof means bringing a person's sin forward and placing it before them. He uses this kind of instruction as something especially necessary, because the faith of many is weak. For He says through Isaiah, "You have forsaken the Lord, and have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger." Isaiah 1:4 And He also says through Jeremiah, "Heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered greatly. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and have dug out for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:12-13 And again, through the same prophet, "Jerusalem has sinned a sin; therefore it became commotion. All who glorified her dishonored her, when they saw her baseness." Lamentations 1:8 And in His words of comfort through Solomon, He uses the bitter and sharp language of reproof, quietly pointing to the love for children that marks His instruction: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor grow faint when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives." Proverbs 3:11-12 "For a man who is a sinner escapes reproof." Sirach 32:21 Consequently, therefore, Scripture says, "Let the righteous reprove and correct me, but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head."

CENSURE IS A WAY OF BRINGING SOMEONE TO HIS SENSES: because it makes a person think. He does not hold back from using this kind of instruction either, but says through Jeremiah, "How long shall I cry, and you not hear? Your ears are uncircumcised." Jeremiah 6:10 O blessed forbearance! And again, through the same prophet: "All the nations are uncircumcised, but this people is uncircumcised in heart." Jeremiah 9:26 For the people are disobedient. "Children," He says, "in whom there is no faith." Isaiah 30:9

VISITATION MEANS SEVERE REBUKE: He uses this kind of expression in the Gospel: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you!" Repeating the name makes the rebuke stronger. For if someone knows God, how does he persecute God's servants? Therefore He says, "Your house is left desolate; for I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me, till you shall say, 'Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.'" Matthew 23:37-39 For if you do not receive His love, you shall know His power.

DENUNCIATION IS FORCEFUL SPEECH: And through Isaiah, He uses denunciation as a medicine, saying, "Ah, sinful nation, lawless sons, people full of sins, wicked seed!" Isaiah 1:4 And in the Gospel according to John, He says, "Serpents, brood of vipers."

ACCUSATION IS CENSURE OF WRONGDOERS: He uses this kind of instruction through David when He says, "The people whom I did not know served me, and at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me. Sons of strangers lied to me, and faltered in their ways." And through Jeremiah: "And I gave her a writing of divorcement, and covenant-breaking Judah did not fear." Jeremiah 3:8 And again: "And the house of Israel disregarded Me, and the house of Judah lied to the Lord." Jeremiah 5:11-12

Lamenting a person's fate contains hidden rebuke, and by skillful help it brings salvation, as if under a veil. He used this method through Jeremiah: "How the city sits alone, she who was once full of people. She who ruled over territories has become like a widow. She has come under tribute. Weeping, she wept in the night." Lamentations 1:1-2

REBUKE IS A FORM OF CORRECTIVE CENSURE: The Divine Instructor used this kind of help through Jeremiah, saying, "You had a prostitute's forehead. You were shameless toward everyone, and you did not call me into the house, though I am your Father and the lord of your virginity." Jeremiah 3:3-4 And, "A beautiful and graceful prostitute, skilled in enchanted potions." Nahum 3:4 With perfect skill, after giving the virgin the shameful name of prostitution, He then calls her back to an honorable life by filling her with shame.

INDIGNATION IS A RIGHTFUL REBUKE: or a rebuke because someone's ways rise above what is right. In this way, He taught through Moses when He said, "Faulty children, a generation crooked and perverse, do you repay the Lord in this way? This people is foolish and not wise. Is He not your Father who acquired you?" Deuteronomy 32:5-6 He also says through Isaiah, "Your princes are disobedient, companions of thieves, loving gifts, chasing rewards, and not giving justice to orphans." Isaiah 1:23

IN THE END: the way He creates fear is a source of salvation. And it belongs to goodness to save. “The mercy of the Lord is on all flesh,” while He reproves, corrects, and teaches His flock like a shepherd. “He has pity on those who accept His instruction, and on those who eagerly seek union with Him.” Sirach 18:13-14 With this kind of guidance, He guarded the six hundred thousand foot soldiers who had been gathered together in the hardness of heart in which they were found. He scourged, pitied, struck, and healed them, with both compassion and discipline. “For according to the greatness of His mercy, so also is His rebuke.” Sirach 16:12 For it is certainly noble not to sin. But it is also good for the sinner to repent, just as it is best to always be in good health, but also good to recover well from disease. So He commands through Solomon: “Strike your son with the rod, so that you may deliver his soul from death.” Proverbs 23:14 And again: “Do not hold back from disciplining your son, but correct him with the rod; for he will not die.” Proverbs 23:13

REPROOF AND REBUKE: as the original word also suggests, are like lashes on the soul. They correct sins, prevent death, and lead back to self-control those who have been carried away into sexual immorality. In the same way, Plato also understood that reproof is the greatest power for reform and the highest kind of cleansing. In agreement with what has been said, he remarks that the person who is most deeply impure is uneducated and morally low, because he has not been reproved in those matters in which the one who is meant to be truly happy ought to be most pure and best.

FOR IF RULERS ARE NOT A TERROR TO GOOD CONDUCT: how can God, who is good by nature, be a terror to someone who does not sin? “If you do evil, be afraid,” the apostle says in Romans 13:3-4. Therefore, the apostle himself also uses strong language in every case to the churches, following the Lord’s example. And because he is aware of his own boldness and of the weakness of his hearers, he says to the Galatians, “Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Galatians 4:16 In the same way, healthy people do not need a physician, at least as long as they are strong. But those who are sick need his skill. So also we, who are sick in our lives with shameful desires, blameworthy excesses, and other burning effects of the passions, need the Savior. And He gives not only gentle medicines, but also strong ones. So the bitter roots of fear stop the eating sores of our sins. Therefore fear is beneficial, even if it is bitter. When we are sick, we truly need the Savior. When we have gone astray, we need someone to guide us. When we are blind, we need someone to lead us to the light. When we are thirsty, we need the fountain of life, and whoever drinks from it will no longer thirst, John 4:13-14. When we are dead, we need life. As sheep, we need a shepherd. As children, we need a tutor. And all humanity needs Jesus, so that we may not remain stubborn and sinful to the end and so fall into condemnation, but may be separated from the chaff and stored in the Father’s barn. For the winnowing fork is in the Lord’s hand, and by it the chaff meant for the fire is separated from the wheat, Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17. If you are willing, you may learn the highest wisdom of the all-holy Shepherd and Instructor, of the almighty and fatherly Word, when He presents Himself in a figure as the Shepherd of the sheep. And He is the Tutor of the children. Therefore He says through Ezekiel, speaking to the elders and setting before them a helpful picture of His wise care: “And that which is lame I will bind up, and that which is sick I will heal, and that which has wandered I will bring back; and I will feed them on my holy mountain.” Such are the promises of the good Shepherd.

FEED US: your children, like sheep. Yes, Master, fill us with righteousness, in your own pasture. Yes, O Instructor, feed us on your holy mountain, the Church, which rises high, which is above the clouds, which touches heaven. “And I will be their Shepherd,” He says, “and will be near them, like clothing on their skin.” He wants to save my flesh by covering it with the robe of immortality, and He has anointed my body. “They shall call Me,” He says, “and I will say, ‘Here am I.’” You heard sooner than I expected, Master. “And if they pass over, they shall not slip,” says the Lord. For we who are passing over to immortality will not fall into corruption, because He will sustain us. For He has said so, and He has willed it so. This is our Instructor, justly good. “I came not,” He says, “to be served, but to serve.” Therefore He is presented in the Gospel as tired, because He was laboring for us, and promising to give His life as a ransom for many. He declares that only the one who does this is the good shepherd. Therefore, He is generous, because He gives for us the greatest of all gifts, His own life. He is also greatly kind and loving toward mankind, because, when He could have been Lord, He wanted to be a human brother. And He was so good that He died for us.

FURTHER: His righteousness cried out, "If you come straight to me, I also will come straight to you. But if you walk crookedly, I also will walk crookedly," says the Lord of hosts. By the crooked ways, He means the chastisements of sinners. For the straight and natural way, which is shown by the iota in the name of Jesus, is His goodness, which is firm and sure toward those who have believed when they heard. "When I called, you did not obey," says the Lord, "but you treated my counsels as nothing, and paid no attention to my reproofs." Proverbs 1:24-25 So the Lord's reproof is most beneficial. David also says about them, "A perverse and provoking race, a race that did not set their heart right, and whose spirit was not faithful with God. They did not keep the covenant of God, and would not walk in His law."

THESE ARE THE REASONS FOR THE ANGER THAT MOVE THE JUDGE TO COME AND PUNISH THOSE WHO WOULD NOT CHOOSE A LIFE OF GOODNESS: Therefore, afterward He attacked them more harshly, so that, if possible, He might pull them back from their reckless rush toward death. So, through David, He tells the clearest reason for the warning: "They did not believe in His wonderful works." "When He killed them, they sought after Him, and turned and looked early for God; and remembered that God was their Helper, and God the Most High their Redeemer." In this way, He knew that they turned because of fear, while they despised His love. For, in most cases, goodness that is always gentle is despised. But He who warns through the loving fear of righteousness is respected.

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF FEAR: One is joined with reverence, like the fear citizens show toward good rulers, and like the fear we show toward God, and also the fear sensible children show toward their fathers. A horse that is never broken becomes hard to control, and a son who is allowed to go his own way becomes reckless. Sirach 30:8 The other kind of fear is joined with hatred. This is the fear slaves feel toward harsh masters. It is also the fear the Hebrews felt, because they made God a master, not a father. And in regard to piety, what is voluntary and willing is very different, indeed completely different, from what is forced. For it is said, "He is merciful. He will heal their sins, and not destroy them. He will fully turn away His anger, and not stir up all His wrath." See how the justice of the Instructor, which works through rebukes, is shown, and also the goodness of God, which works through compassion. Therefore David — that is, the Spirit speaking through him — holding both together, sings of God Himself, "Justice and judgment are the foundation of His throne; mercy and truth shall go before Your face." He declares that the same power belongs both to judging and to doing good. For power extends over both together, and judgment separates what is just from its opposite. And He who is truly God is just and good. He is Himself all, and all is He, for He is God, the only God.

JUST AS A MIRROR IS NOT EVIL TO AN UGLY MAN BECAUSE IT SHOWS HIM WHAT HE IS LIKE: and just as a physician is not evil to a sick man because he tells him about his fever—for the physician is not the cause of the fever, but only points it out—so also the One who corrects is not ill-disposed toward the person who is sick in soul. For He does not put transgressions on him, but only shows the sins that are there, in order to turn him away from doing similar things. So God is good in Himself, and He is also just for our sake, and He is just because He is good. And His justice is shown to us by His own Word from above, from where the Father was. For before He became Creator, He was God; He was good. And therefore He wished to be Creator and Father. And the nature of all that love was the source of righteousness, and also the cause of His making His sun shine and of His sending down His own Son. And He first announced the good righteousness that is from heaven when He said, "No man knows the Son, but the Father; nor the Father, but the Son." Luke 10:22 This mutual and reciprocal knowledge is the symbol of original justice. Then justice came down to men both in the letter and in the body, in the Word and in the law, compelling humanity to saving repentance, for it was good. But do you not obey God? Then blame yourself, because you bring the judge on yourself.

IF: then, we have shown that the strict way of dealing with humanity is good and salutary, that the Word necessarily adopted it, and that it leads to repentance and the prevention of sins, we must now look in order at the mildness of the Word. For He has been shown to be just. He sets before us His own inclinations that invite us to salvation. By these, in agreement with the Father's will, He wishes to make known to us what is good and what is useful. Consider these things. The good, "to kalon," belongs to the panegyrical form of speech, and the useful belongs to the persuasive form. For exhortation and dissuasion are forms of persuasive speech, and praise and blame are forms of panegyrical speech.

A PERSUASIVE KIND OF STATEMENT CAN TAKE ONE FORM AS ENCOURAGEMENT: and another form as warning against something. In the same way, a speech of praise can take one form as blame, and another form as praise. In these kinds of teaching, the Instructor, the Just One, is mainly at work, since He has made our good His goal. But the forms of speech that blame and warn against something have already been shown to us. Now we must deal with the persuasive and the laudatory forms, and, as on a balance beam, weigh the equal scales of justice. The Instructor uses exhortation toward what is useful through Solomon, saying, "I exhort you, O men, and I raise my voice to the sons of men. Hear me, for I will speak of excellent things," Proverbs 8:4, 6, and so on. He also gives counsel about what is wholesome. For the purpose of counsel is to choose or reject a certain course. He does this through David when He says, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsels of the ungodly, and does not stand in the way of sinners, and does not sit in the seat of pestilences; but his desire is in the law of the Lord." And there are three kinds of counsel. The first takes examples from past times, such as what the Hebrews suffered when they worshiped the golden calf, and what they suffered when they committed sexual immorality, and similar things. The second is understood from present times, as grasped by direct observation. An example is what was said to those who asked the Lord whether He was the Christ, or whether they should wait for another: "Go and tell John: the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised up; and blessed is he who is not offended in Me." This is like what David said when he prophesied, "As we have heard, so we have seen." The third kind of counsel consists of what is future. By this, we are told to guard against what is going to happen. An example is the saying, "Those who fall into sins will be cast into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth," and similar sayings. So then, from these things it is clear that the Lord, going through all the methods of healing treatment, calls humanity to salvation.

BY ENCOURAGEMENT HE ASSUAGES SINS: reducing lust, and at the same time inspiring hope for salvation. For He says by Ezekiel, "If you return with your whole heart, and say, 'Father,' I will hear you, as a holy people." And again He says, "Come all to Me, who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Matthew 11:28. And what is added after that, the Lord speaks in His own person. And very clearly He calls to goodness by Solomon, when He says, "Blessed is the man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who has found understanding." Proverbs 3:13 For the good is found by him who seeks it, and is accustomed to be seen by him who has found it. By Jeremiah too, He sets forth prudence, when he says, "Blessed are we, Israel; for what is pleasing to God is known by us," Baruch 4:4. And it is known by the Word, by whom we are blessed and wise. For wisdom and knowledge are mentioned by the same prophet, when he says, "Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life, and give ear to know understanding." Baruch 3:9 By Moses too, because of the love He has for man, He promises a gift to those who hasten to salvation. For He says, "And I will bring you into the good land, which the Lord swore to your fathers." Deuteronomy 31:20 And further, "And I will bring you into the holy mountain, and make you glad," Isaiah 56:7, He says by Isaiah. And still another form of instruction is blessing. And "blessed is he," He says by David, "who has not sinned; and he shall be like the tree planted near the channels of the waters, which will yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not wither"—by this He made an allusion to the resurrection—"and whatever he shall do shall prosper with him." Such He wishes us to be, that we may be blessed. Again, showing the opposite scale of the balance of justice, He says, "But not so the ungodly—not so; but as the dust which the wind sweeps away from the face of the earth." By showing the punishment of sinners, and their easy scattering and carrying away by the wind, the Instructor dissuades from crime by means of punishment. And by holding up the merited penalty, He shows the benignity of His beneficence in the most skillful way, in order that we may possess and enjoy its blessings. He invites us to knowledge also, when He says by Jeremiah, "Had you walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt forever in peace," Baruch 3:13. For, by showing there the reward of knowledge, He calls the wise to the love of it. And, granting pardon to him who has erred, He says, "Turn, turn, as a grape-gatherer to his basket." Jeremiah 6:9 Do you see the goodness of justice, in that it counsels repentance? And still further, by Jeremiah, He enlightens those who have erred in the truth. "Thus says the Lord, Stand in the ways, and look, and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, what is the good path, and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls." Jeremiah 6:16 And in order to promote our salvation, He leads us to repentance. Therefore He says, "If you repent, the Lord will purify your heart, and the heart of your seed." Deuteronomy 30:6 We might have brought forward, as supporters on this question, the philosophers who say that only the perfect man is worthy of praise, and the bad man of blame. But since some slander blessedness, as neither itself taking any trouble, nor giving any to anyone else, and so do not understand its love for man, and because of those who do not join justice with goodness, the following remarks are added. For it would be a proper inference to say that rebuke and censure are suitable to men, since they say that all men are bad; but God alone is wise, from whom comes wisdom, and alone perfect, and therefore alone worthy of praise. But I do not use such language. I say, then, that praise or blame, or whatever resembles praise or blame, are medicines most essential of all to men. Some are hard to cure, and, like iron, are shaped with fire, and hammer, and anvil, that is, with threatening, and reproof, and chastisement. While others, clinging to faith itself, as self-taught, and as acting of their own free will, grow by praise:

VIRTUE THAT IS PRAISED GROWS LIKE A TREE:

UNDERSTANDING THIS: it seems to me, Pythagoras of Samos gives this instruction:

WHEN YOU HAVE DONE SHAMEFUL THINGS: correct yourself. But when you have done good things, be glad.

CHIDING IS ALSO CALLED ADMONISHING: The word for admonishing, "nouthetesis," comes from a phrase meaning "putting understanding into someone." So rebuking means bringing a person back to his or her senses.

BUT THERE ARE COUNTLESS COMMANDS THAT CAN BE FOUND: and their purpose is to help us reach what is good and avoid what is evil. For "there is no peace for the wicked," says the Lord. Therefore, through Solomon, He commands children to be on guard: "My son, do not let sinners deceive you, and do not go after their ways. And do not go if they tempt you, saying, 'Come with us, share with us in innocent blood, and let us unjustly hide the righteous man in the earth. Let us put him out of sight, all alive as he is, into Hades.'" Proverbs 1:10-12 This, accordingly, is also a prophecy about the Lord's suffering. And through Ezekiel, life gives commandments: "The soul that sins shall die; but he who does righteousness shall be righteous. He does not eat upon the mountains, and has not set his eyes on the devices of the house of Israel, and will not defile his neighbor's wife, and will not approach a woman in her separation, and will not oppress a man, and will restore the debtor's pledge, and will not take plunder. He will give his bread to the hungry, and clothe the naked. He will not give his money on usury, and will not take interest. He will turn away his hand from wrong, and will carry out righteous judgment between a man and his neighbor. He has walked in my statutes, and kept my judgments to do them. This is a righteous man. He shall surely live, says the Lord." Ezekiel 18:4-9 These words describe the conduct of Christians. They are a remarkable call to the blessed life, which is the reward of a life of goodness—everlasting life.

WE HAVE SHOWN: as well as we could, the way of His love and His teaching. Therefore He Himself, describing Himself in a very beautiful way, compared Himself to a grain of mustard seed in Matthew 13:31 and Luke 13:19. In this, He pointed out the spiritual nature of the word that is sown, the fruitfulness of its nature, and the greatness and clear visibility of the power of the word. He also suggested that the sharpness and cleansing power of punishment are beneficial because of their severity. By this small grain, as it is figuratively called, He gives salvation abundantly to all humanity. Honey, because it is very sweet, produces bile, just as goodness gives rise to contempt, which causes people to sin. But mustard reduces bile, that is, anger, and stops inflammation, that is, pride. From this Word springs the soul’s true health and its eternal happy balance (eukrasia).

ACCORDINGLY: in ancient times He taught through Moses, and then through the prophets. Moses also was a prophet. For the law is training for stubborn children. So it is said, after they had eaten until they were full, "they rose up to play" in Exodus 32:6 and 1 Corinthians 10:7. Their foolish overfilling with things to eat is called chortasma, meaning "fodder," not broma, meaning "food." And when they had foolishly filled themselves, they also foolishly played. Because of that, the law was given to them, and fear followed. This was to prevent transgressions and to encourage right actions. It secured their attention, and in this way won them to obedience to the true Instructor, who is the one and same Word, and brought them into conformity with the urgent demands of the law. For Paul says that it was given as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, in Galatians 3:24. So from this it is clear that there is one alone who is true, good, and just, in the image and likeness of the Father: His Son Jesus, the Word of God. He is our Instructor. To Him God has entrusted us, just as a loving father commits his children to a worthy tutor, plainly commanding us, "This is my beloved Son: hear Him," in Matthew 17:5. The divine Instructor is trustworthy, because He is adorned with three of the most beautiful qualities: knowledge, benevolence, and authority of speech. He has knowledge, because He is the Father's wisdom: "All wisdom is from the Lord, and is with Him forevermore." He has authority of speech, because He is God and Creator: "For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made," in John 1:3. And He has benevolence, because He alone gave Himself as a sacrifice for us: "For the good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep," in John 10:11, and He has indeed given it. Now benevolence is nothing other than wishing to do good to one's neighbor for that person's sake.

NOW THAT THESE THINGS HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED: it would be fitting for our Instructor, Jesus, to show us the pattern of the true life and train humanity in Christ.

THE WAY OF LIFE HE COMMANDS IS NOT VERY HARD OR FRIGHTENING: nor, because of His kindness, is it made completely easy. He gives His commands, and at the same time gives them such a character that they can be carried out.

MY VIEW IS THAT HE HIMSELF FORMED MAN FROM THE DUST: and gave him new life through water. He made him grow by His Spirit, and trained him by His word for adoption and salvation, guiding him by holy commands. He did this so that, by His coming, He might transform man, who was born from the earth, into a holy and heavenly being, and so fully carry out that divine statement: "Let Us make man in Our own image and likeness." Genesis 1:26 And in fact, Christ became the perfect fulfillment of what God spoke, while the rest of humanity is understood as being created only in His image.

BUT LET US: children of the good Father and those raised by the good Instructor, do the Father's will. Let us listen to the Word, and let us take on the pattern of the truly saving life of our Savior. As we think about the heavenly way of life by which we have been made divine, let us anoint ourselves with the lasting, immortal flower of gladness, that sweet-smelling ointment. Let us keep before us a clear example of immortality in the way the Lord walked and lived. And let us follow in the footsteps of God. It belongs to him alone to understand and to care for the way and manner in which human life may be made more healthy. Besides this, he prepares us for a self-sufficient way of life, for simplicity, for having our loins girded, and for a free and unhindered readiness for our journey. This is so that we may reach an eternity of blessedness. He teaches each one of us to be his own storehouse. For he says, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow," Matthew 6:34. This means that the person who has devoted himself to Christ ought to be sufficient to himself and a servant to himself, and should also live in a way that provides for each day by itself. For we are trained not in war, but in peace. War needs great preparation, and luxury demands excess. But peace and love, simple and quiet sisters, require no weapons and no excessive preparation. The Word is their nourishment.

OUR OVERSIGHT IN INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE IS THE OFFICE OF THE WORD: From Him we learn frugality and humility, and everything that belongs to love of truth, love of man, and love of excellence. And so, in a word, by sharing in moral excellence and becoming like God, we must not fall back into carelessness and laziness. But labor, and do not faint. You shall become what you do not hope for, and cannot imagine. And just as there is one kind of training for philosophers, another for orators, and another for athletes, so there is a noble disposition suited to the choice fixed on moral loveliness, and it comes from the training of Christ. And in the case of those who have been trained according to this influence, their walk, their sitting at table, their food, their sleep, their going to bed, their regimen, and the rest of their way of life acquire a higher dignity. For the training carried on by the Word is not overstrained, but has the right tension. Thus, therefore, the Word has also been called the Saviour, since He has found for men those rational medicines that produce vigor of the senses and salvation. And He gives Himself to watching for the right moment, reproving evil, exposing the causes of evil affections, and striking at the roots of irrational lusts. He points out what we ought to abstain from, and supplies all the antidotes of salvation to those who are diseased. For the greatest and most regal work of God is the salvation of humanity. The sick are vexed at a physician who gives no advice that bears on restoring them to health. But how shall we not acknowledge the highest gratitude to the divine Instructor, who is not silent, who does not leave out those threatenings that point toward destruction, but reveals them, and cuts off the impulses that tend to them? And He instructs us in those counsels that lead to the true way of living. Therefore we must confess our deepest obligations to Him. For what else do we say is required of the rational creature—I mean man—except the contemplation of the Divine? I say too that it is necessary to contemplate human nature, and to live as the truth directs, and to admire the Instructor and His commands as suitable and harmonious with each other. According to this image also, we ought to conform ourselves to the Instructor, and, making the Word and our deeds agree, to live a real life.

EVERYTHING THAT GOES AGAINST RIGHT REASON IS SIN: So, the philosophers think it is right to define the most basic passions like this: lust is desire that does not obey reason; fear is weakness that does not obey reason; pleasure is a lifting up of the spirit that does not obey reason. If, then, disobedience in relation to reason is the cause that gives birth to sin, how can we avoid the conclusion that obedience to reason—the Word—which we call faith, will necessarily be the effective cause of duty? For virtue itself is a condition of the soul made harmonious by reason throughout a person’s whole life. More than that, philosophy itself is said to be the training of right reason. So, necessarily, whatever is done through an error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called sin. Since, then, the first man sinned and disobeyed God, it is said, "And man became like the beasts." Since he was rightly regarded as irrational, he is compared to the beasts. From this Wisdom says, "The horse for covering; the lustful man and the adulterer has become like an irrational beast." Sirach 33:6 Therefore it is also added, "He neighs, whoever may be sitting on him." The meaning is that the man no longer speaks. For the one who sins against reason is no longer rational, but an irrational animal, handed over to lusts by which he is ridden, like a horse by its rider.

BUT WHAT IS DONE RIGHTLY: in obedience to reason, the followers of the Stoics call prosēkon and kathēkon, that is, incumbent and fitting. What is fitting is incumbent. And obedience is based on commands. Since these are the same as counsel, and since they aim at truth, they train us toward the highest goal of our desire, which is understood as the end, telos. And the end of piety is eternal rest in God. And the beginning of eternity is our end. The proper activity of piety completes duty through actions. Therefore, according to sound reasoning, duties consist in actions, not in words. And Christian conduct is the activity of the rational soul, in agreement with correct judgment and a desire for the truth, which reaches its appointed end through the body, the soul's companion and ally. Virtue is a will that agrees with God and Christ in life, rightly directed toward everlasting life. For the life of Christians, in which we are now being trained, is a pattern of reasonable actions, that is, of the things taught by the Word, an unfailing power which we have called faith. This pattern is the commandments of the Lord, which, since they are divine laws and spiritual counsels, have been written for us, being suited for us and for our neighbors. Moreover, they turn back on us, just as a ball rebounds on the one who throws it because of the return blow. Therefore duties are necessary for divine instruction, since they are commanded by God and provided for our salvation. And since, among necessary things, some belong only to this life here, while others belong to the blessed life there and prepare us to fly from here, so also, in a similar way, among duties, some are appointed with reference to this life, and others for the blessed life. The commandments given with respect to natural life are made known to the multitude. But those that are suited for living well, and from which eternal life springs, we must consider, as in an outline, as we read them in the Scriptures.

KEEPING TO OUR PURPOSE: and choosing the Scriptures that speak about training for life, we must now briefly describe what a person who is called a Christian should be like throughout his whole life. So we must begin with ourselves, and with how we should govern ourselves. Therefore, while keeping the proper balance of this work, we must say how each of us should conduct himself in relation to his body, or rather, how to govern the body itself. For whenever someone has been led by the Word away from outward things, and from concern for the body itself to the mind, and gains a clear understanding of what happens in man according to nature, he will know that he should not be deeply occupied with outward things, but with what is proper and unique to man: to cleanse the eye of the soul, and also to make his flesh holy. For when a man is completely rid of those things that still make him dust, what else does he have, more useful than himself, for walking on the way that leads to the knowledge of God?

SOME PEOPLE REALLY LIVE SO THAT THEY MAY EAT: like irrational animals, whose life is centered in their belly and nothing else. But the Instructor commands us to eat so that we may live. Food is not our main business, and pleasure is not our goal. Both exist for the sake of our life here, which the Word is training for immortality. Therefore, we must use discernment about food. It should be simple, truly plain, and exactly suited to simple and innocent children, since it serves life, not luxury. And the life it supports has two parts: health and strength. Plain food is most suitable for these, because it helps digestion and keeps the body light. From this come growth, health, and proper strength, not the bad, dangerous, and miserable kind of strength that athletes get from forced feeding.

THEREFORE: we must reject different kinds of excess that produce many harms, such as an unhealthy condition of the body and stomach problems. This happens because the sense of taste is corrupted by a harmful skill, the art of cooking, and by the useless art of pastry-making. People even dare to call their indulgence in luxuries "food," though it slips into harmful pleasures. Antiphanes, the Delian physician, said that this variety of dishes was the one cause of disease. For there are people who dislike the truth, reject moderation in eating because of various foolish ideas, and go to great trouble to get delicacies from across the sea.

FOR MY PART: I am sorry for this sickness, while they are not ashamed to praise their fancy foods. They go to great trouble to get lampreys from the Straits of Sicily, eels from the Maeander, young goats from Melos, mullets from Sciathus, mussels from Pelorus, oysters from Abydos, and even the sprats found in Lipara, and the turnip from Mantinea. They also look for the beetroot that grows among the Ascraeans. They search out the cockles of Methymna, the turbots of Attica, the thrushes of Daphnis, and the reddish-brown dried figs, because of which the ill-fated Persian marched into Greece with five hundred thousand men. Besides these, they buy birds from Phasis, Egyptian snipes, and Median peafowl. By changing these foods with seasonings, these gluttons open their mouths wide for sauces. Whatever the earth, the depths of the sea, and the vast space of the air produce, they prepare for their gluttony. In their greed and anxious effort, these gluttons seem to drag-net the whole world in order to satisfy their luxurious tastes. These gluttons, surrounded by the hissing sound of frying pans, and spending their whole life over the pestle and mortar, cling to material things like fire. More than that, they weaken even simple food, namely bread, by straining off the nourishing part of the grain, so that the necessary part of food becomes something luxury looks down on. There is no limit to self-indulgence among people. It has driven them to sweetmeats, honey cakes, and sugar plums, inventing many kinds of desserts and hunting after every kind of dish. A man like this seems to me to be all jaw and nothing else. "Do not desire the rich man's delicacies," says Scripture in Proverbs 23:3, "for they belong to a false and base life." They eat luxurious dishes that a little later go to the dung heap. But we who seek the heavenly bread must rule the belly, which is beneath heaven, and even more the things pleasing to it, which God will destroy, 1 Corinthians 6:13, says the apostle, rightly cursing gluttonous desires. "For foods are for the belly," 1 Corinthians 6:13, because on them depends this truly fleshly and destructive life. Because of this, some people, speaking with an uncontrolled tongue, dare to use the name agape for miserable suppers that smell of rich flavor and sauces. They dishonor the good and saving work of the Word, the consecrated agape, with pots and poured sauces. And by drink, delicacies, and smoke they profane that name. They deceive themselves, because they expect that the promise of God can be bought with suppers. Gatherings for enjoyment, and entertainments like these, are rightly called suppers, dinners, and banquets by us, following the example of the Lord. But the Lord has not called such entertainments agapae. He says in one place, "When you are called to a wedding, do not recline on the highest couch; but when you are called, go to the lowest place," Luke 14:8, 10. And elsewhere He says, "When you make a dinner or a supper"; and again, "But when you make an entertainment, call the poor," Luke 14:12-13, for whose sake especially a supper ought to be made. Further, "A certain man made a great supper, and called many," Luke 14:16. But I see where the attractive name for suppers came from: from throats and a wild love of suppers, as the comic poet says. For truly, to many people, many things exist for the sake of supper. For they have not yet learned that God has given His creature, meaning man, food and drink for support, not for pleasure, since the body gains no benefit from costly foods. On the contrary, those who use the plainest food are the strongest, healthiest, and best. Servants are healthier and stronger than their masters, and farmers than landowners. They are not only more vigorous, but also wiser, just as philosophers are wiser than rich men. For they have not buried the mind under food or deceived it with pleasures. But love, agape, is truly heavenly food, the banquet of reason. "It bears all things, endures all things, hopes all things. Love never fails," 1 Corinthians 13:7-8. "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," Luke 14:15. But the worst thing of all is for love, which never fails, to be cast down from heaven to the ground into the middle of sauces. Do you think I am speaking of a supper that will pass away? For, it is said, "If I give away all my goods, and have not love, I am nothing," 1 Corinthians 13:3. On this love alone depend the law and the Word. And if you love the Lord your God and your neighbor, this is the heavenly feast in heaven. But the earthly thing is called a supper, as Scripture has shown. For the supper is made for love, but the supper is not love, agape. It is only proof of mutual and shared kindness. Therefore, "Let not your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink," says the apostle in Romans 14:16-17, so that the meal spoken of may not be understood as temporary, "but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." He who eats this meal, the best of all, will possess the kingdom of God, fixing his attention here on the holy gathering of love, the heavenly Church. Love, then, is something pure and worthy of God, and its work is sharing. And the care of discipline is love, as Wisdom says, and "love is the keeping of the law," Wisdom 6:17-18. And these joys receive an impulse of love from the common nourishment, which trains us for everlasting delicacies. Love, agape, then, is not a supper. But let the meal depend on love. For it is said, "Let the children whom You have loved, O Lord, learn that it is not the products of fruits that nourish man, but it is Your word which preserves those who believe in You," Wisdom 16:26. "For the righteous shall not live by bread," Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4. But let our food be light and easy to digest, and fit for wakefulness, not mixed with many different varieties. This is not outside the area of discipline. For love is a good nurse for sharing. Its rich supply is enough, and this, guiding a diet measured in proper amount and treating the body in a healthy way, gives something from its resources to those near us. But the diet that goes beyond what is enough harms a man, ruins his spirit, and makes his body likely to become sick. Besides, those delicate tastes, which trouble themselves over rich dishes, lead people to shameful practices, to daintiness, gluttony, greed, voracity, and never being satisfied. Suitable names for such people are flies, weasels, flatterers, gladiators, and the monstrous tribes of parasites. One group gives up reason, another friendship, and another life itself, for the pleasure of the belly. They crawl on their bellies, beasts in human form, after the image of their father, the greedy beast. People first called the abandoned "asotous," and they seem to me to have shown their end by this, understanding them as "asostous," unsaved, leaving out the sigma. For those who are absorbed in pots and finely prepared delicacies of sauces are plainly low, earth-born people, living a temporary kind of life, as if they were not going to live afterward. The Holy Spirit, through Isaiah, denounces such people as miserable, quietly taking from them the name of love, agape, since their feasting was not according to the Word. "But they rejoiced, killing calves, and sacrificing sheep, saying, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" And that He counts such luxury as sin is shown by what He adds: "And your sin shall not be forgiven you till you die," Isaiah 22:13-14. This does not mean that death, which takes away sensation, is the forgiveness of sin. It means the death of salvation, which is the reward of sin. "Take no pleasure in hateful delicacies," says Wisdom in Sirach 18:32. At this point, too, we must speak about what are called things sacrificed to idols, in order to show how we are commanded to abstain from them. Those things seem to me polluted and abominable, to the blood of which, fly

SOULS FROM EREBUS: from lifeless bodies.

FOR THE APOSTLE SAYS: in 1 Corinthians 10:20, "I do not want you to have fellowship with demons," since the food of those who are being saved and the food of those who are perishing are different. Therefore, we must stay away from these foods, not because we fear them, since they have no power in themselves, but because of our conscience, which is holy. We must also hate them because they are dedicated to demons. Further, we must do this because some people are unstable and think about many things in a way that makes them likely to fall. Their conscience is weak and is defiled. For, as 1 Corinthians 8:7-8 says, "food does not bring us near to God." For it is not what goes into a person that defiles him, but what comes out of his mouth, as Matthew 15:11 says. So the natural use of food is indifferent. For, as it says in 1 Corinthians 8:8, "if we eat, we are not better, and if we do not eat, we are not worse." But it is not reasonable for those who have been made worthy to share in divine and spiritual food to take part at the tables of demons. The apostle says, "Do we not have the right to eat and drink, and to lead about wives?" But by keeping pleasures under control, we restrain lusts. See, then, that this right of yours never becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

FOR IT WOULD NOT BE FITTING FOR US: after the manner of the rich man's son in the Gospel, Luke 15:11, to misuse the Father's gifts like prodigals. Rather, we should use them without undue attachment to them, since we have command over ourselves. For we are instructed to reign and rule over foods, not to be slaves to them. Therefore it is an admirable thing to lift our eyes up to what is true, to depend on that divine food above, and to satisfy ourselves with the inexhaustible contemplation of what truly exists. And so we taste the only sure and pure delight. For such is the agape, which the food that comes from Christ shows that we ought to partake of. But it is wholly irrational, futile, and not human for those who are of the earth, fattening themselves like cattle, to feed themselves up for death. They look downward on the earth and are always bent over tables. They lead a life of gluttony, burying all the good of existence here in a life that before long will end, courting voracity alone, in respect to which cooks are held in higher esteem than farmers. For we do not abolish social intercourse, but look with suspicion on the snares of custom, and regard them as a calamity. Therefore daintiness is to be shunned, and we are to partake of few and necessary things. And if one of the unbelievers calls us to a feast, and we decide to go, for it is a good thing not to mix with the dissolute, the apostle tells us to eat what is set before us, asking no questions for conscience sake. 1 Corinthians 10:27 Likewise, he has instructed us to buy what is sold in the market, without curious questioning. 1 Corinthians 10:25

SO: then, we are not to abstain completely from different kinds of food. We are only not to be absorbed with them. We are to partake of what is set before us, as is fitting for a Christian, out of respect for the one who has invited us, by taking part in the gathering in a harmless and moderate way. We are to regard the richness of what is placed on the table as a matter of no importance, despising delicacies, since after a little while they are destined to perish. "Let him who eats, not despise him who eats not; and let him who eats not, not judge him who eats." Romans 14:3. And a little later he explains the reason for the command when he says, "He that eats, eats to the Lord, and gives God thanks; and he that eats not, to the Lord he eats not, and gives God thanks." Romans 14:6. So the right food is thanksgiving. And the one who gives thanks does not spend his time in pleasures. And if we would persuade any of our fellow guests to virtue, then for this very reason we should abstain even more from those delicate dishes. In this way we show ourselves as a bright pattern of virtue, like what we ourselves have in Christ. For if any such food makes a brother stumble, "I shall not eat it as long as the world lasts," he says, "that I may not make my brother stumble." 1 Corinthians 8:13. I gain the man by a little self-restraint. "Have we not power to eat and to drink?" 1 Corinthians 9:14. And we know, and he says the truth, that an idol is nothing in the world. But we have only one true God, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus. But, he says, through your knowledge your weak brother perishes, for whom Christ died. And those who wound the conscience of the weak brothers sin against Christ. So the apostle, in his care for us, makes a distinction in the matter of meals, saying that if anyone called a brother is found to be a fornicator, or an adulterer, or an idolater, with such a one we are not to eat. 1 Corinthians 5:11. Neither in conversation nor in food are we to join with him, looking with suspicion on the pollution that comes from there, as on the tables of demons. It is good, then, neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, Romans 14:21, as both he and the Pythagoreans admit. For this is rather the mark of a beast. And the fumes rising from these things are thick and darken the soul. If anyone partakes of them, he does not sin. Only let him partake temperately, not depending on them, nor gaping after fine food. For a voice will whisper to him, saying, "Destroy not the work of God for the sake of food." Romans 14:20. For it is the mark of a silly mind to be amazed and stunned by what is set out at common banquets, after the rich fare that is in the Word. And it is much sillier to make one's eyes slaves to delicacies, so that one's greed is, so to speak, carried around by the servants. And how foolish it is for people to raise themselves up on the couches, almost pitching their faces into the dishes, stretching themselves out from the couch as from a nest, according to the common saying, so that they may catch the wandering steam by breathing it in. And how senseless it is to smear their hands with the condiments, and to keep reaching for the sauce, stuffing themselves immoderately and shamelessly, not like people tasting, but greedily snatching. For you may see such people, more like swine or dogs in gluttony than men, in such a hurry to fill themselves that both jaws are stuffed out at once, the veins around the face swollen, and besides this, sweat running all over them, as they are strained by their insatiable greed and panting from excess. The food is pushed into their stomach with unsocial eagerness, as if they were stowing away provisions for a journey, not taking food for digestion. Excess, which is evil in all things, is especially blameworthy in the matter of food. Gluttony, called opsophagia, is nothing but excess in the use of relishes, opson. And laimargia is insanity with respect to the gullet. And gastrimargia is excess with respect to food, insanity in reference to the belly, as the name itself shows, for margos means a madman. The apostle, checking those who go too far in their conduct at meals, says, "For every one takes beforehand in eating his own supper; and one is hungry, and another drunken. Have you not houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have not?" 1 Corinthians 11:21-22. And among those who have, those who eat shamelessly and are insatiable shame themselves. And both act badly: the one by paining those who have not, the other by exposing their own greed in the presence of those who have. Necessarily, therefore, against those who have cast off shame and freely abuse meals, the insatiable, to whom nothing is enough, the apostle then continues and again breaks out in a voice of displeasure: "So that, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. And if any one is hungry, let him eat at home, that you come not together to condemnation." 1 Corinthians 11:33-34.

WE MUST KEEP AWAY FROM EVERY SLAVISH HABIT AND FROM EXCESS: and touch what is set before us in a proper way. We should keep the hand, the couch, and the chin free from stains. We should preserve the grace of our expression undisturbed, and do nothing improper in the act of swallowing. Instead, we should stretch out the hand at intervals in an orderly way. We must guard against saying anything while eating. The voice becomes unpleasant and unclear when it is confined by full jaws. And the tongue, pressed by food and hindered in its natural power, gives out cramped speech. Nor is it proper to eat and drink at the same time. For it is the very height of intemperance to mix times whose uses are at odds. And whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God, 1 Corinthians 10:31, aiming at true frugality. It seems to me that the Lord also hinted at this when He blessed the loaves and the cooked fish with which He feasted the disciples, giving a beautiful example of simple food. That fish, then, which Peter caught at the Lord's command, points to food that is easy to digest, given by God, and moderate. And by those who rise from the water to the bait of righteousness, He warns us to remove luxury and greed, just as the coin was taken from the fish, so that He might put aside vainglory. And by giving the stater to the tax collectors, and rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, He might preserve for God the things that are God's, Matthew 22:21. The stater can be explained in other ways also, and these are not unknown to us. But this is not a fitting time to discuss them. Let what we have said for our present purpose be enough, since it is not unfitting for the flowers of the Word. We have often done this, drawing from the most helpful fountain what is needed for the urgent point at hand, in order to water those who have been planted by the Word. For even if it is lawful for me to partake of all things, still not all things are helpful, 1 Corinthians 10:23. For those who do everything that is lawful quickly fall into doing what is unlawful. And just as righteousness is not gained by greed, nor temperance by excess, so the way of life of a Christian is not formed by indulgence. For the table of truth is far removed from sensual delicacies. Although all things were made chiefly for man's sake, still it is not good to use all things, nor to use them at all times. For the occasion, the time, the manner, and the purpose greatly affect the balance of what is useful, in the judgment of a person who has been rightly taught. And this is fitting, and it helps stop a life of gluttony, which wealth is ready to choose. I do not mean the wealth that sees clearly, but that abundance which blinds a man in matters of gluttony. No one is poor in regard to what is necessary, and no man is overlooked. For there is one God who feeds the birds and the fish, and, in a word, the irrational creatures. Nothing at all is lacking to them, though they do not worry about their food. And we are better than they are, since we are their masters and more closely related to God, because we are wiser. And we were made, not so that we might eat and drink, but so that we might devote ourselves to the knowledge of God. For the just man who eats is satisfied in his soul, but the belly of the wicked will lack, Proverbs 13:5, being filled with the desires of insatiable gluttony. Now lavish expense is suited not only for enjoyment, but also for social communication. Therefore we must guard against those foods that persuade us to eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is there not, within temperate simplicity, a healthy variety of foods? Bulbs, olives, certain herbs, milk, cheese, fruits, all kinds of cooked food without sauces. And if meat is wanted, let roasted meat rather than boiled meat be served. "Do you have anything here to eat?" the Lord said to the disciples after the resurrection, Luke 24:41-44. And they, having been taught by Him to practice frugality, gave Him a piece of broiled fish. And after eating before them, Luke says, He spoke to them what He spoke. Besides these things, this also should not be overlooked: those who eat according to the Word are not forbidden dainties in the form of honeycombs. For among foods, those are most suitable which are ready for immediate use without fire, since they are the easiest at hand. Next after these are those that are simplest, as we said before. But those who bend around inflammatory tables, feeding their own diseases, are ruled by a most greedy demon, whom I am not ashamed to call the Belly-demon, the worst and most abandoned of demons. He is therefore exactly like the one called the Ventriloquist-demon. It is far better to be happy than to have a demon living with us. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the apostle Matthew ate seeds, nuts, and vegetables, without meat. And John, who carried temperance to the extreme, ate locusts and wild honey. Peter kept away from pork. But a trance fell on him, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, and he saw heaven opened, and a vessel lowered to the earth by its four corners. In it were all the four-footed animals and creeping things of the earth and the birds of heaven. And a voice came to him: "Rise, kill, and eat." And Peter said, "No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean." And the voice came to him again a second time: "What God has cleansed, do not call common," Acts 10:10-15. The use of these things is therefore a matter of indifference to us. For it is not what enters into the mouth that defiles a man, Matthew 15:11, but the empty opinion about uncleanness. For when God created man, He said, "All things shall be food for you," Genesis 9:2-3. And, "Herbs with love are better than a calf with fraud," Proverbs 15:17. This well reminds us of what was said above: herbs are not love, but our meals are to be taken with love. And in these matters, the middle state is good. Indeed, this is true in all things, and especially in the preparation made for feasting, since extremes are dangerous and middle ways are good. And to be in no want of necessary things is the middle state. For desires that agree with nature are limited by what is sufficient. The law commanded the Jews to live frugally in a very orderly way. For the Instructor, through Moses, took away from them the use of countless things, giving reasons for this. The spiritual reasons were hidden, but the bodily reasons were plain, and these are the ones they trusted. In the case of some animals, it was because they did not divide the hoof. In others, because they did not chew the cud. And in others, because among water animals they alone had no scales. So in the end only a few were left suitable for food. And among the things he allowed them to touch, he forbade those that had died on their own, or had been offered to idols, or had been strangled. To touch these was unlawful. For since it is impossible for those who use delicacies to keep from partaking of them, he appointed the opposite way of life until he might break the tendency toward indulgence that comes from habit. Pleasure has often brought men harm and pain. And full feeding produces in the soul uneasiness, forgetfulness, and foolishness. They also say that when the bodies of children are growing up to full height, they grow properly through lack of nourishment. For then the spirit, which moves through the body for its growth, is not hindered by abundance of food blocking the freedom of its course. From there that truth-seeking philosopher Plato, stirring up the spark of Hebrew philosophy when he condemned a life of luxury, says: "When I came here, the life here called happy, full of Italian and Syracusan tables, did not please me at all, consisting in being filled twice a day, and never spending the night alone, and whatever other accompaniments attend that way of life. For not one man under heaven, if brought up from youth in such practices, will ever become wise, no matter how admirable his natural ability may be endowed." For Plato was not unfamiliar with David, who placed the sacred ark in his city in the middle of the tabernacle. And commanding all his people to rejoice before the Lord, he distributed to the whole host of Israel, man and woman, to each one a loaf of bread, and baked bread, and a cake from the frying pan.

THIS WAS ENOUGH FOOD FOR THE ISRAELITES: But the food of the Gentiles was more than enough. No one who lives by it will ever try to become self-controlled, because he buries his mind in his belly. He is very much like the fish called the ass-fish, which Aristotle says is the only creature that has its heart in its stomach. Epicharmus, the comic poet, calls this fish “monster-belly.”

THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO TRUST IN THEIR STOMACH: whose god is their stomach, whose glory is in their shame, and who set their minds on earthly things. The apostle foretold nothing good for them when he said, "their end is destruction." Philippians 3:19

"Use a little wine," the apostle says to Timothy, who drank water, "for your stomach's sake" in 1 Timothy 5:23. He very appropriately applied its help as a strengthening medicine suited to a sick body weakened by watery humors. And he specified "a little," so that the remedy, because of its amount, might not unnoticed create the need for some other treatment.

THEREFORE: for those who are thirsty, water is the natural, moderate, and necessary drink. This was the plain drink of self-control, flowing from the rock that was struck, which the Lord provided for the ancient Hebrews. Exodus 17; Numbers 20 It was especially necessary that they be self-controlled during their wanderings.

AFTERWARD: the sacred vine produced the prophetic cluster of grapes. This was a sign for them, after they had been trained to move from wandering to their place of rest. It represented the great cluster, the Word, crushed for us. For the blood of the grape, that is, the Word, desired to be mixed with water, just as His blood is joined with salvation.

AND THE BLOOD OF THE LORD IS TWOFOLD: There is the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption, and the spiritual blood, by which we are anointed. To drink the blood of Jesus is to share in the Lord's immortality, since the Spirit is the active power of the Word, just as blood is of flesh.

ACCORDINGLY: just as wine is mixed with water, so the Spirit is joined with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes faith, while the other, the Spirit, leads to immortality.

And the union of both—the water and the Word—is called the Eucharist, a famous and glorious grace. Those who share in it by faith are made holy in both body and soul. For the Father’s will has mystically joined together the divine mixture, which is man, by the Spirit and the Word. For in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul, which is given life by it; and the flesh, because of which the Word became flesh, is joined to the Word.

SO I ADMIRE THOSE WHO HAVE CHOSEN A STRICT WAY OF LIFE: who love water, the medicine of self-control, and who stay as far away from wine as possible, avoiding it as they would the danger of fire. Therefore, it is fitting that boys and girls should keep as far as possible from this medicine. For it is not right to pour into the burning season of life the hottest of all liquids, wine, as if adding fire to fire. From this, wild impulses, burning lusts, and fiery habits are stirred up. Young men, inflamed within, become ready to give themselves to sinful desires. Then signs of harm appear in their body, as the parts of lust come to maturity sooner than they should. The breasts and sexual organs, inflamed by wine, spread and swell in a shameful way, already showing beforehand the image of fornication. The body then forces the wound of the soul to burn more fiercely, and shameless throbbings follow excess, urging a person of proper behavior into transgression. In this way, the pleasure-loving spirit of youth goes beyond the limits of modesty. So, as far as possible, we must try to put out the impulses of youth by taking away the Bacchic fuel of this threatened danger. By pouring on the remedy for the inflammation, we should keep the burning soul under control, restrain the swelling members, and calm the disturbance of lust when it is already aroused. And in the case of grown people, let those for whom it is suitable sometimes eat dinner with only bread, and let them completely abstain from drink, so that their excess moisture may be absorbed and dried up by eating dry food. For constant spitting, wiping away sweat, and hurrying to bodily evacuations are signs of excess, caused by the immoderate use of liquids supplied in too great an amount to the body. And if thirst comes, let the desire be satisfied with a little water. For it is not proper for water to be taken in too great an amount, so that the food is not drowned, but broken down for digestion. And this happens when the food is gathered into a mass, and only a small part is passed out.

ALSO: drinking a lot of wine does not fit with the study of divine things. For strong, unmixed wine is far from making a person wise, much less self-controlled, as the comic poet says. But toward evening, around supper time, wine may be used, when we are no longer occupied with more serious reading. At that time, the air also becomes colder than it is during the day. So the body’s failing natural warmth needs to be supported by adding some heat. But even then, only a little wine should be used, because we must not go on to excessive drinking. Those who are already advanced in age may drink a little more cheerfully, so that the harmless medicine of the vine may warm the coldness of old age that the passing of time has caused. For the passions of old men are not, for the most part, stirred so strongly as to drive them to the shipwreck of drunkenness. Being anchored by reason and time, as by anchors, they endure more easily the storm of passions that rushes in from lack of self-control. They also may be allowed some light humor at feasts. But for them too, the limit of their drinking should be the point up to which they keep their reason steady, their memory active, and their body unmoved and unshaken by wine. People in this condition are called, by those skilled in these matters, acrothorakes. Therefore, it is good to stop early, for fear of stumbling.

A MAN NAMED ARTORIUS: in his book On Long Life, if I remember the title correctly, thinks that a person should drink only until the food is moistened, so that we may live longer. It is fitting, then, that some use wine as medicine, only for the sake of health, and that others use it for relaxation and enjoyment. For at first, wine makes the person who has drunk it more kind than before, more pleasant to his companions, kinder to his servants, and more agreeable to his friends. But when he becomes drunk, he becomes violent instead. For wine is warm, and when it is properly mixed and has sweet juices, by its warmth it dissolves the foul waste matter and mixes the sharp and base humors with pleasant scents.

THEREFORE IT HAS BEEN RIGHTLY SAID: "Wine was created from the beginning as a joy for the soul and heart, when it is drunk in moderate amount." Sirach 31:27 And it is best to mix the wine with as much water as possible. A person should not turn to wine the way he turns to water, and so become weakened by drunkenness. He should not pour it out like water because of a love for wine. For both are works of God. And the mixture of both, water and wine, works together for health, because life consists of what is necessary and what is useful. So, with water, which is necessary for life and to be used in abundance, the useful should also be mixed.

WHEN A PERSON DRINKS TOO MUCH WINE: the tongue is hindered. The lips grow slack. The eyes roll wildly, and vision seems to swim because of so much liquid. Forced into error, the eyes think that everything is spinning around them, and they cannot tell that distant objects are single. In fact, "I think I see two suns," said the old Theban man when he was drunk. For when sight is disturbed by the heat of the wine, it often imagines that one object is many. And there is no difference between moving the eye and moving the object being seen. Both have the same effect on sight, which, because of its unsteadiness, cannot perceive the object accurately. And the man's feet are swept out from under him as if by a flood, and hiccuping, vomiting, and tearful foolish talk follow. For every drunken man, according to the tragedy, —

HE IS OVERCOME BY ANGER AND LACKS UNDERSTANDING: He likes to pour out much foolish speech. And he is accustomed to hear unwillingly the evil words that he has willingly spoken.

EVEN BEFORE TRAGEDY: Wisdom cried out, “Drinking too much wine leads to irritation and all kinds of mistakes.” Sirach 31:29 Therefore, most people say that you should relax over your cups and put off serious business until morning. I, however, think that this is especially the time when reason should be brought into the feast, to guide the drinking of wine like a director, so that friendly gathering does not slowly slip into drunkenness without anyone noticing. For just as no sensible person thinks it necessary to shut his eyes before going to sleep, in the same way no one can rightly want reason to be absent from the table at a feast, or try to put it to sleep until business begins. But the Word can never leave those who belong to Him, not even when we are asleep. For He ought to be welcomed even into our sleep. For perfect wisdom, which is knowledge of divine and human things, and which includes everything related to the care of the flock of men, becomes, in relation to life, an art. And so, while we live, it is always with us, constantly carrying out its own proper work, and the result of that work is a good life.

BUT THESE MISERABLE WRETCHES: who drive temperance out of their feasting, think that drinking to excess is the happiest life. Their life is nothing but revelry, debauchery, baths, excess, urinals, idleness, and drink. You may see some of them half drunk and staggering, with wreaths hanging around their necks like decorations on wine jars, vomiting drink on one another in the name of good fellowship. And you may see others, full of the effects of their debauch, filthy, pale in the face, livid, and still pouring one more round on top of yesterday's bout, to make it last until the next morning. It is well, my friends, yes, it is well, to become familiar with this picture while keeping as far away from it as possible, and to shape ourselves toward what is better, fearing lest we too become a like spectacle and laughingstock to others.

IT HAS BEEN RIGHTLY SAID: "As the furnace tests the steel blade in the dipping process, so wine tests the heart of the proud." Sirach 31:26. A debauch is the excessive use of wine. Drunkenness is the disorder that comes from such use. Crapulousness, or kraipale, is the discomfort and nausea that follow a debauch. It is given this name from the shaking of the head, from kara pallein.

A LIFE LIKE THIS: if it should even be called life, is spent in idleness, restless pursuit of sensual pleasures, and the delusions of immoral living. Divine Wisdom looks on this with contempt and commands her children, "Do not be a drunkard, and do not spend your money on flesh; for every drunkard and sexually immoral person will come to poverty, and every lazy person will be clothed in torn clothes and rags." Proverbs 23:20 For everyone who is not alert to wisdom, but is soaked in wine, is lazy. And, he says, the drunkard will be clothed in rags and will be ashamed of his drunkenness in the presence of those who look on. Proverbs 23:21 For the wounds of the sinner are the tears in the garment of the flesh, the holes made by lusts, through which the shame of the soul inside is seen, namely sin. Because of this, it will not be easy to save the garment, since it has been torn all around, has rotted away in many lusts, and has been ripped apart from salvation.

SO HE ADDS THESE VERY WARNING WORDS: "Who has woes? Who has clamor? Who has conflicts? Who has disgusting babblings? Who has useless remorse?" Proverbs 23:29-30. You see the wine-lover in all his misery. He despises the Word Himself, and has abandoned himself and given himself over to drunkenness. You see what threat Scripture has spoken against him. And to this threat it adds again: "Whose eyes are red? Is it not those who stay long over their wine, and search out the places where drinking goes on?" Here he shows that the lover of drink is already dead to the Word, by mentioning the bloodshot eyes. This is a mark that appears on corpses, announcing death to him in the Lord. For forgetfulness of the things that lead to true life tips the balance toward destruction. Therefore, with good reason, the Instructor, in His care for our salvation, forbids us: "Do not drink wine to drunkenness." Why? you will ask. "Because," He says, "your mouth will then speak perverse things, and you will lie down as if in the heart of the sea, and like the steersman of a ship in the midst of huge waves." From here, poetry also comes to help us, and says:

LET WINE: whose strength is like fire, come to people. Then it will stir them up, just as the north or south wind stirs up the Libyan waves.

WINE LEADS SPEECH ASTRAY AND REVEALS EVERY SECRET: Wine that deceives the soul brings ruin to those who drink it.

YOU SEE THE DANGER OF SHIPWRECK: The heart is drowned by heavy drinking. The excess of drunkenness is compared to the danger of the sea. In it, when the body has once sunk like a ship, it goes down to the depths of shame, overwhelmed by the great waves of wine. And the helmsman, the human mind, is thrown about by the swelling surge of drunkenness. Buried in the hollow of the sea, it is blinded by the darkness of the storm, after drifting away from the harbor of truth. Then, crashing on the rocks under the sea, it perishes, driven by itself into pleasure-loving indulgence.

FOR THIS REASON: the apostle rightly commands, "Do not get drunk with wine, in which there is much excess." By the word "excess" (ἀσωτία), he means that drunkenness does not fit with salvation (τὸ ἄσωστον). For when He made water into wine at the wedding, He was not giving permission for people to get drunk. He gave life to the watery element in the meaning of the law. He filled with His blood the one who does the law and is from Adam, that is, the whole world. In this way, He supplies piety with drink from the vine of truth, the mixture of the old law and of the new word, for the fulfilment of the predestined time. So, Scripture has called wine a symbol of the sacred blood. But when it rebukes shameful drinking of the dregs of wine, it says, "Wine is intemperate, and drunkenness is insolent." Proverbs 20:1 Therefore, it agrees with right reason to drink because of the cold of winter, until the numbness is driven away from those who are subject to it, and at other times to use it as medicine for the intestines. For just as we should use food to satisfy hunger, so we should use drink to satisfy thirst, taking the greatest care not to slip, because the use of wine is dangerous. Then our soul will be pure, and dry, and bright. And the soul is wisest and best when it is dry. In this way too, it is fit for contemplation, and it is not made damp by the vapors rising from wine, which gather into a cloud-like mass. Therefore, we must not trouble ourselves to get Chian wine if it is absent, or Ariousian if it is not available. For thirst is a feeling of need, and it asks for what is suitable to meet that need, not for costly drink. Imported wines from across the sea are for an appetite weakened by excess, when the soul, even before drunkenness, is already mad in its desires. For there is the fragrant Thasian wine, and the sweet-smelling Lesbian, and sweet Cretan wine, and sweet Syracusan wine, and Mendusian, an Egyptian wine, and the island wine of Naxos, highly perfumed and flavored, and another wine from the land of Italy. These are many names. But for the moderate drinker, one wine is enough, the product of the cultivation of the one God. For why should not the wine of their own country satisfy people's desires, unless they would also import water, like the foolish Persian kings? The Choaspes, a river of India so called, was the source from which the best drinking water, called Choaspian water, was taken. Just as wine, when people drink it, makes them love it, water does the same. The Holy Spirit, speaking through Amos, declares that the rich are miserable because of their luxury: "Those who drink strained wine, and recline on ivory couches," Amos 6:4, 6 he says, along with other similar things that he adds as a rebuke.

SPECIAL CARE MUST BE GIVEN TO PROPER BEHAVIOR: As the story says, Athene, whoever she was, gave up the pleasure of the flute because the sight of playing it was unseemly. In the same way, we should drink without twisting our faces, without grabbing the cup greedily, and without rolling our eyes in an improper way before drinking. We should not, through lack of self-control, empty the cup in one gulp. We should not splash our chin or stain our clothes by swallowing all the drink at once, with our face almost filling the bowl and seeming to sink into it. For the gurgling caused when the drink rushes down violently, and when it is sucked in with a great deal of breath, as if it were being poured into a clay jar, while the throat makes a noise because of the speed of swallowing, is a shameful and improper display of intemperance. Besides this, eagerness in drinking is harmful to the person who drinks. Do not rush into harm, my friend. Your drink is not being taken away from you. It is given to you, and it waits for you. Do not be eager to burst yourself by pouring it down through an open throat. Your thirst is satisfied even if you drink more slowly, with proper behavior, by taking the drink in small amounts and in an orderly way. For what intemperance greedily grabs is not lost by taking time.

"Do not be mighty at wine," he says, "for wine has overcome many." Sirach 31:25. The Scythians, the Celts, the Iberians, and the Thracians, all warlike peoples, are strongly given to drunkenness. They think it is an honorable and happy activity to take part in. But we, who are people of peace, feast for lawful enjoyment, not for sinful excess. We drink moderate cups in friendship, so that our friendships may be shown in a way that truly fits the name.

How do you think the Lord drank when He became man for our sake? Did He drink as shamelessly as we do? Was it not with dignity and proper conduct? Was it not done with self-control? For be sure of this: He Himself also drank wine, because He too was man. And He blessed the wine, saying, "Take, drink: this is my blood"—the blood of the vine. In a figurative way, he calls the Word poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins the holy stream of gladness. And He clearly showed that a person who drinks should use moderation by what He taught at meals. For He did not teach while under the influence of wine. And He showed again that the thing He blessed was wine when He said to His disciples, "I will not drink of the fruit of this vine until I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father." But He tells us again that what the Lord drank was wine when He spoke about Himself and reproached the Jews for their hardness of heart: "For the Son of Man," He says, "came, and they say, 'Behold, a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors.'" Matthew 11:19 Let us hold firmly to this against those who are called Encratites.

BUT WOMEN CLAIM THAT THEY ARE AIMING AT ELEGANCE: supposedly so their lips will not be split by stretching them over wide drinking cups and so making the mouth wider. Yet they drink in an improper way from alabaster vessels that are much too narrow. They tip back their heads, and, as I think, indecently uncover their necks. Then, as they stretch their throats while swallowing, they gulp down the drink as if they want to expose as much of themselves as they can to their drinking companions. And, hiccuping like men, or rather like slaves, they give themselves over to luxurious excess. For nothing shameful is proper for a man, who is endowed with reason. Much less is it proper for a woman, for whom even thinking about what kind of nature she has brings modesty.

IT IS SAID: "A drunken woman is great wrath," as if a drunken woman were the wrath of God. Why? Because she will not hide her shame. Sirach 26:8. For a woman is quickly led down into sexual immorality if she sets her choice on pleasures alone. We have not forbidden drinking from alabastra. But we do forbid making a practice of drinking only from them, as a matter of pride. We advise women to use whatever is available without preference, and to cut out by the roots the dangerous desires in them. Therefore, when a rush of air comes back up and causes hiccups, let it be released quietly.

BUT IN NO WAY SHOULD WOMEN BE ALLOWED TO UNCOVER AND DISPLAY ANY PART OF THEIR BODY: lest both fall—the men by being stirred up to look, and the women by drawing the eyes of the men to themselves.

But we must always live as if we are in the Lord's presence. Otherwise, he may say to us, as the apostle said to the Corinthians in anger, "When you come together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper."

TO ME: the star that mathematicians call Acephalus, meaning “headless,” which is counted before the wandering star, with its head resting on its breast, seems to be a symbol of gluttons, pleasure-lovers, and those who are inclined to drunkenness. In such people, the power of reason is not located in the head, but among the bodily appetites, enslaved to lust and anger. For just as Elpenor broke his neck through drunkenness, so the brain, made dizzy by wine, falls from above with a great crash to the liver and the heart, that is, to pleasure-loving desire and anger. In the same way, the sons of the poets say that Hephæstus was thrown by Zeus from heaven to earth. “The trouble of sleeplessness, and bile, and cholic, are with an insatiable man,” it is said. Sirach 31:20

Therefore Noah’s drunkenness was also written down, so that, with the clear written account of his sin before us, we might guard with all our strength against drunkenness. For this reason, those who covered the shame caused by his drunkenness are blessed by the Lord. So Scripture, giving a very complete summary, has said it all in one statement: “For an instructed man, wine is enough, and he will rest in his bed.”

SO: using cups made of silver and gold, or others decorated with precious stones, is out of place. It only deceives the eye. If you pour any warm drink into them, the cups become hot, and it is painful to touch them. On the other hand, if you pour in something cold, the material changes its quality and harms the mixture, and the costly drink becomes harmful. So away with Thericleian cups and Antigonides, and canthari, and goblets, and lepastae, and the endless shapes of drinking vessels, and wine-coolers, and wine-pourers also. In general, gold and silver, both in public and in private, are possessions that stir up envy when they go beyond what is necessary. They are rarely obtained, hard to keep, and not well suited for use. The elaborate vanity of engraved glass vessels must also be driven out of our well-ordered way of life. Because of the workmanship, they are more likely to break, and they teach us to be afraid while we drink. Silver couches, pans, vinegar-saucers, trenchers, and bowls must also go. So must vessels of silver and gold, some for serving food and others for other uses that I am ashamed to name. So must things made of cedar that splits easily, thyine wood, and ebony; tripods made of ivory; couches with silver feet and ivory inlay; bed doors studded with gold and decorated with tortoise-shell; and bedcovers of purple and other colors that are hard to produce. These are all proofs of tasteless luxury, clever inventions of envy and effeminacy, and they must all be given up, because there is nothing in them worth our effort. For the time is short, as the apostle says. So this remains: we must not make ourselves look ridiculous, like some people seen at public shows, outwardly anointed in a striking way to create an impressive effect, but miserable within. Explaining this more clearly, he adds, "It remains that those who have wives should live as though they had none, and those who buy as though they did not possess." 1 Corinthians 7:29-30 And if he speaks this way about marriage, about which God says, "Multiply," how can you fail to think that senseless display must be banished by the Lord's authority? Therefore the Lord also says, "Sell what you have, and give to the poor; and come, follow me." Matthew 19:21

FOLLOW GOD: stripped of arrogance and stripped of fading display. Hold to what is yours, what is good, what alone cannot be taken away: faith toward God, confession toward Him who suffered, and beneficence toward men, which is the most precious possession. For my part, I approve of Plato, who plainly lays it down as a law that a man is not to labor for wealth of gold or silver, nor to possess a useless vessel that is not for some necessary purpose, but to be moderate. In this way, the same thing may serve many purposes, and the possession of a variety of things may be done away with. Therefore the Divine Scripture speaks excellently to boasters and lovers of their own selves, saying, "Where are the rulers of the nations, and the lords of the wild beasts of the earth, who sport among the birds of heaven, who treasured up silver and gold, in whom men trusted, and there was no end of their substance, who fashioned silver and gold, and were full of care? There is no finding of their works. They have vanished, and gone down to Hades." Such is the reward of display. For though those of us who cultivate the soil need a mattock and plow, none of us will make a pickaxe of silver or a sickle of gold. We use the material that is serviceable for farming, not what is costly. What prevents those who are able to think about similar things from holding the same view about household utensils, and letting use, not expense, be the measure? Tell me, does the table knife not cut unless it is studded with silver and has its handle made of ivory? Or must we forge Indian steel in order to divide meat, as when we call for a weapon for the fight? What if the basin is of earthenware? Will it not receive the dirt of the hands? Or the footpan the dirt of the foot? Will the table that is made with ivory feet be indignant at bearing a loaf worth three halfpence? Will the lamp not give light because it is the work of the potter, not of the goldsmith? I affirm that truckle-beds give no worse rest than the ivory couch. And since the goatskin coverlet is fully enough to spread on the bed, there is no need for purple or scarlet coverings. And yet, to condemn frugality because of the stupidity of luxury, the author of mischief, is a prodigious error and a senseless conceit. See. The Lord ate from a common bowl, and made the disciples recline on the grass on the ground, and washed their feet, girded with a linen towel. He, the lowly-minded God and Lord of the universe, did this. He did not bring down a silver foot-bath from heaven. He asked to drink from the Samaritan woman, who drew the water from the well in an earthenware vessel, not seeking regal gold, but teaching us how to quench thirst easily. For He made use, not extravagance, His aim. And He ate and drank at feasts, not digging metals from the earth, nor using vessels of gold and silver, that is, vessels giving off the smell of rust, like the fumes from heated metal.

IN THE END: in food, clothing, household utensils, and everything else that belongs to the home, I say in a general way that a person must follow the principles of a Christian, in whatever is useful and fitting for that person's character, age, work, and stage of life. For it is proper for those who are servants of one God that their possessions and household goods should show the marks of one beautiful way of life, and that each person should be seen living by faith, which makes no distinction, while practicing all other things that fit this consistent way of life and agree with this one pattern.

WHAT WE GAIN WITHOUT DIFFICULTY: and use easily, we value. We keep it easily, and we share it freely. Things that are useful are better. As a result, inexpensive things are better than costly ones. In short, when wealth is not properly governed, it is a fortress of evil. Many fix their eyes on it, and so they never reach the kingdom of heaven. They are sick with desire for the things of the world, and they live proudly in luxury. But those who are serious about salvation must settle this in their minds beforehand: everything we possess is given to us for use, and use is for what is sufficient, which a person can obtain with only a few things. For those are foolish who, because of greed, take pleasure in what they have stored up. "He that gathers wages gathers into a bag with holes." Haggai 1:6 Such a person is like one who gathers grain and shuts it up. And the one who gives to no one becomes poorer.

IT IS RIDICULOUS: and enough to make someone laugh out loud, when people bring in silver chamber pots and crystal night vessels as they welcome their advisers, and when foolish rich women have gold containers made for excrement. They are so rich that they cannot even relieve themselves except in a splendid way. I wish that, in their whole life, they considered gold fit only for dung.

BUT NOW THE LOVE OF MONEY IS CLEARLY THE STRONGHOLD OF EVIL: The apostle says it is the root of all evils. When some people longed for it, they wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10

BUT THE BEST KIND OF RICHES IS TO HAVE FEW DESIRES: and true greatness of soul is not being proud of wealth, but looking down on it. Boasting about your silverware is completely shameful. For it is obviously wrong to care too much about something that anyone who wants can buy in the market. But wisdom is not bought with earthly money, and it is not sold in the marketplace, but in heaven. And it is sold for true money, the immortal Word, the royal gold.

LET REVELRY STAY FAR FROM OUR REASONABLE GATHERINGS: and also those foolish late-night watches that delight in excess. For revelry is like an intoxicating flute, the chain of a love-bridge, that is, of sorrow. And let love affairs, drunkenness, and senseless passions be removed from our group. Crude singing is the close companion of drunkenness. A night spent drinking invites drunkenness, stirs up lust, and becomes bold in shameful acts. For if people spend their time with pipes, psalteries, choirs, dances, Egyptian hand-clapping, and other disorderly amusements like these, they become very shameless and hard to control. They beat cymbals and drums, and make noise with instruments of deception. For clearly, such a feast, it seems to me, is a theater of drunkenness. For the apostle commands that, putting off the works of darkness, we should put on the armor of light, and walk properly as in the day, not spending our time in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness. Romans 13:12-13 Let the pipe be left to shepherds, and the flute to the superstitious who are absorbed in idolatry. For truly, such instruments should be banished from a self-controlled banquet, since they are more fitting for beasts than for men, and for the more irrational part of mankind. For we have heard that stags are charmed by the pipe and lured by music into nets when hunters are chasing them. And when mares are being mated, a tune is played on the flute — a wedding song, so to speak. In a word, every improper sight and sound, and every shameful feeling of sexual license — which truly is the loss of feeling — must be completely excluded. And we must guard ourselves against whatever pleasure tickles the eye and ear and makes people soft. For the various charms of broken melodies and mournful musical measures from the Carian muse corrupt men's character, pulling them into disturbance of mind through the licentious and harmful art of music.

THE SPIRIT SETS DIVINE WORSHIP APART FROM THAT KIND OF WILD PARTYING AND SINGS: "Praise Him with the sound of a trumpet," because with the sound of a trumpet He will raise the dead. "Praise Him on the psaltery," because the tongue is the Lord's psaltery. And, "Praise Him on the lyre." By the lyre, he means the mouth, struck by the Spirit as if by a plectrum. "Praise Him with the timbrel and the dance" refers to the Church thinking deeply about the resurrection of the dead in the sounding skin. "Praise Him on the chords and organ." He calls our body an organ, and its nerves are the strings. By them it has received harmonious tension, and when it is struck by the Spirit, it sends out human voices. "Praise Him on the clashing cymbals." He calls the tongue the cymbal of the mouth, which rings out with the movement of the lips. Therefore He cried out to humanity, "Let every breath praise the Lord," because He cares for every breathing thing He has made. For man is truly an instrument of peace. But if you examine other instruments, you will find that they are instruments of war, stirring up lusts, or awakening sexual loves, or arousing anger.

IN THEIR WARS: the Etruscans use the trumpet, the Arcadians the pipe, the Sicilians the pectides, the Cretans the lyre, the Lacedæmonians the flute, the Thracians the horn, the Egyptians the drum, and the Arabians the cymbal. But we use the one instrument of peace, the Word alone, by whom we honor God. We no longer use the ancient psaltery, trumpet, timbrel, and flute. Those who were skilled in war and despised the fear of God also used these in the choruses at their feasts, so that by such music they might stir up their downcast spirits. But our cheerful spirit in drinking should be twofold, in keeping with the law. For if you love the Lord your God, and then your neighbor, let its first expression be toward God in thanksgiving and psalm singing, and the second toward our neighbor in proper fellowship. For the apostle says, "Let the Word of the Lord dwell in you richly." Colossians 3:16. And this Word suits Himself and adapts to times, persons, and places.

IN THE PRESENT INSTANCE: He is a with us. For the apostle adds again, "Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to God." And again, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and His Father." This is our thankful revelry. And even if you wish to sing and play the harp or lyre, there is no blame. You shall imitate the righteous Hebrew king in his thanksgiving to God. "Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous; praise is comely to the upright," says the prophecy. "Confess to the Lord on the harp; play to Him on the psaltery of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song." And does not the ten-stringed psaltery indicate the Word Jesus, who is manifested by the element of the decad? And as it is fitting, before partaking of food, that we should bless the Creator of all, so also in drinking it is suitable to praise Him when partaking of His creatures. For the psalm is a melodious and sober blessing. The apostle calls the psalm a spiritual song. Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16

FINALLY: before going to sleep, it is a sacred duty to give thanks to God, since we have enjoyed His grace and love, and then go straight to sleep. And, he says, confess to Him with songs from your lips, because by His command all His good pleasure is done, and there is no lack in His salvation.

ALSO: among the ancient Greeks, at their banquets with overflowing cups, they sang a song called a skolion. It was like the Hebrew psalms. All together, they raised the paean with their voices. Sometimes they also took turns singing as they drank healths in turn, and those who were more musical than the rest sang with the lyre. But love songs must be driven far away, and our songs must be hymns to God. For it says, "Let them praise His name in the dance, and let them play to Him on the timbrel and psaltery." And what is the choir that plays? The Spirit will show you: "Let His praise be in the congregation, the church, of the saints; let them be joyful in their King." And again he adds, "The Lord will take pleasure in His people." Psalm 149:4 Therefore, self-controlled harmonies are to be allowed. But as much as possible, we must drive from our strong mind those flowing harmonies which, by harmful skill in the changing of tones, train people in softness and indecency. But serious and modest melodies say farewell to the turmoil of drunkenness. Therefore chromatic harmonies are to be left to shameless feasts, and to elaborate and prostitute-like music.

PEOPLE WHO IMITATE RIDICULOUS FEELINGS: or rather feelings that deserve mockery, should be driven out of our community.

Since every kind of speech comes from the mind and from a person's character, foolish words could not be spoken unless they came from foolish behavior. For the saying, "A good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit," in Matthew 7:18 and Luke 6:43 applies here. Speech is the fruit of the mind. If, then, jokers are to be removed from our company, we ourselves must never stir up laughter in this way. For it would be absurd if we were found imitating things that we are forbidden even to listen to. It is even more absurd for a man to make himself a laughingstock, that is, the target of insult and ridicule. For if we could not bear to make ourselves look ridiculous outwardly, as we see some people do in processions, how could we properly bear having the inner person made ridiculous, and made so to one's face? Therefore we should never willingly take on a ridiculous character. How, then, can we give ourselves to being and appearing ridiculous in our conversation, and so distort speech, which is the most precious of all human gifts? Therefore it is shameful to set oneself to do this, since the talk of jokers of this kind is not fit for our ears, because the very words they use make shameful actions familiar to us.

LIGHT HUMOR IS ALLOWED: but clownish joking is not. Also, even laughter must be kept under control. When it is expressed in the right way, it shows self-control. But when it comes out in a different way, it shows a lack of restraint.

IN A WORD: we must not remove from people whatever things are natural to human beings. Instead, we should place limits on them and use them at proper times. A man is not meant to laugh at every moment just because he is a creature that laughs, any more than a horse neighs at every moment just because it is a creature that neighs. But since we are rational beings, we should govern ourselves in a fitting way. We should relax the strictness and strain of our serious work in harmony, not break it up completely in a disorderly way.

A PROPER: fitting relaxing of the face, done in a balanced way, like a musical instrument in harmony, is called a smile. In the same way, this is what laughter on the face of well-disciplined people is called. But when a woman's face relaxes in a disorderly way, it is called a giggle, and it is the laughter of a prostitute. In the case of men, it is called a guffaw, and it is wild and insulting laughter. Scripture says in Sirach 21:20, "A fool raises his voice in laughter," but a clever man smiles so slightly that it is hardly noticeable. Here he calls the clever man wise, since he is affected differently from the fool. But on the other hand, a person does not need to be gloomy, only serious. For I certainly prefer a man with a stern face who smiles, rather than the opposite. In that way, his laughter will be less likely to become an object of ridicule.

Even smiling needs to be guided by self-control. If it is in response to something shameful, we should blush rather than smile, so that we do not seem to enjoy it by sharing in it. If it is in response to something painful, it is proper to look sad rather than seem pleased. To do the first is a sign of rational human thinking. The other creates suspicion of cruelty.

WE SHOULD NOT LAUGH ALL THE TIME: because that goes too far. Nor should we laugh in the presence of elderly people, or others worthy of respect, unless they are joking for our amusement. Nor should we laugh before everyone, or in every place, or with every person, or about everything. For laughter, especially for children and women, is a cause of falling into scandal. And even appearing stern helps keep those around us at a distance. For seriousness can drive away the approaches of licentiousness by a mere look. In a word, all senseless people, wine

HE COMMANDS PEOPLE BOTH TO LAUGH IN A LUXURIOUS WAY AND TO DANCE:

IT CHANGES EFFEMINATE WAYS INTO SOFTNESS: We must also consider how, in the same way, freedom of speech leads impropriety on into filthy talk.

AND HE SAID SOMETHING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER LEFT UNSAID:

THEREFORE: a person's true character is especially seen in drinking. In that state, crafty people are stripped of their mask by the shameful freedom of drunkenness. Through it, reason, weighed down in the soul itself by drunkenness, is put to sleep, and wild passions are stirred up. These overpower the weakness of the mind.

WE OURSELVES MUST COMPLETELY AVOID FILTHY SPEECH: We must also silence those who use it, by giving them stern looks, turning our faces away, and by what we call making a mock of someone. Often, we should also use a harsher way of speaking. For He says, "What comes out of the mouth defiles a man," Matthew 15:18. That shows him to be unclean, heathenish, untrained, licentious, and not refined, proper, honorable, or temperate.

AND SINCE A SIMILAR RULE APPLIES TO HEARING AND SEEING WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT IS OBSCENE: the divine Instructor, following the same course with both, clothes those children who are engaged in the struggle with words of modesty, as guards for the ears, so that the pulsation of fornication may not break in to bruise the soul. And He directs the eyes to the sight of what is honorable, saying that it is better to slip with the feet than with the eyes. The apostle beats back this filthy speech, saying, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good." Ephesians 4:29 And again, "As becomes saints, let not filthiness be named among you, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which things are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." Ephesians 5:3-4 And if he who calls his brother a fool is in danger of the judgment, what shall we say about him who speaks what is foolish? Is it not written about such a person, "Whoever shall speak an idle word, shall give an account to the Lord in the day of judgment"? And again, "By your speech you shall be justified," He says, "and by your speech you shall be condemned." Matthew 12:37 What, then, are the saving guards for the ears, and what are the regulations for slippery eyes? Conversations with the righteous, filling the ears beforehand and arming them against those who would lead them away from the truth.

BAD COMPANY CORRUPTS GOOD MORALS:

POETRY SAYS THIS: The apostle says it more nobly: "Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good." Romans 12:9. For the one who associates with the saints will be made holy. We must completely keep away from shameful things spoken to the ears, and from shameful words and sights. Even more, we must keep ourselves pure from shameful actions: on the one hand, by not displaying and exposing parts of the body that we ought not to expose; and on the other hand, by not looking at what is forbidden. For the modest son could not bear to look at the shameful exposure of the righteous man, and modesty covered what drunkenness exposed—the sight of the sin of ignorance. Genesis 9:23. We must also keep ourselves no less pure from slanderous reports, and the ears of those who have believed in Christ ought to be closed to them.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS IS WHY THE INSTRUCTOR DOES NOT ALLOW US TO SAY ANYTHING SHAMEFUL: He strengthens us early against sexual immorality. For He is always admirable in cutting out the roots of sins. For example, He cuts out the root of "You shall not commit adultery" by saying, "You shall not lust." Adultery is the fruit of lust, which is the evil root. In the same way here, the Instructor also rebukes looseness in the words we use, and so cuts off the immoral association that comes from excess. For looseness in words produces the desire to be indecent in behavior, and modesty in words trains us to resist lustfulness. We have shown in a more complete treatise that neither the names, nor the body parts to which uncommon names are given, are by those names identified as something truly obscene.

NEITHER THE KNEE AND LEG: nor other body parts like them, nor the names used for them, nor the actions they perform, are obscene. Even the private parts should be regarded as prompting modesty, not shame. Their unlawful use is what is shameful, and what deserves disgrace, reproach, and punishment. For the only thing that is truly shameful is wickedness, and what is done through it. In keeping with this, talk about wicked deeds is rightly called filthy, or shameful, speech, such as talk about adultery and pederasty and things like these. Empty chatter also should be silenced. For it is said, "In much speaking you shall not escape sin." Proverbs 10:19 Therefore, sins of the tongue will be punished. "There is one who is silent and is found wise; and there is one who is hated for much speech." Sirach 20:5 But even more than that, the chatterer makes himself disgusting. For, "He that multiplies speech abominates his own soul." Sirach 20:8

LET US KEEP AWAY FROM JIBING: the originator of insult, from which strifes and contentions and enmities burst forth. Insult, we have said, is the servant of drunkenness. A man is judged not from his deeds alone, but from his words. It is said, “At a banquet, do not reprove your neighbor, nor say to him a word of reproach.” Sirach 31:31 For if we are especially commanded to associate with saints, it is a sin to jibe at a saint. For, the Scripture says, “From the mouth of the foolish is a staff of insult.” Proverbs 14:3 By “staff” it means the prop of insult, on which insult leans and rests. Therefore I admire the apostle, who, in reference to this, exhorts us not to speak scurrilous or unsuitable words. Ephesians 5:4 For if gatherings at festivals take place on account of affection, and the end of a banquet is friendliness toward those who meet, and food and drink accompany affection, should not conversation also be conducted in a rational manner? And should puzzling people with questions not be avoided out of affection? For if we meet together for the purpose of increasing our good will toward each other, why should we stir up enmity by jibing? It is better to be silent than to contradict, and so add sin to ignorance. Blessed indeed is the man who has not made a slip with his mouth, and has not been pierced by the pain of sin. Sirach 14:1 Or he has repented of what he has said amiss, or has spoken so as to wound no one. On the whole, let young men and young women altogether keep away from such festivals, so that they may not make a slip in what is unsuitable. For things to which their ears are unaccustomed, and unseemly sights, inflame the mind, while faith within them is still wavering. And the instability of their age joins with this, making them easily carried away by lust. Sometimes also they cause others to stumble by displaying the dangerous charms of their time of life. For Wisdom seems to give good instruction: “Do not sit at all with a married woman, and do not recline on the elbow with her.” That is, do not sup nor eat with her frequently. Therefore he adds, “And do not join company with her in wine, lest your heart incline to her, and by your blood slide to ruin.” Sirach 9:9 For the license of intoxication is dangerous, and prone to deflower. And he names a married woman because the danger is greater for the man who attempts to break the marriage bond.

BUT IF SOME NECESSITY ARISES THAT REQUIRES MARRIED WOMEN TO BE PRESENT: let them be well clothed—outwardly by clothing, inwardly by modesty. But as for unmarried women, it is the extremest scandal for them to be present at a banquet of men, especially men under the influence of wine. And let the men, fixing their eyes on the couch, and leaning on their elbows without moving, be present with their ears alone. And if they sit, let them not cross their feet, or place one thigh on the other, or put the hand to the chin. For not bearing oneself without support is vulgar, and so it is a fault in a young man. And constantly moving and changing position is a sign of frivolousness. It is also the part of a temperate man, in eating and drinking, to take a small portion, and deliberately, not eagerly, both at the beginning and during the courses, and to stop early, and so show his indifference. It is said, "Eat like a man what is set before you." Be the first to stop, for the sake of regimen. And if you are seated in the midst of several people, do not stretch out your hand before them. Sirach 31:16-18 You must never rush forward under the influence of gluttony. Nor, though you desire it, should you reach out your hand for some time, since by greed one shows an uncontrolled appetite. Nor, in the middle of the meal, are you to show yourselves hugging your food like wild beasts, or helping yourselves to too much sauce. For man is not by nature a sauce-consumer, but a bread-eater. A temperate man, too, must rise before the company in general, and retire quietly from the banquet. For at the time for rising, it says, "Do not be the last; hurry home." Sirach 32:11 The twelve, having called together the multitude of the disciples, said, "It is not fitting for us to leave the word of God and serve tables." Acts 6:2 If they avoided this, much more did they shun gluttony. And the apostles themselves, writing to the brothers at Antioch, and in Syria and Cilicia, said: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay on you no other burden than these necessary things: to abstain from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." But we must guard against drunkenness as against hemlock, for both drag down to death. We must also check excessive laughter and immoderate tears. For often people under the influence of wine, after laughing immoderately, are then somehow, by some impulse of intoxication, moved to tears. For both effeminacy and violence are out of harmony with the word. And elderly people, looking on the young as children, may, though very rarely, be playful with them, joking with them to train them in good behavior. For example, before a bashful and silent young man, one might by way of pleasantry say, "This son of mine"—meaning one who is silent—"is always talking." For a joke like this increases the young man's modesty, by playfully showing the good qualities that belong to him through censure of the bad qualities, which do not. For this device is instructive, since it confirms what is present by what is not present. Such certainly is the intention of him who says that a water-drinker and a sober man gets intoxicated and drunk. But if there are people who like to jest at others, we must be silent, and do without superfluous words like full cups. For such sport is dangerous. "The mouth of the impetuous comes near to contrition." Proverbs 10:14 "You shall not receive a foolish report, nor agree with an unjust person to be an unjust witness," Proverbs 24:28; Exodus 23:1 neither in calumnies nor in injurious speeches, much less in evil practices. I also think it right to impose a limit on the speech of rightly regulated persons, when they are moved to speak to someone who keeps conversation with them. For silence is the excellence of women, and the safe prize of the young. But good speech is characteristic of experienced, mature age. "Speak, old man, at a banquet, for it is becoming to you. But speak without embarrassment, and with accuracy of knowledge." Wisdom also commands youth: "Speak, if you must, with hesitation, when asked twice. Sum up your discourse in a few words." But both speakers must regulate their speech according to proper measure. For loudness of utterance is utter madness, while an inaudible utterance is characteristic of a senseless man, because people will not hear. The one is the mark of cowardice, the other of arrogance. Let contentiousness in words, for the sake of a useless triumph, be banished. For our aim is to be free from perturbation. Such is the meaning of the phrase, "Peace to you." "Do not answer a word before you hear." An enervated voice is the sign of effeminacy. But modulation in the voice is characteristic of a wise man, who keeps his speech from loudness, from drawling, from rapidity, and from prolixity. For we ought not to speak long or much, nor ought we to speak frivolously. Nor must we talk rapidly and rashly. For the voice itself, so to speak, ought to receive its just dues. And those who are loud and clamorous ought to be silenced. For this reason, wise Ulysses chastised Thersites with stripes:

ONLY THERSITES: who had no limit to his words and had plenty of them, shouted abuse at the chiefs. It was not fitting, but he thought it would make the crowd laugh, so he loudly brawled on.

A TALKATIVE MAN IS TERRIBLE IN THE DESTRUCTION HE CAUSES: Sirach 9:18. And idle talkers are like old shoes: everything else is worn away by evil, and only the tongue is left for destruction. Therefore Wisdom gives these very useful warnings: "Do not speak trifles in the company of the elders." It also removes foolish behavior, beginning with God, and gives this rule for our conduct: "Do not repeat your words in your prayer." Sirach 9:15. Chirping and whistling, and sounds made with the fingers by which servants are called, are irrational signals, and rational people should give them up. Frequent spitting also, and harsh clearing of the throat, and wiping one's nose during a meal, should be avoided. For we must certainly show respect to the guests, so that they will not turn away in disgust from such filthiness, which shows a lack of self-control. For we should not imitate oxen and donkeys, whose feeding place and dung heap are together. For many people wipe their noses and spit even while eating supper.

IF ANYONE IS ATTACKED WITH SNEEZING: just as in the case of hiccup, he must not startle those near him with the explosion, and so give proof of his bad breeding. Instead, the hiccup is to be quietly passed off with the breath as it is exhaled. The mouth should be properly composed, and not gape and yawn like tragic masks. So the disturbance of hiccup may be avoided by breathing gently. In this way, the threatening ball of wind will be dispersed in the most seemly manner, by managing its escape so as also to conceal anything that the air, when forcibly expelled, may bring up with it. To want to add to the noises, instead of lessening them, is a sign of arrogance and disorderliness. Those too who scrape their teeth and make the wounds bleed are disagreeable to themselves and detestable to their neighbors. Scratching the ears and the irritation of sneezing are swinish itchings, and attend unbridled fornication. Both shameful sights and shameful talk about them are to be avoided. Let the look be steady. Let the turning and movement of the neck, and the motions of the hands in conversation, be decorous. In a word, the Christian is characterized by composure, tranquillity, calmness, and peace.

THE USE OF CROWNS AND PERFUMES IS NOT NECESSARY FOR US: because it pushes people toward pleasure and self-indulgence, especially as night approaches. I know that the woman brought an alabaster jar of perfume to the sacred supper, and anointed the Lord’s feet and refreshed Him. And I know that the ancient kings of the Hebrews were crowned with gold and precious stones. But that woman had not yet received the Word (Logos), because she was still a sinner. So she honored the Lord with what she thought was the most precious thing she owned—the perfume. And with the adornment of her person, her hair, she wiped away the excess perfume, while she poured out tears of repentance on the Lord. Therefore her sins are forgiven. Luke 7:47

This may be a symbol of the Lord's teaching and of His suffering. The feet anointed with fragrant ointment mean divine teaching traveling with honor to the ends of the earth. For "their sound has gone forth to the ends of the earth." And, if I am not pressing the point too much, the Lord's feet that were anointed are the apostles, who, according to prophecy, received the fragrant anointing of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, those who traveled through the world and preached the Gospel are figuratively called the Lord's feet. The Holy Spirit also foretells this in the psalm: "Let us adore at the place where His feet stood." That means the places where the apostles, who are His feet, arrived. Since He was preached by them, He came to the ends of the earth. And tears mean repentance. The loosened hair declared freedom from the love of outward adornment, and patient endurance of suffering which, because of the Lord, accompanies preaching, since the old vainglory was done away with because of the new faith.

BESIDES: this also shows the Lord's suffering, if you understand it in a mystical way. The oil is the Lord Himself, from whom comes the mercy that reaches us. But the ointment, which is oil that has been mixed and corrupted, is the traitor Judas. By him the Lord was anointed on the feet, as He was being released from His stay in the world. For the dead are anointed. And the tears are we sinners who repent, who have believed in Him, and to whom He has forgiven our sins. And the loose, unbound hair is Jerusalem in mourning, left deserted, for whom the prophetic laments were spoken. The Lord Himself will teach us that Judas the deceiver is meant: "He that dips with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me." Matthew 26:23 You see the treacherous man, and this same Judas betrayed the Master with a kiss. For he was a hypocrite, giving a treacherous kiss, in imitation of another hypocrite from long ago. And He rebukes that people about whom it was said, "This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." Isaiah 29:13 Therefore, it is not unlikely that by the oil He means that disciple to whom mercy was shown, and by the spoiled and poisoned oil, the traitor.

THIS: then, is what the anointed feet foretold: the betrayal by Judas, when the Lord went to His suffering. And when the Savior Himself washed the disciples' feet, in John 13:5, and sent them out to do good works, He pointed to their journey for the benefit of the nations. He made them beautiful and pure beforehand by His power. Then the ointment breathed its fragrance on them, and the work of sweet fragrance reaching to all was announced. For the suffering of the Lord has filled us with sweet fragrance, and the Hebrews with guilt. The apostle showed this very clearly when he said, "Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and makes known through us in every place the fragrance of His knowledge. For we are to God a sweet fragrance of the Lord among those who are being saved and those who are perishing; to one, a fragrance of death leading to death, and to the other, a fragrance of life leading to life." 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 And the kings of the Jews, using gold and precious stones and a many-colored crown, were anointed ones who symbolically wore Christ on the head. Without knowing it, they were adorned with the head of the Lord. The precious stone, or pearl, or emerald, points to the Word Himself. The gold, again, is the incorruptible Word, who does not allow the poison of corruption. Accordingly, at His birth the Magi brought Him gold, the symbol of royalty. And this crown, made after the image of the Lord, does not fade like a flower.

I ALSO KNOW THE WORDS OF ARISTIPPUS THE CYRENIAN: Aristippus was a pleasure-loving man. He gave an answer to a clever but misleading argument in these words: “A horse that is rubbed with ointment is not harmed in its excellence as a horse, and a dog that has been rubbed with ointment is not harmed in its excellence as a dog. No more is a man,” he added, and so he ended. But the dog and the horse pay no attention to the ointment. In the case of those whose understanding is more rational, however, putting womanish perfumes on their bodies is more blameworthy. There are countless kinds of these ointments, such as the Brenthian, the Metallian, and the royal kind; also the Plangonian and the Psagdian of Egypt. Simonides is not ashamed to say in iambic lines —

I WAS ANOINTED WITH OILS AND PERFUMES: and with nard.

FOR A MERCHANT WAS PRESENT: They also use ointment made from lilies, and that made from cypress. Nard is highly valued among them, and also the ointment prepared from roses, and the other scents that women use besides, both moist and dry, for rubbing on the body and for fumigating. For day by day their thoughts are directed to the gratification of insatiable desire, with an endless variety of fragrance. Therefore they also smell strongly of excessive luxury. And they fumigate and sprinkle their clothes, their bedclothes, and their houses. Luxury all but compels even vessels for the meanest uses to smell of perfume.

SOME PEOPLE ARE TROUBLED BY THE ATTENTION GIVEN TO THIS MATTER: It seems to me that they are right to oppose perfumes because they make manliness soft and effeminate. So they would drive out from well-ordered states both the makers and sellers of blended perfumes, and also the dyers of flower-colored wool. For it is not right for trapping clothes and ointments to be allowed into the city of truth. Instead, it is very fitting for the men among us to give off not the scent of ointments, but the fragrance of nobility and goodness. And let a woman breathe the fragrance of the true royal ointment, that is, Christ, not of ointments and scented powders. Let her always be anointed with the heavenly chrism of modesty, and take delight in the holy ointment, the Spirit. Christ prepares this sweet-smelling ointment for His disciples, mixing this ointment from heavenly aromatic ingredients.

THEREFORE THE LORD HIMSELF ALSO IS ANOINTED WITH OINTMENT: as David mentions: "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions; myrrh, and stacte, and cassia come from your garments." But let us not foolishly hate ointments, like vultures or beetles. People say that when these are smeared with ointment, they die. And women should choose only a few ointments, such as will not be overpowering to a husband. For excessive use of ointments smells like a funeral, not like married life. Yet oil itself is harmful to bees and insects. It helps some people, and it calls some to a fight. And those who were formerly friends, when anointed with it, end up in deadly combat.

SINCE OINTMENT IS SMOOTH OIL: do you not think it tends to make good character soft and weak? Certainly. And just as we have given up luxury in taste, so we also give up pleasure in what we see and smell. Otherwise, through the senses, like unguarded doors, we may without noticing let into the soul the excess that we have driven away. If, then, we say that the Lord, the great High Priest, offers to God the incense of sweet fragrance, let us not imagine that this means a sacrifice and sweet smell of literal incense. Instead, let us understand it to mean that the Lord places on the altar the acceptable offering of love, the spiritual fragrance.

TO CONTINUE: oil by itself is enough to soften the skin, relax the nerves, and remove any strong odor from the body, if that is why we need oil. But giving attention to sweet perfumes is bait that draws us into sensual desire. For the immoral person is led astray from every side, by food, by bed, by conversation, by the eyes, the ears, the jaws, and even by the nostrils. As oxen are pulled by rings and ropes, so the pleasure-loving person is pulled by incense, ointments, and the sweet smells of garlands. But since we give no place to pleasure that is not connected with some use that serves life, come, let us make a distinction here too, choosing what is useful. For there are sweet scents that neither make the head heavy nor stir up desire, and do not smell of embraces and immoral companionship, but, together with moderation, are beneficial. They nourish the brain when it is unwell and strengthen the stomach. Therefore, a person must not cool himself with flowers when he wants to loosen his nerves. For their use is not to be completely set aside. Rather, ointment should be used as a medicine and help, in order to restore strength when it has become weak, and against catarrhs, colds, and weariness, as the comic poet says:—

THE NOSTRILS ARE ANOINTED: because it is very important for health to fill the brain with pleasant smells.

RUBBING THE FEET WITH RICH WARMING OR COOLING OINTMENTS IS ALSO PRACTICED BECAUSE IT IS BENEFICIAL: As a result, in people who are treated this way, a drawing and flow takes place from the head down to the lower parts of the body. But pleasure that has no usefulness leads to the suspicion of prostitute-like habits, and it acts like a drug that stirs up the passions. Rubbing yourself all over with ointment is entirely different from anointing yourself with ointment. The first is effeminate, but anointing with ointment is beneficial in some cases. So Aristippus the philosopher, when he had been anointed with ointment, said that the miserable Cinœdi deserved to perish miserably because they had brought the useful practice of ointment into bad repute. "Honor the physician for his usefulness," says the Scripture, "for the Most High made him," and "the art of healing is of the Lord." Then it adds, "And the compounder of ointments will make the mixture," since ointments have clearly been given for use, not for sensual pleasure. For we must not care about the stimulating qualities of ointments, but choose what is useful in them, since God has allowed oil to be produced to lessen human pain.

AND FOOLISH WOMEN WHO DYE THEIR GRAY HAIR AND PUT OIL ON THEIR HAIR QUICKLY BECOME EVEN GRAYER BECAUSE OF THE PERFUMES THEY USE: since those perfumes have a drying effect. Therefore, those who anoint themselves also become drier, and that dryness makes them grayer. For if grayness is the drying out of the hair, or a loss of heat, when dryness drinks up the moisture that is the hair's natural nourishment and makes it gray, how can we still keep any liking for ointments? Through them, women who are trying to escape gray hair become gray. And just as dogs with a keen sense of smell track wild animals by their scent, so also self-controlled people detect the immoral by the excessive perfume of ointments.

SUCH USE OF CROWNS ALSO HAS DEGENERATED INTO SCENES OF REVELRY AND INTOXICATION: Do not encircle my head with a crown. In the springtime it is delightful to spend time on the dewy meadows while soft and many-colored flowers are blooming, and, like the bees, to enjoy a natural and pure fragrance. But to adorn yourself with a crown woven from the fresh meadow and wear it at home is unfit for a man of temperance. For it is not suitable to fill wanton hair with rose leaves, or violets, or lilies, or other such flowers, stripping the grass of its flowers. For a crown around the head cools the hair, both because of its moisture and its coolness. Accordingly, physicians, determining by physiology that the brain is cold, approve of anointing the breast and the points of the nostrils, so that the warm exhalation passing gently through may beneficially warm the chill. A man ought not, therefore, to cool himself with flowers. Besides, those who crown themselves destroy the pleasure there is in flowers. For they enjoy neither the sight of them, since they wear the crown above their eyes, nor their fragrance, since they put the flowers above the organs of respiration. For as the fragrance rises and exhales naturally, the organ of respiration is left without enjoyment, since the fragrance is carried away. As beauty delights when looked at, so also the flower delights when looked at. And it is right to glorify the Creator by the enjoyment of the sight of beautiful things. Using flowers in any way beyond sight is injurious, and quickly passes away, avenged by remorse. Very soon their fading proves this. For both fade, both the flower and beauty. Further, whoever touches them is cooled by the former, inflamed by the latter. In one word, enjoying them except by sight is a crime, and not luxury. It becomes us, who truly follow the Scripture, to enjoy ourselves temperately, as in Paradise. We must regard the woman's crown as her husband, and the husband's crown as marriage. And the flowers of marriage are the children of both, which the divine husbandman plucks from meadows of flesh. "Children's children are the crown of old men," Proverbs 17:6. And it is said, "the glory of children is their fathers." And our glory is the Father of all. And the crown of the whole church is Christ. As roots and plants, so also flowers have their own individual properties. Some are beneficial, some injurious, and some also dangerous. Ivy is cooling. Nux gives off a stupefying vapor, as the word itself shows. Narcissus is a flower with a heavy odor. The name shows this, and it induces torpor in the nerves. And the vapors of roses and violets, being mildly cool, relieve and prevent headaches. But we, who are not only not permitted to drink with others to intoxication, but not even to indulge in much wine, do not need the crocus or the flower of the cypress to lead us to easy sleep. Many flowers also, by their odors, warm the brain, which is naturally cold, by dispersing the effusions of the head. The rose is therefore said to have received its name from the Greek words suggesting a flowing stream of fragrance. Therefore it also quickly fades.

BUT THE USE OF CROWNS DID NOT EXIST AT ALL AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS: Neither the suitors nor the pleasure-loving Phaeacians used them. But at the games, there was first a gift for the athletes; second, people stood up to applaud; third, they were showered with leaves; and last came the crown, after Greece had given itself over to luxury following the Median war.

THOSE: then, who are trained by the Word are kept from the use of crowns. And do not think that this Word, which has its seat in the brain, ought to be bound around with a crown, not because the crown is the symbol of the recklessness of revelry, but because it has been dedicated to idols. Accordingly, Sophocles called the narcissus the ancient coronet of the great gods, speaking of the earth-born divinities. And Sappho crowns the Muses with the rose:

FOR YOU DO NOT SHARE IN ROSES FROM PIERIA:

THEY ALSO SAY THAT HERA DELIGHTS IN THE LILY: and Artemis in the myrtle. But if flowers were made especially for human beings, and foolish people have taken them not for their proper and thankful use, but have misused them in the ungrateful service of demons, then we must keep away from them for conscience's sake. A crown is a symbol of calm peace. For this reason, they crown the dead, and idols too, for the same reason. By this very act, they testify that these are dead. People who feast wildly do not celebrate their drunken parties without crowns. And once they are surrounded with flowers, they become even more inflamed in excess. We must have no fellowship with demons. Nor should we crown the living image of God in the same way as dead idols. For the beautiful crown of amaranth is laid up for those who have lived well. The earth cannot produce this flower; heaven alone can bring it forth. Further, it would be unreasonable for us, who have heard that the Lord was crowned with thorns, Matthew 27:29, to crown ourselves with flowers, and so insult the Lord's sacred suffering. For the Lord's crown pointed to us prophetically. We once were barren, but now we are placed around Him through the Church, of which He is the Head. But it is also a type of faith, of life in regard to the substance of the wood, of joy in regard to the name of crown, and of danger in regard to the thorn. For no one can come near the Word without blood. But this braided crown fades away, and the braid of perversity is untied, and the flower withers. For the glory of those who have not believed in the Lord fades away. And they crowned Jesus when He was lifted up, showing their own ignorance. For they were hard of heart, and did not understand that this very thing, which they called the Lord's disgrace, was a prophecy wisely spoken: "The Lord was not known by the people," Isaiah 1:3. This was the people that went astray, that was not circumcised in understanding, whose darkness was not enlightened, that did not know God, denied the Lord, lost the place of the true Israel, persecuted God, and hoped to bring the Word to disgrace. And the One whom they crucified as a criminal, they crowned as a king. Therefore, the Man in whom they did not believe, they will know to be God the Lord, who loves mankind, the Just One. The One whom they provoked to show Himself as Lord, to Him, when He was lifted up, they bore witness by encircling Him, who is exalted above every name, with the crown of righteousness, by means of the ever-blooming thorn. This crown is hostile to those who plot against Him, and it forces them. But it is friendly to those who make up the Church, and it defends them. This crown is the flower of those who have believed in the glorified One, but it covers with blood and punishes those who have not believed. It is also a symbol of the Lord's victorious work, since He bore on His head, the ruling part of His body, all our sins by which we were pierced. For by His own suffering He rescued us from transgressions, and sins, and thorns like these. And after destroying the devil, He rightly said in triumph, "O Death, where is your sting?" 1 Corinthians 15:55. And we gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles. But those to whom He stretched out His hands, the disobedient and fruitless people, He tears into wounds. I can also show you another hidden meaning in this. For when the almighty Lord of the universe began to give the law through the Word, and wished His power to be shown to Moses, a divine vision of light that had taken visible form appeared to him in the burning bush, and the bush is a thorny plant. But when the Word ended the giving of the law and His stay among men, the Lord was again mystically crowned with thorn. When He departed from this world to the place from where He came, He repeated the beginning of His former descent. In this way, the Word, first seen in the bush and later taken up crowned with thorn, might show that the whole was the work of one power. He Himself is one, the Son of the Father, who is truly one, the beginning and the end of time.

BUT I HAVE GONE OFF FROM THE INSTRUCTIVE STYLE OF SPEAKING MEANT FOR MORAL TRAINING: and have brought in a teaching style instead. So I return to my subject.

TO RETURN TO THE POINT: we have shown that in medicine, for healing, and sometimes also for moderate refreshment, the pleasure that comes from flowers, and the benefit that comes from ointments and perfumes, should not be overlooked. And if some people say, "Then what pleasure is there in flowers for those who do not use them?" let them know that ointments are prepared from them, and these are very useful. The Susinian ointment is made from different kinds of lilies. It is warming, opening, drawing, moistening, cleansing, fine in quality, anti-bilious, and softening. The Narcissinian is made from the narcissus, and it is just as beneficial as the Susinian. The Myrsinian, made from myrtle and myrtle berries, is astringent and stops discharges from the body. The ointment made from roses is cooling. For, in a word, these also were created for our use. "Hear me," it says, "and grow like a rose planted by streams of water, and give off a sweet fragrance like frankincense, and bless the Lord for His works." Sirach 39:13-14 We would have much to say about these things if we were speaking of flowers and fragrances as made for necessary uses, and not for the excesses of luxury. And if some allowance must be made, it is enough for people to enjoy the fragrance of flowers, but they should not crown themselves with them. For the Father takes great care of man, and gives to him alone His own art. Therefore Scripture says, "Water, and fire, and iron, and milk, and fine wheat flour, and honey, the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing — all these things are for the good of the godly." Sirach 39:26-27

NOW WE MUST EXPLAIN HOW: at the proper time, we should go to sleep while remembering the commands of self-control. After the meal, and after giving thanks to God for letting us share in our enjoyments and for the happy passing of the day, our conversation should turn to sleep. Luxurious bedding must be put away: gold-embroidered bedcovers, smooth carpets worked with gold, long fine purple robes, expensive fleecy cloaks, purple woven rugs, thick mantles, and couches softer than sleep itself.

BESIDES THE SHAME OF LUXURY: sleeping on soft feather beds is harmful, because the softness of the bedding makes our bodies sink down as if into a deep hollow.

FOR THEY ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR SLEEPERS WHO TURN IN THEM: because the bed rises like a hill on either side of the body. Nor are they suitable for digesting food. Rather, they burn it up, and so destroy the nutriment. But stretching oneself on even couches, which provide a kind of natural gymnasium for sleep, helps the digestion of food. And those who can roll on other beds, having this, as it were, for a natural gymnasium for sleep, digest food more easily and make themselves fitter for emergencies. Moreover, couches with silver feet show great ostentation. And ivory on beds, taken from a body after the soul has departed, is not permissible for holy men, being a lazy contrivance for rest.

WE MUST NOT FILL OUR MINDS WITH THESE THINGS: because using them is not forbidden for those who have them. But worrying about them is forbidden, because happiness is not found in them. On the other hand, it smells of Cynic vanity for a man to act like Diomede—

And he stretched himself out under the hide of a wild bull—

UNLESS CIRCUMSTANCES FORCE IT:

ULYSSES FIXED THE UNEVENNESS OF THE MARRIAGE BED WITH A STONE: This kind of frugality and self-reliance was practiced not only by ordinary people, but also by the leaders of the ancient Greeks. But why speak of them? Jacob slept on the ground, and a stone served as his pillow. Then he was counted worthy to see the vision that was above man. In agreement with reason, the bed we use must be simple and modest, and made in such a way that, by avoiding the extremes of too much indulgence and too much hardship, it may be comfortable. If it is warm, it should protect us. If it is cold, it should warm us. But the couch must not be elaborate, and it should have smooth feet. For fancy carvings sometimes make places for creeping things, which wrap themselves around the cut parts of the work and do not slip off.

A BED WITH MODERATE SOFTNESS IS ESPECIALLY SUITABLE FOR A MAN: Sleep should not completely weaken the body, but relax it. Therefore I say that sleep should not come over us for the sake of pleasure, but to rest from activity. So we must sleep in such a way that we can be awakened easily. For it is said, "Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning; and be like men who wait for their lord, so that when he returns from the marriage feast and comes and knocks, they may open to him at once. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He comes, finds watching." For a sleeping man is no more useful than a dead man. Therefore we ought often to rise in the night and bless God. For blessed are those who watch for Him, and in this way make themselves like the angels, whom we call watchers. But a man who is asleep is worth nothing, just as if he were not alive.

BUT THE ONE WHO HAS THE LIGHT STAYS WATCHFUL: and the darkness does not overcome him, John 1:5, nor does sleep, since darkness does not either. Therefore, the one who is enlightened is awake toward God, and such a person lives. For what was made in Him was life, John 1:3-4. "Blessed is the man," says Wisdom, "who hears me, and the man who keeps my ways, watching at my doors, daily watching at the posts of my entrances." Proverbs 8:34. Let us not sleep, then, as others do, but let us keep watch, says the Scripture, and be sober. "For those who sleep, sleep at night; and those who get drunk, are drunk at night," that is, in the darkness of ignorance. "But let us who are of the day be sober. For you are all children of the light, and children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness." 1 Thessalonians 5:5-8. But whoever among us is most eager to live the true life and to hold noble thoughts will stay awake as long as possible, keeping for himself only what is helpful to his health in this matter; and that is not very common.

BUT DEVOTION TO ACTIVE WORK PRODUCES AN UNENDING WATCHFULNESS AFTER LABOR: Let food not weigh us down, but make us lighter, so that sleep may harm us as little as possible, just as swimmers are weighed down when weights hang on them. But, on the other hand, let self-control lift us up, as from the deep below, to the work of staying awake. For the pressure of sleep is like death. It drives us into a state without feeling, and it cuts off the light by closing the eyelids. Therefore, let us, who are sons of the true light, not shut the door against this light. Instead, let us turn inward on ourselves, light up the eyes of the hidden man, look at the truth itself, and receive its rays. Then let us clearly and understandably make known those dreams that are true.

BUT THE HICCUPING OF THOSE WHO ARE HEAVY WITH WINE: the snorting of those who are stuffed with food, the snoring muffled in bedclothes, and the rumbling of painful stomachs cover over the soul's clear-seeing eye by filling the mind with countless fantasies. And the cause is too much food, which drags down the rational part of a person into a condition of stupidity. For too much sleep benefits neither our bodies nor our souls. Nor is it at all suitable for those pursuits that have truth as their goal, even though it is pleasing to nature.

NOW: righteous Lot, for I pass over for the present the account of the divine arrangement of regeneration, would not have been drawn into that unhallowed intercourse if his daughters had not made him drunk and he had not been overcome by sleep. If, therefore, we cut off the causes that strongly lead to sleep, we will sleep more soberly. For those who have the sleepless Word dwelling in them ought not to sleep the whole livelong night. But they ought to rise in the night, especially when the days are coming to an end. One should devote himself to literature. Another should begin his art. The women should handle the distaff. And all of us should, so to speak, fight against sleep, training ourselves in this gently and gradually, so that through wakefulness we may partake of life for a longer time.

SO: since we give the best part of the night to staying awake, we should by no means sleep during the day. Spells of idleness, napping, stretching oneself, and yawning are signs of a trivial restlessness in the soul. Along with all this, we must understand that the need for sleep is not in the soul, for the soul is active without ceasing. But the body is refreshed when it is given over to rest, while the soul is not acting through the body, but using its understanding within itself. In the same way, dreams that are true, in the judgment of one who thinks rightly, are the thoughts of a sober soul. For a time, it is not distracted by the passions of the body, and it counsels with itself in the best way. For the soul to stop being active within itself would be its destruction. Therefore, by always contemplating God, and by continual fellowship with Him training the body to stay awake, it raises a person to equality with angelic grace, and through the practice of wakefulness it lays hold of the eternity of life.

THE RIGHT TIME FOR SEXUAL UNION SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ONLY BY THOSE WHO ARE JOINED IN MARRIAGE: For those who are married, their aim and purpose is the begetting of children. And the end is that the children may be good. In the same way, for farmers, the reason for casting seed is their care to provide nourishment, but the end of farming is the gathering of fruits. But the farmer who cultivates living soil is much better. That one works because he seeks food for a time, but this one carries out the farmer’s task by caring that the whole human race may continue. And that one plants and sows for himself, but this one for God. For He said, "Be fruitful and multiply," Genesis 1:27-28. Here this should be understood: in this way man becomes the image of God, in that man cooperates in the generation of man. Not every soil is fit to receive seed. And even if any soil were fit, it would still not belong to the same farmer. Nor should seed be sown on rock, and the seed must not be treated with dishonor, since it is the guide and chief principle of generation, and is a substance that at the same time contains the principles planted in nature. To dishonor the principles that are according to nature by committing them, without reason, to unnatural channels is very impious. See, then, how the very wise Moses symbolically rejected unfruitful sowing at one time: "You shall not eat the hare or the hyena," Deuteronomy 14:7. He does not want people to share in their character or to experience a lust equal to theirs, for these animals are said to be driven to satisfy sexual mating with a kind of mad frenzy. And they say that the hare increases the number of its anal openings every year, according to the number of years it has lived. In this way, by forbidding the eating of the hare, he signifies that he is warning against the love of boys. And the hyena, in turn, changes the male sex into the female every year. And this signifies that the one who keeps away from the hyena must not rush into adultery.

WELL: I also agree that Moses, who was completely wise, clearly shows by this prohibition that we must not be like these animals. But I do not agree with the explanation of what has been spoken symbolically. For nature can never be forced to change. Whatever has once been impressed on it cannot be changed into the opposite by passion. For passion is not nature, and passion usually damages the form, not turns it into a new one. Many birds are said to change with the seasons, both in color and in voice. For example, the blackbird, called kossuphos, becomes yellow instead of black, and becomes a chatterer instead of a singing bird. In the same way, the nightingale also changes, in turn, both its color and its song. But they do not change their actual nature, so that in the change they become female instead of male. Rather, a new growth of feathers, like new clothes, gives the feathers a certain color. A little later, that color fades away in the harshness of winter, like a flower when its color fades. In the same way, the voice itself is weakened when it is harmed by the cold. For when the outer skin is thickened by the air around it, the arteries around the neck are compressed and filled, and they press hard on the breath. Since the breath is so tightly confined, it produces a muffled sound. But when the breath is again made like the surrounding air and relaxed in spring, it is freed from its confined condition and passes through the widened arteries that had been blocked until then. Then it no longer sings a dying melody, but now gives out a sharp note. The voice flows freely, and spring now becomes the season of the birds' song.

THEREFORE: we must never believe that the hyena changes its nature. The same animal does not have both the sexual parts of male and female at the same time, as some have thought. They strangely imagined hermaphrodites, and invented this male-female nature between male and female. But they are badly mistaken, because they did not notice how much Nature, the mother and maker of all, loves her offspring. For this animal, the hyena, is extremely lustful. Under its tail, before the passage for excrement, a certain fleshy swelling is attached to it, very much like the shape of the female sexual organ. But this fleshy form has no passage leading to any useful part, either to the womb or to the rectum. It only has a large hollow, which receives empty lust when the passages occupied in conceiving young are turned away. This same thing is attached to both the male and the female hyena, because it is remarkably given to passive vice. For the male both acts and suffers in turn. That is why a female hyena can be found only very rarely. For this animal does not often conceive, since in them there overflows in abundance that satisfaction which is against nature. For this reason, it seems to me that Plato in the Phaedrus, when rejecting the love of boys, called it a beast. For those who give themselves to pleasures, biting the bridle, are lustful, mate in the manner of four-footed animals, and try to sow children. But God gave the ungodly over, as the Apostle says in Romans 1:26-27, to shameful passions: "For even their women exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature. Likewise also their men, leaving the natural use, burned in their desire for one another, men with men doing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the due reward of their error." Yet nature has not allowed even the most lustful animals to put seed into the passage of excrement. For urine is discharged into the bladder, softened food into the belly, tears into the eye, blood into the veins, dirt into the ears, and mucus is carried into the nostrils. But at the end of the rectum the seat is joined, through which excrement is expelled. So only the unusual nature found in hyenas devised this extra part for excessive intercourse. For that reason it is also somewhat hollow for a short distance, so that it may serve itching parts. But after that, the hollow closes up. For it was not made for generation. From this it is clear to us, and openly admitted, that intercourse with males must be avoided, and fruitless sowings, and preposterous Venus, and the unions of androgynes, things which nature cannot join together. We should follow nature itself, which forbids this by the arrangement of the parts, since it made the male not to receive seed, but to pour it out. And when Jeremiah, that is, the Spirit speaking through him, says, "My house has become a hyena's den," he uses a wise allegory to condemn the worship of idols, rejecting the food that consisted of dead bodies. For truly the house of the living God ought to be pure from idols. Again, Moses also forbids eating the hare. For the hare mates at all times, and leaps, with the female sitting there, attacking her from behind. For it is one of the animals that leap on from behind. It conceives every month, and it conceives again while already pregnant. It mates and gives birth. And after it has given birth, it is at once mounted by any hare whatever, for it is not content with one mating, and it conceives again while still nursing. For it has a womb with two chambers, and not only one empty chamber of the womb. It has enough room to receive intercourse, for whatever is empty desires to be filled. But it happens that while they are carrying young, one part of the womb is seized by desire and rages with lust. Therefore they have repeated conceptions. So this prohibition urges us to abstain from violent desires, and mutual sexual encounters, and intercourse with pregnant women, and relations in turn one after another, and the corruption of boys, and adultery, and lust. For this reason Moses also openly, and not through riddles, forbade these things, saying, "You shall not commit sexual immorality. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not corrupt boys," in Exodus 20:14. Therefore the rule of the Word must be kept with all our strength. Nothing at all must be done against the laws, and the commandments must not be weakened. For evil desire is called ὕβρις, insolence. And Plato called the horse of desire unruly when he read, "You became to me raging horses after females," Jeremiah 5:8. And those angels who came to Sodom will make the punishment of lust known to us. They burned those who wanted to treat them shamefully, together with the city, showing by this clear sign the fire that is the fruit of lust. For the things that happened to the people of old, as we said before, were written to warn us, so that we may not be held by the same sins, and may beware lest we fall into similar punishments. But we ought to regard boys as our children, and to look at other men's wives as their own daughters. For to restrain pleasures, and to rule the belly and the parts below the belly, belongs to the greatest mastery. For if reason does not allow the wise man even to move a finger carelessly, as the Stoics confess, how much more must those who pursue wisdom gain control over the part used in intercourse? And for this reason that part seems to be called the private part, because this part of the body ought to be used with more modesty than any other. For nature has allowed us to use food, and also lawful marriage, as much as is fitting and useful. And it has allowed us to desire the procreation of children. But whoever pursues these things beyond measure falls away even from what is according to nature, harming himself through relations that are against law. Above all, it is right that we should never use sexual intercourse with youths as with women. And so he who was made a philosopher by Moses says that seed must not be sown on rocks and stones, because it will never take root there or receive the generative power of seed. Therefore the Word through Moses most plainly commanded: "And with a male you shall not lie as with a woman. It is an abomination," Leviticus 18:22. In addition, the noble Plato, gathering from the divine Scriptures that one must also abstain from every female field except one's own, gave counsel from a law taken from there: "And you shall not give the intercourse of seed to your neighbor's wife, to be defiled with her," Leviticus 18:20. The seed spent with concubines is barren and adulterous. Do not sow seed where you do not want what is sown to be born for you. And do not touch any woman at all except your own wife, from whom alone it is permitted for you to receive bodily pleasure for obtaining legitimate offspring. For these alone are lawful according to the Word. Certainly for those who share in God's work in the labor of bringing forth life, seed must not be thrown away, or wronged, or sown as if you were ordering seed to be sown in horns. Therefore Moses himself also forbids intercourse even with one's own wife if she is held by her monthly purifications. For it is not right to pollute generative seed, and that which will soon become a human being, with the body's cleansing discharge, nor to flood and bury it in the dirty flow of matter and in the impurities that are being expelled. For the seed of generation is damaged and made unfit if it is deprived of the furrows of the womb. Nor did any of the ancient Hebrews ever present a man having intercourse with his own wife while she was pregnant. For pleasure alone, even if someone uses it in marriage, is against law, unjust, and contrary to reason. Again, Moses draws men away from pregnant women until they have given birth. For in truth the womb is placed under the bladder and above the intestine called the rectum. It stretches its neck between the shoulders of the bladder, and the mouth of the neck, into which seed comes, is closed when it is filled. Then it becomes empty again when it has been cleansed by childbirth. But after it has laid down its fruit, it then receives seed. And it is not shameful for us, for the benefit of the hearers, to name the parts in which conception takes place, since God was not ashamed to make them. So the womb, thirsting for the procreation of children, receives the seed, and rejects shameful and blameworthy intercourse. After the sowing, with its mouth now completely closed, it altogether excludes lust. And its desires, which before were engaged in loving embraces, now turned inward and occupied with the production of offspring, work together with the Maker. Therefore it is unlawful to trouble nature when it is already at work, by uselessly rushing into unruly lust. And unruly lust, which has many names and many forms, when it turns toward this sexual excess, is called λαγνεία, that is, wantonness. By this name is meant a lustful, public, and incestuous eagerness for intercourse. And when this grows, a great crowd of diseases comes with it, desire for rich food, drunkenness, and love of women, as well as luxury and pursuit of every pleasure. Over all these, desire rules like a tyrant. And countless passions related to these increase, by which uncontrolled habits are carried to the highest degree. And Scripture says, "Whips are prepared for the intemperate, and punishments for the shoulders of fools," Proverbs 19:29, calling the powers of intemperance, and the steady endurance of it, "the shoulders of fools." Therefore, "Remove vain hopes from your servants," it says, "and turn away shameful desires from me. Let not appetite for food and intercourse take hold of me."

THEREFORE: the many kinds of evil tricks of those who set traps must be driven far away. For the foolish parasite sails not only to Crates' Pera, but also to our city. Neither does the lustful fornicator, who takes pleasure in the rear part, nor the deceitful prostitute, nor any other beast of pleasure of that kind. Therefore, through our whole life, there should be sown in us much occupation that is good and honorable. In short, a person ought either to be joined in marriage, or to remain altogether free from marriage. For the question turns on this, and this has been explained to us in the book On Continence. But if this very question comes up for consideration, namely, whether a wife should be taken, how can it be freely allowed to make constant use, not only of food, but also of intercourse, as if it were a necessary thing? From this it can be seen that the sinews are stretched like threads, and in the violent strain of intercourse are broken. Further, it also casts darkness over the senses and weakens the strength. This is plain both in animals without reason and in bodies trained by exercise. For those who abstain overcome their opponents in contests. And animals kept away from intercourse are driven around and almost dragged, after all their strength and force have at last, as it were, been weakened. The sophist from Abdera used to call intercourse a small epilepsy, thinking it an incurable disease. For do not relaxations follow, which are attributed to that emptying and to the greatness of what departs? For man is born from man and is torn away from him. See how great the loss is. The whole man is drawn away by the emptying of intercourse. For he says, "This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." Genesis 2:23. Therefore a man is emptied by seed to the same measure that he appears in body. For what goes out is the beginning of generation. Indeed, the boiling up of the material also disturbs, shakes, and unsettles the frame of the body. So that man spoke well who, when asked how he still felt toward sexual matters, answered, "Speak good words. As for me, I have most gladly run away from there, as from a savage and mad master." Still, let marriage indeed be granted and accepted. For the Lord wants the human race to be filled. But He does not say, "Be lustful." Nor did He want you, as though you were born for intercourse, to be given over to pleasure. Rather, let the Instructor make us feel shame, crying out through Ezekiel, "Circumcise your fornication." Even animals without reason also have a fitting time for sowing seed. But to have intercourse in any other way than for the begetting of children is to do violence to nature. Nature ought to be our teacher, and we should carefully observe the fitting limits of time that she wisely introduces, I mean old age and childhood. For to these she has not yet granted it, and those she no longer wants to marry. Nor does she want human beings to be occupied with marriage all the time. Marriage is the desire for the procreation of children, not the disorderly emission of seed, which is both against law and contrary to reason. Our whole life would proceed according to nature if from the beginning we restrained our desires, and did not destroy the human race, which is born by divine providence, by wicked and evil arts. For some, in order to hide fornication, use deadly drugs that lead completely to ruin, and along with the unborn child destroy all humanity. Moreover, those who are allowed to marry need the Instructor, so that the mystical rites of nature may not be celebrated in the daytime, and so that no one, for example, returning in the morning from church or from the marketplace, may mate like a rooster, when it is the time for prayer, reading, and the works that ought to be done during the day. But in the evening one should rest after the meal, and after the thanksgiving offered to God for the good things we have received. Nature does not always allow time for marital intercourse to take place. For union is more desirable the longer it is delayed. Nor should people behave immodestly and without self-control at night, as though in darkness. Rather, modesty, since it is the light of reason, should be kept enclosed in the soul. For we will differ in no way from Penelope weaving her web, if by day we weave teachings of self-control, but by night, when we come to bed, we undo them. For if one ought to practice decency, then much more should decency be shown to your wife by avoiding shameless unions. And if you conduct yourself chastely with your neighbors, let there also be trustworthy witness from your home. For no woman can think anything honorable of a man if decency is not proved before her by sure testimony in those intense pleasures. But affection that rushes headlong into intercourse blooms only for a little time, and grows old with the body. Sometimes it even grows old before the body, when desire has already grown weak, because lusts like those of a prostitute have spoiled marital self-control. For the hearts of lovers are winged, and the excitements of love are often put out by regret. And love often turns into hatred when satiety, once it feels rebuke, brings that change. As for shameless words, obscene postures, prostitutes' kisses, and the names of such acts of lust, these should not even be mentioned by those who follow the blessed Apostle, who plainly says, "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or greed, must not even be named among you, as is proper for saints." Ephesians 5:3. Therefore, someone seems to have spoken rightly when he said, "Intercourse has benefited no one. Yet it goes rightly for the man whom it has not harmed." For even lawful intercourse is dangerous, except so far as it concerns the procreation of children. But about intercourse that is against law, Scripture says, "A prostitute woman will be counted like a boar. But she who is subject to a husband is a tower of death to those who have dealings with her." He compared the passion of a prostitute to a goat, or to a boar. And by death he meant adultery, which is committed with a woman who is guarded. "But the house, and the city, in which they practice their lack of self-control." Indeed, even your poetry, in a certain way reproaching this, writes:

WITH YOU THERE IS ADULTERY: and with you there is also an unspeakable sexual union, a shameful and womanish pact, O worst city, utterly impure.

ON THE OTHER HAND: he admires the modest.

WHOM DESIRE HELD: and who never endured the shameful bed of another, nor any foul and hateful acts of sexual corruption with males.

MANY PEOPLE THINK THAT ONLY THINGS AGAINST NATURE ARE PLEASURES: like these sins of theirs. And those who are better than they are know that these things are sins, but they are still overcome by pleasures. Darkness is the cover for their vicious actions. A man commits adultery against his marriage when he uses it like a prostitute would. He does not listen to the voice of the Instructor, who cries out, "The man who goes up to his bed says in his soul, 'Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls cover me, and no one sees my sins. Why should I fear that the Most High will remember?'" Sirach 23:18-19 Such a man is most miserable. He fears only the eyes of men, and thinks he will escape God's notice. For he does not know, as Scripture says, that "the eyes of the Most High are ten thousand times brighter than the sun." They look on all the ways of men and cast their gaze into hidden places. So again the Instructor threatens them, speaking through Isaiah: "Woe to those who make plans in secret, and say, 'Who sees us?'" Isaiah 29:15 A person may escape the light of the senses, but it is impossible to escape the light of the mind. For as Heraclitus says, "How can anyone escape the notice of that which never sets?" Therefore, let us never hide ourselves in darkness, because the light lives in us. For it is said, "the darkness did not comprehend it." John 1:5 And even the night itself is lit up by self-controlled reason. Scripture has called the thoughts of good men sleepless lamps. And if a person even tries to hide what he does, that itself is openly admitted to be sin. Everyone who sins does wrong not so much to his neighbor, if he commits adultery, as to himself, because he has committed adultery. Besides that, he makes himself worse and less respected. For the person who sins becomes worse, to the same degree that he sins, and is worth less than before. And the person who has been overcome by shameful pleasures now has licentiousness completely attached to him. Therefore, the one who commits fornication is completely dead to God, and is abandoned by the Word as a dead body is abandoned by the spirit. For what is holy rightly hates being polluted. But it is always lawful for the pure to touch what is pure. I beg you, do not put off modesty at the same time that you put off your clothes, because it is never right for a righteous man to strip himself of self-control. For look, this mortal shall put on immortality. Then the insatiableness of desire, which rushes into licentiousness, when it has been trained to self-restraint and made free from the love of corruption, will hand the person over to everlasting chastity. For in this world people marry and are given in marriage. Matthew 22:30 But when we have finished with the works of the flesh and have been clothed with immortality, with the flesh itself made pure, we pursue what is according to the measure of the angels.

SO IN THE PHILEBUS: Plato, who had been a disciple of the barbarian philosophy, in a mystical way called those people atheists who destroy and defile, as much as they can, the Deity living in them — that is, the Word (Logos) — by joining themselves to their vices. Therefore, those who are dedicated to God must never live in a merely mortal way. Nor, as Paul says, is it fitting to make the members of Christ the members of a prostitute. Nor must the temple of God be made a temple of shameful passions. 1 Corinthians 6:15 Remember the twenty-four thousand who were rejected because of fornication. But the experiences of those who committed fornication, as I have already said, are types that correct our lusts. Moreover, the Pædagogue warns us very clearly: "Do not go after your lusts, and keep away from your appetites." Sirach 18:30 "For wine and women will drive away understanding, and he who joins himself to prostitutes will become more reckless. Decay and the worm will inherit him, and he will be made a public example for greater shame." And again — for He never grows tired of doing good — "He who turns his eyes away from pleasure crowns his life."

IT IS NOT RIGHT: then, to be overcome by sexual passions, or to foolishly long for lusts, or to be driven by desires that are outside reason, or to desire to be defiled. But only the man who has taken a wife is permitted to sow, as a farmer does, when the time allows for sowing. And against another kind of lack of self-control, reason is indeed the best remedy. A lack of fullness also brings help, because when there is too much satisfaction, desires are set on fire and rush out toward pleasures.

THEREFORE: we should no more provide ourselves with expensive clothing than with a variety of foods. So the Lord Himself divides His commands into what concerns the body, the soul, and, third, outward things. He advises us to provide outward things for the sake of the body. He directs the body by the soul, and He trains the soul, saying, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on; for life is more than food, and the body more than clothing." Luke 12:22-23 And He adds a clear example for instruction: "Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them." Luke 12:24 "Are you not worth more than the birds?" Luke 12:24 So much, then, about food. In the same way, with respect to clothing, which belongs to the third division, that is, outward things, He commands, saying, "Consider the lilies, how they do not spin or weave. But I say to you, not even Solomon was dressed like one of these." Luke 12:27 And King Solomon adorned himself greatly with his riches.

WHAT: I ask, is more graceful, more brightly colored, than flowers? What, I say, is more delightful than lilies or roses? And if God so clothes the grass, which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! Luke 12:28 Here the word "what" banishes variety in food. For this is shown from Scripture: "Take no thought what things you shall eat, or what things you shall drink." For to take thought of these things shows greed and luxury. Now eating, considered merely by itself, is the sign of necessity. Repletion, as we have said, is the sign of want. Whatever is beyond that is the sign of superfluity. And what is superfluous, Scripture declares to be of the devil. The expression that follows makes the meaning plain. For after saying, "Seek not what you shall eat, or what you shall drink," He added, "Neither be of doubtful mind." Now pride and luxury make men waverers from the truth, or raise them aloft from it. And voluptuousness, which indulges in superfluities, leads away from the truth. Therefore He says very beautifully, "And all these things do the nations of the world seek after." Matthew 6:32 The nations are the dissolute and the foolish. And what are these things that He specifies? Luxury, voluptuousness, rich cooking, dainty feeding, gluttony. These are the "What?" And of bare sustenance, dry and moist, since these are necessities, He says, "Your Father knows that you need these." And if, in a word, we are naturally given to seeking, let us not destroy the power of seeking by directing it to luxury, but let us stir it up to the discovery of truth. For He says, "Seek the kingdom of God, and the materials of sustenance shall be added to you."

IF: then, He takes away anxious care for clothes and food, and unnecessary extras in general, what are we to think should be said about love of ornament, dyeing wool, a variety of colors, fussiness about gems, delicate work in gold, and still more, artificial hair and curled arrangements? And furthermore, what should be said about staining the eyes, plucking out hairs, painting with rouge and white lead, dyeing the hair, and the wicked arts used in such deceptions? May we not very well suspect that what was quoted a little above about the grass was said of those unornamental lovers of ornaments? For the field is the world, and we who are bedewed by the grace of God are the grass. And though cut down, we spring up again, as will be shown more fully in the book On the Resurrection. But hay figuratively means the common rabble, attached to passing pleasure, flourishing for a little while, loving ornament, loving praise, and being anything but truth-loving, good for nothing except to be burned with fire. "There was a certain man," said the Lord, telling the story, "very rich, who was clothed in purple and scarlet, enjoying himself splendidly every day." This was the hay. "And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table." This is the grass. Well, the rich man was punished in Hades, made a partaker of the fire, while the other flourished again in the Father's bosom. I admire that ancient city of the Lacedaemonians, which allowed only harlots to wear flowered clothes and ornaments of gold, forbidding respectable women from love of ornament, and allowing only courtesans to deck themselves. On the other hand, the archons of the Athenians, who affected a polished mode of life, forgetting their manhood, wore tunics reaching to the feet, and had on the crobulus, a kind of knot of the hair, adorned with a fastening of golden grasshoppers, supposedly to show their origin from the soil, in the display of licentiousness. Now the rivalry of these archons spread also to the other Ionians, whom Homer, to show their effeminacy, calls "Long-robed." Those, therefore, who are devoted to the image of the beautiful, that is, to love of finery, not to the beautiful itself, and who under a fair name practice idolatry again, are to be banished far from the truth, as people who by opinion, not knowledge, dream about the nature of the beautiful. And so life here is to them only a deep sleep of ignorance. From this it becomes us to rouse ourselves and hurry to what is truly beautiful and comely, and desire to grasp this alone, leaving the ornaments of earth to the world, and bidding them farewell before we fall fully asleep. I say, then, that man requires clothes for nothing else than covering the body, and for defense against excess of cold and intensity of heat, lest harsh weather injure us. And if this is the purpose of clothing, see that one kind is not assigned to men and another to women. For it is common to both to be covered, just as it is to eat and drink. Since the need is common, we judge that the provision should be similar. For just as it is common to both to need things to cover them, so also their coverings should be similar, although such a covering ought to be used as is required for covering the eyes of women. For if the female sex, because of weakness, desires more, we ought to blame the habit of that evil training, by which men brought up in bad habits often become more effeminate than women. But this must not be yielded to. And if some accommodation is to be made, they may be permitted to use softer clothes, provided they put away fabrics that are foolishly thin and finely woven, and bid farewell to embroidery of gold and Indian silks and elaborate Bombyces, or silks. At first it is a worm. Then from it comes a hairy caterpillar. After that, the creature undergoes a new transformation into a third form, which they call larva. From this a long filament is produced, like the spider's thread from the spider. For these superfluous and transparent materials are proof of a weak mind, since they cover the shame of the body with only a thin veil. For luxurious clothing that cannot hide the shape of the body is no longer a covering. Such clothing falls close to the body and takes its form too easily. Clinging, as it were, to the flesh, it receives its shape and marks out the woman's figure, so that the whole form of the body is visible to spectators, though they do not see the body itself.

THE DYEING OF CLOTHES IS ALSO TO BE REJECTED: It is far removed from both necessity and truth. Besides that, disgraceful behavior grows out of it. The use of colors is not helpful, because they do not protect against cold. Nor do they cover the body any better than other clothing, except for the shame that comes with them alone. And the pleasantness of color troubles greedy eyes, stirring them up to senseless blindness. But for those who are inwardly white and unstained, it is most fitting to wear white and simple clothes. Clearly and plainly, therefore, Daniel the prophet says, "Thrones were set, and upon them sat one like the Ancient of Days, and His clothing was white as snow." Daniel 7:9 The Apocalypse also says that the Lord Himself appeared wearing such a robe. It also says, "I saw the souls of those who had borne witness, beneath the altar, and a white robe was given to each of them." Revelation 6:9, 11 And if it were necessary to look for some other color, the natural color of truth should be enough. But garments that are like flowers should be left to Bacchic foolishness, and to the rites of initiation, along with purple and silver plate, as the comic poet says:

USEFUL FOR TRAGEDIANS: not for life.

OUR LIFE SHOULD BE ANYTHING BUT A SHOW: Therefore, the dye of Sardis, olive-colored dye, green dye, rose-colored dye, scarlet dye, and countless other dyes have been invented with much effort for harmful pleasure. Clothes like these are made to be looked at, not to cover the body. We should also say farewell, along with the art that makes them, to garments patterned with gold, to purple garments, to that luxury item named from the animals pictured on it, to that saffron-colored robe dipped in ointment, and to those expensive, many-colored garments made of shining membranes. For what sensible thing, says the comic poet, can those women have done who sit covered with flowers, wearing a saffron-colored dress, painted?

THE INSTRUCTOR CLEARLY WARNS: "Do not brag about your clothing, and do not become proud because of any glory, since that is unlawful." Sirach 11:4

SO: mocking those who are dressed in costly clothes, He says in the Gospel, "Look, those who live in splendid clothing and luxury are in earthly palaces." Luke 7:25 He means palaces that perish, where there are love of display, love of popularity, flattery, and deceit. But those who serve in the court of heaven around the King of all are made holy in the immortal clothing of the Spirit, that is, the flesh, and so they put on incorruptibility.

SO: just as an unmarried woman gives herself to God alone and her concern is not divided, while a chaste married woman divides her life between God and her husband, and a woman of another kind gives herself completely to marriage, that is, to passion, in the same way, I think, a chaste wife, when she gives herself to her husband, sincerely serves God. But when she becomes fond of fine clothing and decoration, she falls away from God and from chaste marriage. She exchanges her husband for the world, like that courtesan from Argos, I mean Eriphyle—

SHE ACCEPTED GOLD AND VALUED IT MORE THAN HER BELOVED HUSBAND:

THEREFORE I ADMIRE THE SOPHIST FROM CEOS: who drew fitting and appropriate pictures of Virtue and Vice. He showed the first, that is, Virtue, standing plainly, dressed in white and pure, adorned only with modesty. For that is how a true wife ought to be, endowed with modesty. But the other, that is, Vice, he presents in the opposite way, dressed in excessive clothing, brightened with color that is not her own. Her walk and appearance are described as carefully shaped to give pleasure, forming a picture of immoral women.

BUT WHOEVER FOLLOWS THE WORD WILL NOT GIVE HIMSELF TO ANY SHAMEFUL PLEASURE: Therefore, when it comes to clothing, what is useful should be preferred. And if the Word, speaking about the Lord through David, sings, "The daughters of kings made You glad with honor; the queen stood at Your right hand, clothed in cloth of gold, girded with golden fringes," he is not pointing to luxurious clothing. Instead, he shows the immortal adornment, woven from faith, of those who have found mercy, that is, the Church. In it, the sinless Jesus shines clearly like gold, and the chosen are the golden tassels. And if such things must be woven for women, then let us weave clothing that is pleasant and soft to the touch, but not decorated with flowered patterns like pictures to please the eye. For a picture fades over time, and washing and soaking in the prepared dye liquids wear out the wool and make the cloth of the garments weak. This is not good for economy. It is the height of foolish display to be all worked up about peploi, and xystides, and ephaptides, and cloaks, and tunics, and "what covers shame," as Homer says. For truly, I am ashamed when I see so much wealth poured out on covering nakedness. For the first man in Paradise provided a covering for his shame from branches and leaves. And now, since sheep have been created for us, let us not be as foolish as sheep. Instead, being trained by the Word, let us condemn expensive clothing, saying, "You are sheep's wool." Though Miletus may boast, and Italy may be praised, and the wool that many are crazy about may be protected under skins, still we must not set our hearts on it.

THE BLESSED JOHN LOOKED DOWN ON WOOL CLOTHING: because it suggested luxury. He chose camel’s hair and wore it, making himself an example of frugality and simplicity in life. He also ate locusts and wild honey, Mark 1:6, a sweet and spiritual food, since he was preparing the humble and pure ways of the Lord. For how could he possibly have worn a purple robe, when he turned away from the pomp of cities and withdrew to the solitude of the desert, to live calmly with God, far from all trivial pursuits, from all false appearance of good, and from all meanness? Elijah used a sheepskin cloak and tied the sheepskin with a belt made of hair. 2 Kings 1:8 And Isaiah, another prophet, was naked and barefoot, Isaiah 20:2, and was often clothed in sackcloth, the clothing of humility. And if you mention Jeremiah, he had only a linen belt. Jeremiah 13:1

Just as well-trained bodies show their strength more clearly when they are uncovered, so also a beautiful character shows its greatness of soul when it is not wrapped up in showy foolishness. But dragging your clothes so they hang down to the soles of your feet is extreme foppishness. It gets in the way when you walk, and the garment sweeps up the dirty surface of the ground like a broom. Even those emasculated creatures, the dancers, who bring their silent, shameless immorality onto the stage, do not reject clothing that falls to such a disgraceful length. Their fancy garments, their fringe decorations, and their carefully worked-out bodily movements show the dragging train of sordid effeminacy.

If someone should point to the Lord’s garment that reached down to his feet, that many-colored robe represents the flowers of wisdom. It represents the Scriptures, varied and unfading, the words of the Lord shining with the rays of truth. In another robe like this, the Spirit clothed the Lord through David when he sang: "You were clothed with confession and beauty, putting on light as a garment."

SO THEN: just as we must avoid anything strange in making our clothes, we must also guard against extravagance in wearing them. Clothes should not be above the knee, as they say was the case with the Spartan virgins. And it is not proper for any part of a woman’s body to be exposed. You might very fittingly say to the one who said, "Your arm is beautiful," "Yes, but it is not for public view." "Your thighs are beautiful." But the reply would be, "For my husband alone." "And your face is lovely." "Yes, but only for the man who has married me." But I do not want chaste women to give any occasion for such praise to those who use praise to look for reasons to condemn. This is true not only because it is forbidden to expose the ankle, but also because it has been commanded that the head be veiled and the face covered. For it is an evil thing when beauty becomes a trap for men. Nor is it proper for a woman to want to draw attention to herself by wearing a purple veil. If only it were possible to get rid of purple in clothing, so that it would not draw the eyes of onlookers to the faces of those who wear it. But women, in making all the rest of their clothing, have made everything purple, and so they stir up lust. And in truth, those women who are mad about these foolish and luxurious purples have been seized by "purple death," according to the poetic saying. Because of this purple, Tyre and Sidon, and the region around the Spartan Sea, are greatly desired. Their dyers and purple-fishers, and the purple fish themselves, are highly valued because their blood produces purple dye. But cunning women and effeminate men mix these deceptive dyes with delicate fabrics, carry their mad desires beyond all limits, and export their fine linens no longer from Egypt, but other kinds from the land of the Hebrews and from Cilicia. I say nothing about the linens made from Amorgos and Byssus. Luxury has gone beyond the names available for it.

IN MY JUDGMENT: a covering should show that what it covers is better than the covering itself, just as an image is greater than the temple, the soul than the body, and the body than clothes. But now the exact opposite is true. The bodies of these women, if sold, would never bring a thousand Attic drachms. Yet they buy a single dress for the price of ten thousand talents. By doing this, they show that they are less useful and less valuable than cloth. Why in the world do you look for what is rare and expensive instead of what is near at hand and cheap? It is because you do not know what is truly beautiful or what is truly good. Instead, you eagerly chase appearances rather than realities, following fools who, like people out of their minds, imagine that black is white.

WOMEN WHO LOVE DISPLAY ACT THE SAME WAY WITH THEIR SHOES: showing great luxury in this matter too. Those sandals with gold ornaments attached to them are truly shameful. Yet people think they are worth having nails driven into the soles in twisting rows. Many also carve scenes of lovers embracing on them, as if by the way they walk they could pass a graceful motion to the ground and stamp on it the lustfulness of their spirit. Therefore, gold-plated and jeweled harmful kinds of sandals must be given up, along with Attic and Sicyonian half-boots, and Persian and Tyrrhenian buskins. Instead, setting before ourselves the right goal, as our truth teaches us to do, we must choose what agrees with nature.

SHOES ARE USED PARTLY FOR COVERING THE FEET: partly for protection in case someone stumbles against things, and for protecting the sole of the foot from the roughness of steep paths.

WOMEN SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO WEAR WHITE SHOES: except when traveling. Then they should use greased shoes. When traveling, they also need shoes with nails in them. Also, most of the time they should wear shoes, because it is not proper for the foot to be shown bare. Besides, woman is delicate and easily hurt. But for a man, bare feet are quite fitting, except when he is in military service. For wearing shoes is very close to being bound.

GOING BAREFOOT IS VERY SUITABLE FOR EXERCISE: It is also best for health and comfort, unless necessity prevents it. But if we are not traveling and cannot bear to go barefoot, we may use slippers or white shoes. The Attics called them "dusty-feet," I think, because they brought the feet close to the dust. Let John be enough as a witness for simplicity in shoes, since he declared that he was not worthy to untie the strap of the Lord's shoes. For the one who showed the Hebrews the pattern of true philosophy did not wear elaborate shoes. What else this may mean will be shown elsewhere.

IT IS CHILDISH TO ADMIRE DARK OR GREEN STONES TOO MUCH: and things thrown up by the sea onto foreign shores, which are just pieces of the earth. To run after stones that are clear and unusually colored, and after colored glass, is only the mark of foolish people who are attracted by things that have a striking appearance. In the same way, when children see fire, they run to it because its brightness attracts them. In their lack of sense, they do not understand the danger of touching it. The same is true of the stones that foolish women wear, fastened to chains and set in necklaces: amethysts, ceraunites, jaspers, topaz, and the Milesian

EMERALD: a most precious gem.

And the highly valued pearl has spread into women's private rooms to an excessive degree. It is produced in a kind of oyster, like mussels, and it is about the size of the eye of a large fish. And these miserable people are not ashamed that they have taken such great pains over this little oyster, when they could adorn themselves with the sacred jewel, the Word of God, whom Scripture somewhere calls a pearl: the pure and clear Jesus, the eye that watches in the flesh, the transparent Word, by whom the flesh, regenerated by water, becomes precious. For that oyster in the water covers the flesh all around, and out of it the pearl is produced.

WE HAVE ALSO HEARD THAT THE JERUSALEM ABOVE IS BUILT WITH WALLS OF SACRED STONES: And we agree that the twelve gates of the heavenly city, being made to look like precious stones, point to the surpassing grace of the apostolic message. For colors are placed in precious stones, and those colors are precious, while the other parts remain made of earthly material. In this symbolic way, as is fitting, the city of the saints, which is built spiritually, is enclosed with walls. Therefore, by the brightness of these stones is meant the unmatched brightness of the spirit, and the immortality and holiness of being. But these women do not understand the symbolism of Scripture. They desire jewels as much as they can, and they bring forward this astonishing excuse: "Why may I not use what God has displayed?" and, "I have it with me, so why may I not enjoy it?" and, "Then for whom were these things made, if not for us?" These are the words of people who are completely ignorant of the will of God. For first necessities, such as water and air, He provides freely to all. And what is not necessary He has hidden in the earth and in the water. Therefore ants dig, and griffins guard gold, and the sea hides the pearl. But you concern yourselves with what you do not need. Look, the whole heaven is lit up, and you do not seek God. But gold, which is hidden, and jewels, are dug up by those among us who are condemned to death.

BUT YOU ALSO OPPOSE SCRIPTURE: since it clearly cries out, "Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added to you." Matthew 6:33. But if all things have been given to you, and all things permitted to you, and if all things are lawful, still, as the apostle says, "all things are not helpful." 1 Corinthians 10:23. God brought our human race into fellowship by first giving what was His own, when He gave His own Word, shared by all, and made all things for all. Therefore, all things are common, and the rich must not take an unfair share for themselves. So then, this saying, "I possess, and I possess in abundance; why then should I not enjoy it?" suits neither the person nor society. But this is more worthy of love: "I have; why should I not give to those who need?" For such a person, one who fulfills the command, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself," is perfect. For this is the true luxury, the wealth that should be treasured. But what is wasted on foolish desires should be counted as waste, not spending. For God has given us, as I well know, the freedom to use things, but only as far as necessary. And He has decided that their use should be common. And it is monstrous for one person to live in luxury while many are in need. How much more glorious it is to do good to many than to live in luxury! How much wiser it is to spend money on human beings than on jewels and gold! How much more useful it is to gain honorable friends than lifeless ornaments! When have lands ever benefited anyone as much as showing kindness has? Therefore, it remains for us to get rid of this objection: "Who, then, will have the more luxurious things, if all choose the simpler ones?" I would say: people, if they use them fairly and without partiality. But if it is impossible for all to practice self-restraint, then, for the sake of using what is necessary, we must seek what can be obtained most easily, and say a long farewell to these excesses.

IN SHORT: they must completely cast off ornaments as girls' trinkets, rejecting adornment itself altogether. For they ought to be adorned within, and show the inner woman as beautiful. For beauty and ugliness are shown in the soul alone. Therefore only the virtuous man is really beautiful and good. And it is laid down as a doctrine that only what is beautiful is good. Excellence alone appears through the beautiful body, and blossoms out in the flesh, showing the lovable grace of self-control whenever character, like a beam of light, shines in the form. For the beauty of each plant and animal consists in its own excellence. And the excellence of man is righteousness, temperance, manliness, and godliness. The beautiful man is, then, he who is just, temperate, and, in a word, good, not he who is rich. But now even the soldiers wish to be decked with gold, not having read that poetic saying:

HE CAME TO THE WAR WITH CHILDISH FOOLISHNESS: carrying a large supply of gold.

BUT THE LOVE OF ORNAMENT SHOULD BE COMPLETELY DRIVEN OUT: It is far from caring about virtue. Instead, when the love of beauty turns into empty display, it claims the body for itself. By putting on things that do not suit the body, as if they did suit it, a person gives birth to a practice of lying and a habit of falsehood. This does not show what is modest, simple, and truly childlike. Instead, it shows what is showy, luxurious, and effeminate. These women hide true beauty by covering it with gold. And they do not know how great their wrongdoing is when they fasten ten thousand costly chains around themselves, since, as they say, criminals among the barbarians are bound with gold. These women seem to me to imitate those rich prisoners. For is not a gold necklace a collar? And do not the neck ornaments they call catheters take the place of chains? In fact, among the Attics they are called by this very name. Philemon, in the Synephebus, called the awkward things around women's feet ankle-fetters:

SHOWY CLOTHING: and a kind of golden chain.

THEN WHAT ELSE IS THIS DESIRED WAY OF DECORATING YOURSELVES: O ladies, except showing yourselves bound in chains? For if the material takes away the shame, then enduring your chains is a matter of indifference. So, to me, those who willingly put themselves in bonds seem to take pride in costly misfortunes.

PERHAPS THESE ARE ALSO THE KIND OF CHAINS THAT THE POETIC STORY SAYS WERE THROWN AROUND APHRODITE WHEN SHE WAS COMMITTING ADULTERY: meaning that ornaments are nothing but a mark of adultery. Homer also called those golden chains. But women of recent times are not ashamed to wear the clearest marks of the evil one. For just as the serpent deceived Eve, so also gold ornament has driven other women into sinful practices. It uses the shape of the serpent as bait by making lampreys and serpents into decorations. Accordingly, the comic poet Nicostratus says, "Chains, collars, rings, bracelets, serpents, anklets, earrings."

SO: in the strongest kind of criticism, Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae presents a full list of every kind of women’s ornament:

HAIRBANDS: ribbons, natron, and steel tools; pumice stone, a band, a back-band, a back-veil, face paint, necklaces, eye makeup, a soft garment, a hair net, a girdle, a shawl, a fine purple border, a long robe, a tunic, a Barathrum, and a round tunic.

BUT I HAVE NOT YET MENTIONED THE MAIN ONE AMONG THEM: Then what?

EAR PENDANTS: jewelry, earrings; mallow-colored, cluster-shaped anklets; buckles, clasps, necklaces; fetters, seals, chains, rings, powders; bosses, bands, olisbi, Sardian stones; fans, helicters.

I AM WEARY AND VEXED AT LISTING THE MULTITUDE OF ORNAMENTS: I am compelled to wonder how those who bear such a burden are not worried to death. O foolish trouble! O silly craze for display! They squander wealth in a vulgar, showy way on what is disgraceful. In their love for ostentation, they disfigure God's gifts, imitating the art of the evil one. The Lord in the Gospel plainly called the rich man a fool, the man who stored up in his barns and said to himself, "You have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, be merry." For "this night they will take your soul from you; whose then will those things which you have prepared be?" Luke 12:19-20

APELLES THE PAINTER SAW ONE OF HIS STUDENTS PAINTING A PICTURE OF HELEN: covered with gold color to represent her. He said to him, "Boy, since you were not able to paint her as beautiful, you have made her rich."

THE HELENS OF THE PRESENT DAY ARE WOMEN LIKE THESE: They are not truly beautiful, but are richly dressed and adorned. About them the Spirit prophesies through Zephaniah: "Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's anger." Zephaniah 1:18

BUT FOR THOSE WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN TAUGHT UNDER CHRIST: it is fitting for them to adorn themselves, not with gold, but with the Word, through whom alone gold is brought to light.

The ancient Hebrews would have been better off if they had thrown away their women’s ornaments, or even just melted them down. But they cast their gold into the shape of an ox and worshiped it as an idol. So they gained no benefit at all from either their skill or their effort. Yet by this they taught our women very clearly to stay away from ornaments. Desire that commits fornication with gold becomes an idol, and it is tested by fire. For luxury is reserved for this alone, because it is an idol and not a reality. Therefore the Word (Logos), rebuking the Hebrews through the prophet, says, "They made for Baal things of silver and gold," that is, ornaments. And in a very clear warning, He says, "I will punish her for the days of Baalim, in which they offered sacrifice for her, and she put on her earrings and her necklaces." Hosea 2:8 And He added the reason for the adornment when He said, "And she went after her lovers, but forgot Me, says the Lord." Hosea 2:13

THEREFORE: leaving these trinkets to the wicked master of deceit himself, let us not take part in this prostitute-like decoration, or commit idolatry under a pleasing excuse. So the blessed Peter says very well, "In the same way also, women should adorn themselves not with braided hair, or gold, or expensive clothing, but, as is fitting for women who profess godliness, with good works." For with good reason he tells them to keep such decorating far away from themselves. For if they are beautiful, nature is enough. Let art not compete against nature; that is, let falsehood not struggle against truth. And if they are naturally unattractive, then by the things they put on themselves they are shown to lack what they do not have, namely beauty. Therefore, it is fitting for women who serve Christ to embrace simplicity. For in fact, simplicity leads to holiness by reducing excess to balance, and by providing from whatever is at hand the satisfaction that people seek from luxuries. For simplicity, as its name shows, is not showy. It is not swollen or puffed up in any way. Instead, it is altogether even, gentle, balanced, and free from excess, and so it is enough. And sufficiency is a state that reaches its proper end without excess or deficiency. The mother of these is Justice, and their nurse is Independence. This is a state that is content with what is necessary, and by itself provides what contributes to the blessed life.

SO THEN: let there be in the fruits of your hands a sacred order, generous sharing, and acts of stewardship. For the one who gives to the poor lends to God, Proverbs 19:17. And the hands of the manly will be enriched, Proverbs 10:4. He calls manly those who despise wealth and are generous in giving it away. And on your feet let there be an active readiness to do good, and a walking toward righteousness. Modesty and chastity are collars and necklaces. These are the chains that God forges. “Happy is the man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who knows understanding,” says the Spirit through Solomon. “For it is better to gain her than treasures of gold and silver, and she is more valuable than precious stones,” Proverbs 3:13-15. For she is the true ornament.

AND DO NOT LET THEIR EARS BE PIERCED: against nature, just to hang earrings and ear-drops on them. For it is not right to force nature against its wishes. Nor could there be any better ornament for the ears than true instruction, which naturally finds its way into the channels of hearing. And eyes anointed by the Word, and ears pierced for understanding, make a person a hearer and observer of divine and sacred things, the Word truly showing the true beauty that eye has not seen and ear has not heard before. 1 Corinthians 2:9

SO THEN: it is clear that the greatest lesson of all is to know yourself. For if a person knows himself, he will know God. And by knowing God, he will become like God, not by wearing gold or long robes, but by doing good and by needing as little as possible.

NOW: God alone needs nothing, and He rejoices most when He sees us shining with the ornament of intelligence. He also rejoices in the person who is clothed in chastity, the holy robe of the body. Since the soul has three parts, the intellect, which is called the reasoning faculty, is the inner person. It is the ruler of this visible person. And in another respect, God guides that one. But the irascible part, being beast-like, lives close to madness. And appetite, which is the third part, has many forms, more than Proteus, the changing sea-god, who changed himself now into one form and now into another. And it lures people to adulteries, to sexual immorality, and to seductions.

AT FIRST: he was a lion with a full beard.

WHILE HE STILL KEPT THIS ADORNMENT: the beard showed that he was a man.

BUT AFTER THAT: a serpent, a leopard, or a big sow.

LOVE OF ORNAMENT HAS FALLEN INTO SEXUAL SHAMELESSNESS: A man no longer looks like a strong wild beast,

BUT HE BECAME MOIST LIKE WATER: and like a tree with lofty branches.

PASSIONS BREAK OUT: and pleasures overflow. Beauty fades, and falls more quickly than a leaf on the ground, when the lustful storms of desire blow on it before the coming of autumn, and it is withered by destruction. For lust becomes and fashions all things, and wishes to deceive, so as to conceal the man. But the man with whom the Word dwells does not alter himself and does not dress himself up. He has the form that is of the Word. He is made like God. He is beautiful. He does not ornament himself, because his beauty is the true beauty, for it is God. And that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, "Men are gods, and gods are men." For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God. And the Mediator carries out the Father's will. For the Mediator is the Word, who is common to both—the Son of God, the Saviour of men; His Servant, our Teacher. And since the flesh is a slave, as Paul testifies, how can anyone with any reason adorn the handmaid like a pimp? For that which is of flesh has the form of a servant. Paul says, speaking of the Lord, "Because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant," Philippians 2:7, calling the outward man servant, before the Lord became a servant and wore flesh. But the compassionate God Himself set the flesh free, and releasing it from destruction, and from bitter and deadly bondage, endowed it with incorruptibility, clothing the flesh with this holy adornment of eternity—immortality.

THERE IS ALSO ANOTHER KIND OF HUMAN BEAUTY: love. And love, according to the apostle, is patient and kind. It does not envy. It does not brag. It is not puffed up. First Corinthians 13:4. For decorating yourself in an excessive way, since it gives the appearance of something unnecessary and useless, is bragging about yourself. Therefore he adds, "does not behave in an unseemly way." For an appearance that is not your own, and is against nature, is unseemly. But what is artificial is not your own, as is clearly explained: "does not seek what is not its own." For truth calls its own what belongs to it. But the love of finery seeks what is not its own, because it is apart from God, and from the Word (Logos), and from love.

AND THE SPIRIT: speaking through Isaiah, testifies that the Lord Himself was not attractive in outward appearance: "We saw Him, and He had no form or beauty, but His appearance was plain, beneath that of men." Yet who was more worthy of admiration than the Lord? But His beauty was not the beauty of the flesh that the eye can see. It was the true beauty of both soul and body that He displayed. In the first, that is, the soul, this beauty is doing good. In the second, that is, the flesh, it is immortality.

SO: it is not the appearance of the outward person that should be adorned, but the soul should be adorned with the ornament of goodness. We may also say that the body should be adorned with temperance. But women who make the outside beautiful are, without knowing it, completely empty in their inner depths. It is like the ornaments of the Egyptians. Among them, temples with their porticos and vestibules are carefully built, with groves and sacred fields beside them. The halls are surrounded by many pillars, and the walls shine with foreign stones, with no lack of artistic painting. The temples gleam with gold, silver, and amber, and sparkle with many-colored gems from India and Ethiopia. And the shrines are covered with hangings embroidered with gold.

BUT IF YOU ENTER THE INNER ROOM OF THE ENCLOSURE AND: eager to see something better, look for the image that lives in the temple, and if one of the priests who offers sacrifice there looks on and sings a paean in the Egyptian language, then lifts a little of the veil to show the god, he will give a hearty laugh at the object of worship. For the deity that you seek, the one to whom you rushed, will not be found within, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent of the country, or some such beast unworthy of the temple, but quite worthy of a den, a hole, or the dirt. The god of the Egyptians appears as a beast rolling on a purple couch.

SO THOSE WOMEN WHO WEAR GOLD: spend their time curling their hair, putting ointment on their cheeks, painting their eyes, dyeing their hair, and practicing the other harmful arts of luxury, adorning the covering of the flesh, are really imitating the Egyptians in order to attract their lovesick admirers.

But if someone pulls back the veil of the temple—I mean the head-dress, the dye, the clothes, the gold, the paint, and the cosmetics, that whole woven covering—in order to find the true beauty inside, he will be disgusted, I know well. For he will not find the image of God living within, as is fitting. Instead, a fornicator and adulteress has taken over the shrine of the soul. And so the real beast will be exposed—an ape smeared with white paint. That deceitful serpent, by vanity devouring the understanding part of a person, has the soul as its hole, filling everything with deadly poison. By pouring in its own venom of deception, this pimp of a dragon has turned women into harlots. For love of display is not for a lady, but for a courtesan. Such women care little about staying at home with their husbands. Instead, they loosen their husbands' purse strings and spend his money on their lusts, so that many may witness their seemingly beautiful appearance. They devote the whole day to their toilet, and they pass their time with the slaves they have bought. In this way they season the flesh like a harmful sauce. They spend the day on their toilet, shut up in their rooms so that they will not be caught adorning themselves. But in the evening this false beauty comes out by candlelight as if out of a hole, for drunkenness and the dimness of the light help what they have put on. The woman who dyes her hair yellow, Menander the comic poet drives out of the house:—

NOW LEAVE THIS HOUSE: because no chaste woman should make her hair yellow.

NOR: I would add, should they stain their cheeks or paint their eyes. Without realizing it, these poor women ruin their own beauty by adding what is false. At daybreak, they mangle, torment, and plaster themselves with various mixtures. They chill the skin, crease the flesh with poisons, and use carefully made washes, and so they spoil their own beauty. Therefore, they are seen to turn yellow from the use of cosmetics and to become open to disease, because their flesh, shaded with poisons, is now in a kind of melting condition. In this way they dishonor the Creator of mankind, as if the beauty given by Him were worth nothing. As you would expect, they become lazy in managing the household, sitting like painted objects made to be looked at, not like those made for running a home. Therefore, in the comic poet, the sensible woman says, "What wise or brilliant thing can we women do, when we sit with our hair dyed yellow, insulting the character of respectable women, causing the overthrow of households, the ruin of marriages, and accusations from children?" In the same way, Antiphanes the comic poet, in Malthaca, mocks the prostitute-like behavior of women in words that apply to them all and are directed against their rubbing themselves with cosmetics, saying:

SHE COMES: She goes back, she comes near, and she goes back again. She has come. She is here. She washes herself and moves forward. She is soaped, she is combed, she goes out, and she is rubbed. She washes herself, looks in the mirror, and puts on her clothes. She anoints herself, adorns herself, and smears herself with cosmetics. And if anything is wrong, she chokes with irritation.

I SAY IT THREE TIMES: not once: they deserve to perish, those who use crocodile dung, rub themselves with the foam of rotten bodily fluids, darken their eyebrows with soot, and smear their cheeks with white lead.

THESE PEOPLE: then, are disgusting even to the pagan poets because of their behavior. So how could they not be rejected by the truth? In the same way, another comic poet, Alexis, also rebukes them. I will quote his words, which, by their exaggerated way of speaking, put to shame the stubbornness of their shamelessness. For he was not very far from the truth. And I cannot, out of shame, come to the defense of women who are exposed to such ridicule in comedy.

THEN SHE RUINS HER HUSBAND:

FIRST OF ALL: compared with making profit and robbing their neighbors, everything else seems unnecessary in their eyes.

Is one of them short? She stitches cork into the sole of her shoe. Is one tall? She wears a thin sole, and she goes out with her head bent down toward her shoulder. This makes her seem less tall. Does one have no hips? She has something sewn onto her, so that the people looking on may cry out over her fine figure from behind. Does she have a stomach that sticks out? By adding things to make it look straight, like the nurses we see in comic poets, she pulls back, as it were with these supports, the bulge of her stomach in front. Does one have yellow eyebrows? She stains them with soot. Do they happen to be black? She smears them with ceruse. Is one very white-skinned? She puts on rouge. Does one have any beautiful part of her body? She leaves it uncovered. Does she have beautiful teeth? She must laugh, so that those present may see what a pretty mouth she has. But if she is not in the mood for laughing, she spends the day indoors with a slender sprig of myrtle between her lips, like what cooks always keep at hand when they have goats' heads to sell, so that she must keep her lips parted the whole time, whether she wants to or not.

I SET THESE QUOTATIONS FROM THE COMIC POETS BEFORE YOU: since the Word most strongly wishes to save us. And before long I will strengthen them with the divine Scriptures. For he who does not escape notice is accustomed to keep away from sins because of the shame of reproof. Just as a plastered hand and an anointed eye show, by their very appearance, the suspicion that a person is ill, so also cosmetics and dyes show that the soul is deeply diseased.

The divine Instructor commands us not to go near another person's river. By this figurative expression, "another's river," he means another man's wife: the immoral woman who flows toward everyone, and in her sexual sin gives herself over to prostitution with all. "Keep away from water that belongs to another," he says, "and do not drink from another's well," warning us to avoid the stream of sensual pleasure, so that we may live long and have years added to our life, as Proverbs 9:11 says. We do this both by not chasing after pleasure that belongs to another person, and by turning our desires in a different direction.

LOVE OF RICH FOODS AND LOVE OF WINE ARE GREAT VICES: but they are not as serious as a love of fine clothing and decoration. A full table and many cups are enough to satisfy greed. But for those who love gold, purple, and jewels, neither the gold above the earth nor the gold below it is enough, nor the Tyrian Sea, nor the cargo that comes from India and Ethiopia, nor even Pactolus, which flows with gold. Even if a man were to become a Midas, he would still not be satisfied. He would still be poor, because he would keep craving more wealth. Such people are ready to die with their gold.

AND IF PLUTUS IS BLIND: are not those women who are crazy about him, and who share his condition, blind too? Since their lust has no limit, they go on into shamelessness. The theater, public shows, large crowds, walking around in the temples, and lingering in the streets so that everyone can clearly see them, are necessary to them. For those who take pride in their appearance, and not in their heart, dress to please others. For just as a brand marks a slave, so bright and flashy colors mark an adulteress. For even if you clothe yourself in scarlet, decorate yourself with gold ornaments, and paint your eyes with stibium, your beauty is in vain. The Word says this through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 4:30. Is it not shocking that horses, birds, and the rest of the animals leap and run from the grass and meadows, rejoicing in adornment that is their own, in their mane, natural color, and varied feathers, while woman, as if she were lower than the animals, thinks herself so unattractive that she needs beauty that is foreign, bought, and painted?

Head-dresses and many kinds of head-dresses, elaborate braidings, endless ways of dressing the hair, and expensive mirrors in which they arrange their dress, catering to those who, like silly children, are crazy about their looks, are marks of women who have lost all sense of shame. If anyone were to call these women courtesans, he would make no mistake, for they turn their faces into masks. But the Word tells us to look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

BUT WHAT GOES BEYOND ALL ABSURDITY IS THIS: they have even invented mirrors for this artificial appearance of theirs, as if it were some great work or masterpiece. Their deception really needs to be covered with a veil. For, as the Greek story says, it was not a good thing for the handsome Narcissus to look at his own image. And if Moses commanded people not to make an image to represent God by human skill, how can these women be right when, by looking at their own reflection, they make an imitation of their own appearance in order to falsify their faces? In the same way, when Samuel the prophet was sent to anoint one of Jesse's sons as king, he saw the oldest son was handsome and tall, and, pleased with him, brought out the anointing oil. But the Lord said to him, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For man looks on the eyes, but the Lord into the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

AND HE DID NOT ANOINT THE MAN WHO WAS HANDSOME IN BODY: but the one who was beautiful in soul. If, then, the Lord considers the natural beauty of the body less important than that of the soul, what does He think of false beauty, since He completely rejects all falsehood? For we walk by faith, not by sight. So the Lord clearly teaches through Abraham that the one who follows God must look down on country, relatives, possessions, and all wealth, by making him a stranger. And for this reason also, He called as His friend the man who had looked down on the wealth he had possessed at home. For he was well-born and very rich; and so with three hundred and eighteen servants of his own, he defeated the four kings who had taken Lot captive.

WE FIND THAT ESTHER ALONE WAS RIGHTLY ADORNED: The bride adorned herself in a symbolic way for her royal husband. But her beauty became the price paid to redeem a people who were about to be slaughtered. And that kind of adornment makes women into courtesans, and men into effeminate men and adulterers. The tragic poet bears witness to this, speaking as follows:

THE ONE WHO JUDGED THE GODDESSES: as the myth of the Argives tells it, came from Phrygia to Lacedaemon. He was dressed in flowered clothing, shining with gold and foreign luxury. In love, he left, carrying away the woman he loved, Helen, to the valleys of Ida, after finding that Menelaus was away from home.

O beauty that leads to adultery! Foreign ornament and soft, unmanly luxury ruined Greece. The modesty of Sparta was corrupted by clothing, luxury, and attractive beauty. Foreign display made Jupiter's daughter into a courtesan.

THEY HAD NO INSTRUCTOR TO RESTRAIN THEIR LUSTS: and no one to say, "Do not commit adultery," or, "Do not lust," or, "Do not proceed from lust into adultery," or further, "Do not stir up your passions by desire for adornment."

WHAT AN END CAME UPON THOSE PEOPLE: and what sufferings they endured, because they would not control their own self-will! Two continents were shaken by unrestrained pleasures, and everything was thrown into confusion by a barbarian boy. All of Hellas puts out to sea. The ocean is loaded with the weight of continents. A long war breaks out, and savage battles are fought, and the plains are filled with the dead. The barbarian attacks the fleet with outrage. Wickedness prevails, and the eye of that poetic Jove looks upon the Thracians:—

THE FOREIGN PLAINS DRINK NOBLE BLOOD: and the river streams are clogged with dead bodies.

PEOPLE BEAT THEIR BREASTS IN MOURNING: and grief lays the land waste. Every step trembles; the peaks of many-springed Ida tremble, the cities of the Trojans tremble, and the ships of the Achaeans tremble.

O HOMER: where shall we flee and stand? Show us a place on the earth that is not shaken!

DO NOT TAKE HOLD OF THE REINS: inexperienced boy, or climb into the driver's seat before you have learned how to drive.

HEAVEN TAKES DELIGHT IN TWO CHARIOTEERS: Only by them is the chariot of fire guided. For the mind is carried off by pleasure. And the pure principle of reason, when it is not taught by the Word, slips down into lack of self-control and falls, as the fitting reward for its transgression. The angels are an example of this. They gave up the beauty of God for a beauty that fades, and so fell from heaven to earth.

THE SHECHEMITES ALSO WERE PUNISHED WITH DESTRUCTION FOR DISHONORING THE HOLY VIRGIN: The grave was their punishment, and the monument of their disgrace leads to salvation.

LUXURY HAS ADVANCED SO FAR THAT NOT ONLY ARE WOMEN DRIVEN MAD BY THIS EMPTY PURSUIT: but men too have caught the same disease. Because they are not free from the love of fine appearance, they are not healthy. Instead, turning toward pleasure, they become effeminate. They cut their hair in an unmanly and prostitute-like way, wear fine and see-through clothes, chew mastich, and smell of perfume. What can a person say when he sees them? Like someone who judges people by their foreheads, he would guess that they are adulterers and effeminate men, given over to both kinds of sexual immorality, haters of hair, without hair, rejecting the bloom of manliness, and dressing their hair like women. The Sibyl says, "Living for unholy acts of audacity, these unstable wretches do reckless and wicked deeds." For their sake, the cities are full of people who remove hair with pitch-plasters, who shave, and who pluck hairs from these womanish creatures. Shops are set up and opened everywhere. Experts in this prostitute-like corruption make a great deal of money openly from those who plaster themselves and let their hair be pulled out in every way by those who make it their trade. They feel no shame before the spectators, or before those who come near, or even before themselves, though they are men. Such are those who are enslaved to shameful passions, whose whole body is made smooth by the violent tearing of pitch-plasters. It is completely impossible to go beyond such shamelessness. If they leave nothing undone, then I also will leave nothing unspoken. When Diogenes was being sold, he rebuked one of these degenerate creatures like a teacher and said very boldly, "Come, young man, buy yourself a man," correcting his prostitute-like behavior with a double-meaning statement. But for men to shave and smooth themselves is disgraceful. As for dyeing the hair, putting ointment on gray hair, and dyeing it yellow, these are practices of completely immoral effeminates. Their woman-like grooming should be left alone. They think that, like serpents, they can cast off the old age of their head by coloring and renewing themselves. But even if they treat the hair skillfully, they will not escape wrinkles, nor will they avoid death by trying to deceive time. For it is not dreadful, it is not dreadful, to look old when you cannot close your eyes to the fact that you are old.

SO THEN: the more a person hurries toward the end, the more truly worthy of honor he is, because God alone is older than he is, since God is the eternal Ancient One, older than all things. Prophecy has called Him "the Ancient of days," and, as the prophet says, "the hair of His head was like pure wool." And the Lord says that no one else can make hair white or black, in Matthew 5:36. How, then, do these godless people compete with God, or rather openly fight against Him, when they change the hair that He made white? Scripture says in Sirach 25:6, "The crown of old men is great experience," and "the gray hair on their face is the flower of great experience." But these people dishonor the respect due to old age, to the head covered with gray hair. It is not, it is not possible for a man to present his head as genuine when he has a false head. But that is not how you learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, in regard to your former way of life, the old man — not the gray-haired man, but the one who is corrupt because of deceitful desires — and be renewed, not by dyes and ornaments, but in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, as Ephesians 4:20-24 says.

BUT FOR A MAN TO COMB HIMSELF AND SHAVE HIMSELF WITH A RAZOR FOR THE SAKE OF FINE APPEARANCE: to arrange his hair at the mirror, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly that is. In truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose they were women. For although they are not allowed to wear gold, yet from effeminate desire they wrap their curls and fringes with leaves of gold. Or they have certain round ornaments made of the same metal, fasten them to their ankles, and hang them from their necks. This is a device of weakened men, who are dragged to the women's apartments, like lustful and unnatural creatures. For this is a seductive and impious trap. For God wished women to be smooth, and to rejoice only in their locks growing naturally, as a horse in its mane. But He has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as a mark of manhood, with shaggy breasts. This is a sign of strength and rule. So also cocks, which fight in defense of the hens, He has decked with combs, as if with helmets. And God sets such high value on these locks that He orders them to appear on men at the same time as discretion. Delighting in a venerable appearance, He has honored gravity of countenance with gray hairs. But wisdom, and discerning judgments that are hoary with wisdom, reach maturity with time. By the vigor of long experience they give strength to old age, producing gray hairs, the admirable flower of venerable wisdom, winning confidence. This, then, the mark of the man, the beard, by which he is seen to be a man, is older than Eve and is the token of the superior nature. In this God deemed it right that man should excel, and He spread hair over man's whole body. Whatever smoothness and softness was in him, He took away from his side when He formed the woman Eve, physically receptive, his partner in parentage, his help in household management. But he, for he had parted with all smoothness, remained a man and shows himself a man. And to him action has been assigned, as to her affliction. For what is shaggy is drier and warmer than what is smooth. Therefore males have both more hair and more heat than females, whole animals than the emasculated, and perfect than imperfect. It is therefore impious to desecrate hairiness, the sign of manhood. But the adornment of smoothing, for I am warned by the Word, if it is to attract men, is the act of an effeminate person. If it is to attract women, it is the act of an adulterer. And both must be driven as far as possible from our society. But "the very hairs of your head are all numbered," says the Lord, Matthew 10:30. Those on the chin too are numbered, and those on the whole body. Therefore there must be no plucking out, contrary to God's appointment, since He has counted them according to His will. "Do you not know yourselves," says the apostle, "that Christ Jesus is in you?" 2 Corinthians 13:5. If we had known Him as dwelling in us, I do not know how we could have dared to dishonor Him. But the use of pitch to pluck out hair, I shrink from even mentioning the shamelessness connected with this process, and in the bending back and bending down, the violence done to nature's modesty by stepping out and bending backward in shameful postures, while the doers are not ashamed of themselves, but behave without shame in the midst of the youth, and in the gymnasium where the prowess of man is tried, is not the following of this unnatural practice the extreme of licentiousness? For those who engage in such practices in public will scarcely behave with modesty toward anyone at home. Their lack of shame in public bears witness to their unbridled licentiousness in private. For he who in the light of day denies his manhood will plainly prove himself a woman by night. "There shall not be a harlot among the daughters of Israel, nor a fornicator among the sons of Israel," said the Word through Moses. Deuteronomy 23:17.

BUT PITCH DOES GOOD: it is said. No, I say, it defames. No one who has right thoughts would want to appear to be a fornicator, unless he were a victim of that vice, and sought to defame the beauty of his form. I say that no one would willingly choose to do this. For if God foreknew those who are called, according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of His Son, and for whose sake, according to the blessed apostle, He appointed Him to be the firstborn among many brothers, Romans 8:28-29, are they not godless who treat with indignity the body that is of like form with the Lord?

A MAN WHO WANTS TO BE BEAUTIFUL MUST ADORN WHAT IS MOST BEAUTIFUL IN HIM: his mind. Every day he should show it in greater beauty. He should pull out not hairs, but lusts. I pity the boys owned by slave-dealers who are decorated for dishonor. Yet they are not shamed by their own choice. By command, these miserable boys are adorned for shameful profit. But how disgusting are those who willingly do the things which, if they were forced to do them, they would, if they were men, choose to die rather than do?

BUT LIFE HAS REACHED THIS LEVEL OF MORAL LOOSENESS THROUGH THE RECKLESS EXCESS OF WICKEDNESS: and sexual immorality has spread through the cities and has become like law. Besides them, women stand in brothels, offering their own bodies for pay for shameful pleasure, and boys, taught to deny their sex, take the role of women.

LUXURY HAS THROWN EVERYTHING INTO DISORDER: It has disgraced man. Luxurious delicacy wants everything, tries everything, forces everything, and compels nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature. Women are at once wives and husbands. No passage is closed against lust. Their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is made part of the home. O miserable spectacle! Horrible conduct! These are the trophies of your social licentiousness that are put on display. The evidence of these deeds is the prostitutes. Alas for such wickedness! Besides this, the wretches do not know how many tragedies the uncertainty of intercourse produces. For fathers, unmindful of children of theirs who have been exposed, often without their knowledge have intercourse with a son who has debauched himself, and daughters who are prostitutes. License in lust shows them to be the men who have begotten them. These things your wise laws allow. People may sin legally. And they call the accursed indulgence in pleasure a thing indifferent. Those who commit adultery against nature think themselves free from adultery. Avenging justice follows their audacious deeds, and by bringing inevitable calamity on themselves, they buy death for a small sum of money. The miserable dealers in these wares sail, bringing a cargo of fornication, like wine or oil. And others, far more wretched, trade in pleasures as they do in bread and sauce, not paying attention to the words of Moses: "Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness." Leviticus 19:29

THIS WAS PREDICTED LONG AGO: and the result is well known: the whole earth has now become full of sexual immorality and wickedness. I admire the ancient lawgivers of the Romans. They hated effeminate behavior, and they judged that giving the body to female uses, against the law of nature, deserved the most severe penalty, according to the justice of the law.

FOR IT IS NOT RIGHT TO PULL OUT THE BEARD: which is a man’s natural and noble ornament.

A YOUNG MAN WITH HIS FIRST BEARD: because with this, youth is most graceful.

BEFORE LONG: he is anointed, taking delight in the beard on which the prophetic oil came down, the oil with which Aaron was honored.

AND IT IS FITTING FOR A PERSON WHO HAS BEEN PROPERLY TRAINED: and in whom peace has made its home, to keep peace even in the way he wears his hair.

WHAT: then, will women with strong desires to lust not do, when they see men committing such horrible acts? Rather, we should not call such people men, but lewd wretches and effeminate men, whose voices are weak and whose clothes are feminine both in texture and in color. Such people are plainly shown to be what they are by their outward appearance: their clothes, shoes, figure, walk, haircut, and look. For, as the Scripture says, "A man will be known by his look; when you meet a man, the man is known. A man's dress, the step of his foot, and the laugh of his teeth tell tales about him." Sirach 19:29-30

FOR THESE PEOPLE: for the most part, pull out the rest of their hair and groom only the hair on their head, almost tying up their locks with bands like women. Lions take pride in their thick hair, but their hair also arms them for battle. Even boars are made impressive by their mane. Hunters are afraid of them when they see their hair bristling.

THE WOOLLY SHEEP ARE WEIGHED DOWN WITH THEIR WOOL:

AND THE LOVING FATHER HAS MADE THEIR WOOL PLENTIFUL FOR YOUR USE: O man, and has taught you to shear their fleece. Among the nations, the Celts and Scythians wear their hair long, but they do not adorn themselves. The barbarian’s thick hair has something frightening in it, and its auburn color threatens war, since that shade is somewhat like blood. Both of these barbarian peoples hate luxury. Clear evidence can be seen in the German’s Rhine and the Scythian’s wagon. Sometimes the Scythian even looks down on the wagon. To the barbarian, its size seems like luxury. So the Scythian man leaves its luxurious comfort and lives a frugal life. For a house that is enough for him, and less burdensome than the wagon, he takes his horse. Mounting it, he is carried wherever he wants to go. And when he is weak from hunger, he asks his horse for food, and it offers its veins and gives its master all that it has, its blood. To the nomad, the horse is both transportation and food. And the warlike young men of the Arabians, who are another nomadic people, ride camels. They sit on breeding camels, and these animals feed and run at the same time, while carrying their masters, and they carry the house with them. And if the barbarians run out of drink, they milk them. After that, when their food is gone, they do not spare even their blood, as is reported of savage wolves. And these animals, gentler than the barbarians, when they are hurt, do not remember the injury, but bravely cross the desert, carrying and feeding their masters at the same time.

SO THEN: let the savage beasts perish, those whose food is blood. For it is unlawful for people, whose body is nothing but flesh formed from blood, to consume blood. For human blood has become a sharer in the Word. It shares in grace through the Spirit. And if anyone harms a human being, he will not escape notice. A person may speak to the Lord even though his body is naked. But I approve of the simplicity of the barbarians. Because they love an unburdened way of life, the barbarians have given up luxury. This is what the Lord calls us to be: naked of finery, naked of vanity, torn away from our sins, carrying only the wood of life, and aiming only at salvation.

BUT I HAVE REALLY WANDERED FROM MY ORDER OF THOUGHT WITHOUT MEANING TO: and I must now return to it. I must criticize the practice of keeping large numbers of household servants. Instead of working with their own hands and serving themselves, people turn to servants. They buy a great crowd of skilled cooks, people to arrange the table, and others to carve the meat neatly into pieces. Their servants are divided into many groups. Some work for their gluttony: carvers, makers of sauces and seasonings, and those who prepare sweets, honey cakes, and custards. Others are busy with their many clothes. Others guard the gold like griffins. Others watch the silver, wipe the cups, and prepare what is needed to set out the feast. Others groom the horses. And a crowd of cupbearers wear themselves out in their service, along with herds of handsome boys, like cattle, from whom their beauty is drained away. Male and female attendants for the ladies' personal care are also employed. Some handle the mirrors, some the hairstyles, and others the combs. Many are eunuchs. These go-betweens serve, without causing suspicion, those who want to be free to enjoy their pleasures, because people believe eunuchs are unable to give way to lust. But a true eunuch is not someone who is unable to indulge in pleasure, but someone who is unwilling to do so. The Word, speaking through the prophet Samuel to the Jews, after they had sinned by asking for a king, promised them not a loving master, but threatened to give them a self-willed and pleasure-loving tyrant. He says that this ruler "will take your daughters to be perfumers, and cooks, and bakers," 1 Samuel 8:13. He would rule by the law of war, not wanting peaceful government. And there are many Celts who carry women's litters high on their shoulders. But workers in wool, spinners, weavers, women's handiwork, and housekeeping are nowhere to be found.

BUT THOSE WHO DECEIVE WOMEN SPEND THE DAY WITH THEM: telling them foolish love stories and wearing out both body and soul by their false actions and words. "You shall not be with many for evil, nor give yourself to a multitude," it says in Exodus 23:2. For wisdom is found among a few, but disorder is found in a crowd. And they do not buy litter-bearers for the sake of modesty, because they do not want to be seen. That would be praiseworthy, if for that reason they put themselves under a covering. Instead, they are carried on the shoulders of their servants out of luxury, and they want to put on a show.

SO THEY PULL BACK THE CURTAIN AND LOOK SHARPLY AROUND AT EVERYONE WHO TURNS THEIR EYES TOWARD THEM: and they reveal their character. And often, by leaning forward from inside, they disgrace this outward modesty by their dangerous restlessness. "Do not look around in the streets of the city, and do not wander in its lonely places." Sirach 9:7 For that really is a lonely place, even if a crowd of immoral people is in it, where no wise man is present.

THESE WOMEN ARE CARRIED ABOUT TO THE TEMPLES: Day by day they sacrifice and practice divination. They spend their time with fortune-tellers, begging priests, and disreputable old women. Over their cups they keep up old wives' whisperings, learning charms and incantations from soothsayers, to the ruin of the marriage bond. Some men they keep. By others they are kept. And others are promised to them by the diviners. They do not know that they are cheating themselves, and giving themselves up as a vessel of pleasure to those who wish to indulge in wantonness. Exchanging their purity for the foulest outrage, they think that the most shameful ruin is a great bargain. And there are many agents of this meretricious licentiousness, insinuating themselves, one from one direction, another from another. For the licentious rush readily into uncleanness, like swine rushing to the part of a ship's hold that is lower. Therefore Scripture most strongly exhorts, "Do not bring every one into your house, for the snares of the crafty are many." Sirach 11:29. And in another place, "Let just men be your guests, and let your boast remain in the fear of the Lord." Sirach 9:16. Away with fornication. For know this well, says the apostle, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Ephesians 5:5.

BUT THESE WOMEN DELIGHT IN INTERCOURSE WITH THE EFFEMINATE: And crowds of abominable creatures, called kinaides, flow in. They have unbridled tongues. They are filthy in body and filthy in speech. They are men fit for lewd offices, ministers of adultery, giggling and whispering. Without shame, they make through their noses sounds of lewdness and fornication to provoke lust. They try to please by lewd words and attitudes, stirring people to laughter, the forerunner of fornication. And sometimes, when inflamed by some provocation, either these fornicators, or those who follow the rabble of abominable creatures to destruction, make a sound in the nose like a frog, as if anger were dwelling in their nostrils. But those who are more refined than these keep Indian birds and Median peafowls, and recline with peak-headed creatures, playing with satyrs and delighting in monsters. They laugh when they hear Thersites. And these women, buying costly Thersiteses, pride themselves not in their husbands, but in those wretches who are a burden on the earth. They overlook the chaste widow, who is of far higher value than a Melitaean pup, and they look askance at a just old man, who is lovelier in my judgment than a monster bought for money. And though they keep parrots and curlews, they do not receive the orphan child. Instead, they expose children born at home, and take up the young of birds, and prefer irrational creatures to rational ones. Although they ought to undertake the support of old people known for sobriety, who in my judgment are fairer than apes, and able to utter something better than nightingales. And they ought to set before them that saying, "He that pities the poor lends to the Lord," Proverbs 19:17, and this, "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these My brothers, you have done it to Me," Matthew 25:40. But these, on the other hand, prefer ignorance to wisdom, turning their wealth into stone, that is, into pearls and Indian emeralds. And they squander and throw away their wealth on fading dyes and bought slaves, like crammed fowls scraping in the dung of life. "Poverty," it is said, "humbles a man," Proverbs 10:4. By poverty is meant that niggardliness by which the rich are poor, having nothing to give away.

And what are their baths like? They are cleverly built little houses, compact, portable, and transparent, covered with fine linen. They carry gold-plated chairs, and silver ones too, and countless vessels of gold and silver. Some are for drinking, some for eating, and some for bathing. Besides these, there are even braziers of coals. For they have reached such a level of self-indulgence that they eat supper and get drunk while bathing. They also proudly arrange silver items in the baths just to show them off. In this way, they perhaps display their wealth out of extreme pride, but even more, they display a foolish ignorance. By this they disgrace soft, effeminate men who have been overcome by women. At least they prove that they themselves cannot meet together and cannot even sweat without a crowd of vessels, although poor women, who put on no display, enjoy their baths just the same. The filth of wealth, then, is covered with much blame. With this, as with bait, they hook miserable people who stare with open mouths at the glitter of gold. By dazzling those who love display in this way, they cleverly try to win the admiration of their lovers, who soon afterward insult them when they are naked. They would hardly undress in front of their own husbands, pretending that they are modest. But any other men who want to may see them at home, shut up naked in their baths. For there they are not ashamed to undress in front of watchers, as if they were offering their bodies for sale. But Hesiod advises

Do not wash your skin in the women's bath.

THE BATHS ARE OPENED ALIKE TO MEN AND WOMEN: There they strip for immoral indulgence, for from looking, men come to loving, as if their modesty had been washed away in the bath. Those who have not become completely without modesty keep out strangers. But they bathe with their own servants, strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by them. By permitting fearless handling, they give the crouching servant freedom to lust. For those who are brought before their naked mistresses in the bath learn to strip themselves for boldness in lust, casting off fear because of this wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed to display a naked man, preserved their modesty by competing in drawers. But these women, taking off their modesty along with their tunic, want to appear beautiful. Yet contrary to their wish, they are simply proved to be wicked. For through the body itself, the wantonness of lust shines clearly, as in people with dropsy, where the water is covered by the skin. In both cases, the disease is known by the look. Therefore men, giving women a noble example of truth, ought to be ashamed to strip before them, and should guard against these dangerous sights. For whoever looks lustfully, it is said, has already sinned. Matthew 5:28 At home, therefore, they ought to look with modesty on parents and servants. In the streets, on those they meet. In the baths, on women. In solitude, on themselves. And everywhere, on the Word, who is everywhere, and without Him not one thing came into being. John 1:3 For only in this way will one remain without falling, if he regards God as always present with him.

SO: riches should be used with reason and shared with love, not in a greedy or showy way. And love for what is beautiful must not be turned into self-love and pride. Otherwise, someone may perhaps say about us, "His horse, or land, or servant, or gold, is worth fifteen talents; but the man himself is valued at three copper coins."

SO THEN: take away the jewelry from women, and take away the servants from masters, and you will find that masters are in no way different from purchased slaves in their walk, their appearance, or their voice. They are so much like their slaves. But they differ in this: they are weaker than their slaves and have been raised more delicately, with poorer health.

SO: this best of sayings should be repeated constantly: the good person, being self-controlled and just, stores up his wealth in heaven. The one who has sold his worldly goods and given them to the poor finds the treasure that cannot perish, where there is neither moth nor robber. He is truly blessed, even if he is insignificant, weak, and unknown. And he is truly rich with the greatest riches of all. But if a man is richer than Cinyras and Midas, and is wicked, and proud like the one who was dressed in purple and fine linen and looked down on Lazarus, he is miserable, lives in distress, and shall not live. Wealth seems to me to be like a serpent that twists around the hand and bites, unless a person knows how to take hold of it safely by the tip of the tail. And riches, writhing in either a skilled or unskilled hand, are quick to cling and bite, unless someone, despising them, uses them skillfully, so as to crush the creature by the charm of the Word, and escape unharmed.

BUT: as is reasonable, only the person who possesses what is most valuable is truly rich, even if people do not recognize him as such. What is highly valuable is not jewels, or gold, or clothing, or physical beauty, but virtue, which is the Word given by the Instructor to be put into practice. This is the Word, who rejects luxury, calls self-help a servant, and praises frugality, which is the child of temperance. "Receive instruction," he says, "and not silver, and knowledge rather than tested gold; for Wisdom is better than precious stones, and nothing valuable is equal to her in worth." Proverbs 8:10-11 And again: "Acquire me rather than gold, and precious stones, and silver; for my produce is better than choice silver." Proverbs 8:19

BUT IF WE MUST DISTINGUISH: let it be granted that he is rich who has many possessions, loaded with gold like a dirty purse. But the righteous alone is graceful, because grace is order, keeping a due and proper measure in managing and distributing. For there are those who sow and reap more, Proverbs 11:24, of whom it is written, "He has dispersed, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever." So it is not he who has and keeps, but he who gives away, that is rich. And it is giving away, not possession, that makes a man happy. And the fruit of the Spirit is generosity. Riches, then, are in the soul. Let it then be granted that good things belong only to good men, and Christians are good. Now, a fool or an immoral person can neither perceive what is good nor gain possession of it. Accordingly, good things are possessed by Christians alone. And nothing is richer than these good things. Therefore these alone are rich. For righteousness is true riches, and the Word is more valuable than all treasure, not coming from cattle and fields, but given by God—riches that cannot be taken away. The soul alone is its treasure. It is the best possession for its possessor, making a man truly blessed. For he whose part it is to desire nothing that is not in our power, and to obtain by asking from God what he rightly desires, does he not possess much, yes, all, having God as his everlasting treasure? To him that asks, it is said, shall be given, and to him that knocks it shall be opened, Matthew 7:7-8. If God denies nothing, all things belong to the godly.

DELICACIES SPENT ON PLEASURES BECOME A DANGEROUS SHIPWRECK TO MEN: For this pleasure-loving and ignoble life of the many is alien to true love for the beautiful and to refined pleasures. For man is by nature an upright and majestic being, aspiring after the good, as becomes the creature of the One. But the life that crawls on its belly is without dignity. It is scandalous, hateful, and ridiculous. And voluptuousness is something most alien to the divine nature. For this is for a man to be like sparrows in feeding, and swine and goats in lechery. For to regard pleasure as a good thing is a sign of complete ignorance of what is excellent. Love of wealth drives a man away from the right way of life, and leads him to stop feeling shame at what is shameful, if only, like a beast, he has power to eat all sorts of things, and to drink in the same way, and to satisfy his lewd desires in every way. And so he very rarely inherits the kingdom of God. For what end, then, are such dainty dishes prepared, but to fill one belly? The filthiness of gluttony is proved by the sewers into which our bellies discharge the refuse of our food. For what end do they collect so many cupbearers, when they might satisfy themselves with one cup? What are the chests of clothes for? And what are the gold ornaments for? Those things are prepared for clothes-stealers, and scoundrels, and for greedy eyes. But let alms and faith not fail you, Proverbs 3:5 says the Scripture.

LOOK: for example, at Elijah the Tishbite. In him we have a beautiful example of frugality. He sat down under the thorn bush, and the angel brought him food. It was a barley cake and a jar of water, as in 1 Kings 19:4, 6. The Lord sent him this as what was best for him. We, then, on our journey to the truth, must also be unencumbered. "Carry no purse, nor bag, nor shoes," the Lord said in Luke 10:4. That means: do not possess wealth, which is kept in a purse. Do not fill your own supplies, as if storing produce in a bag, but share with those in need. And do not concern yourselves with horses and servants, which, because they carry burdens when the rich travel, are allegorically called "shoes."

WE MUST: then, cast away the many vessels, the silver and gold drinking cups, and the crowd of servants, since we have received from the Instructor these fair and serious attendants: Self-help and Simplicity. And we must walk in a way suited to the Word. If there is a wife and children, the house is not a burden, if it has learned to change its place along with the prudent traveler. A wife who loves her husband must be equipped for travel in the same way as her husband. Those who bear frugality with chaste gravity have a fine provision for the journey to heaven. And as the foot is the measure of the shoe, so the body is the measure of what each person possesses. But what is superfluous, what people call ornaments and the furnishings of the rich, is a burden to the body, not an ornament. He who climbs to heaven by force must carry with him the fair staff of beneficence, and attain true rest by sharing with those who are in distress. For Scripture declares that the true riches of the soul are a man's ransom, Proverbs 13:8. That is, if he is rich, he will be saved by distributing it. For as flowing wells, when they are pumped out, rise again to their former measure, so giving away, being the kindly spring of love, again increases and is replenished by sharing its drink with the thirsty, just as milk flows into breasts when they are suckled or milked. For he who has the almighty God, the Word, lacks nothing, and is never in straits for what he needs. For the Word is a possession that lacks nothing, and is the cause of all abundance. If someone says that he has often seen the righteous man in need of food, this is rare, and happens only where there is not another righteous man. Nevertheless let him read what follows: "For the righteous man shall not live by bread alone, but by the word of the Lord," Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4, who is the true bread, the bread of heaven. The good man, then, can never be in difficulties so long as he keeps his confession toward God intact. For it belongs to him to ask and receive whatever he requires from the Father of all, and to enjoy what is his own, if he keeps the Son. And this also belongs to him: to feel no want.

THIS WORD: who trains us, gives us true riches. Becoming rich is not something to be envied by those who, through Him, have the privilege of needing nothing. The one who has this wealth will inherit the kingdom of God.

AND IF ANY ONE OF YOU COMPLETELY AVOIDS LUXURY: he will train himself through a simple way of life to endure hardships that are forced on him. He does this by constantly using voluntary hardships as training exercises for persecutions, so that when he faces unavoidable labors, fears, and griefs, he will not be untrained in endurance.

THEREFORE WE HAVE NO COUNTRY ON EARTH: so that we may look down on earthly possessions. And frugality is, in the highest degree, true wealth, because it is equal to spending that does not fail, given for what is necessary, and only to the extent that it is necessary. For "τέλε" means expenses.

WE HAVE DISCUSSED HOW A HUSBAND SHOULD LIVE WITH HIS WIFE: along with self-help, household management, the use of servants, the proper time for marriage, and what is fitting for wives, in the discourse about marriage. Now only what belongs to discipline is left to describe, as we outline the life of Christians. Indeed, most of it has already been said and set down in the form of rules for discipline. What still remains we will now add, because examples are very important in guiding people to salvation.

LOOK: says the tragedy,

Ulysses' wife was not killed by Telemachus, because she did not take one husband in addition to another. Instead, the marriage bed in the house remained undefiled.

BY CONDEMNING SHAMEFUL ADULTERY: he showed the beautiful example of purity in a wife's love for her husband.

THE LACEDAEMONIANS FORCED THE HELOTS: who were their servants, to get drunk. "Helots" was the name of their servants. Then they displayed the drunken behavior of the Helots before themselves, who were sober, as a remedy and correction.

SO: when they saw that shameful behavior, they trained themselves not to fall into the same blameworthy conduct. In this way, they turned the disgrace of the drunkards into a help for keeping themselves free from fault.

SOME PEOPLE ARE SAVED BY BEING TAUGHT: and others, though self-taught, either aim for virtue or seek it.

HE TRULY IS THE BEST OF ALL: because he himself understands all things.

SUCH IS ABRAHAM: who sought God.

AND LIKEWISE: the one who obeys someone who gives good advice is good.

SUCH ARE THOSE DISCIPLES WHO OBEYED THE WORD: Therefore the former was called friend, and the latter apostles. The one was diligently seeking, and the other preaching one and the same God. And both are peoples, and both these have hearers: the one who is profited through seeking, and the other who is saved through finding.

BUT WHOEVER NEITHER UNDERSTANDS FOR HIMSELF NOR TAKES IT TO HEART WHEN HE HEARS ANOTHER PERSON IS A WORTHLESS MAN:

THE OTHER PEOPLE ARE THE GENTILES: and they are useless. This is the people that does not follow Christ. Nevertheless, the Instructor, who loves mankind and helps in many ways, partly encourages and partly rebukes. When others have sinned, He shows us their shamefulness and the punishment that follows it. In this way, while warning us, He also draws us. In love, He plans to turn us away from evil by showing us those who have suffered from it before. By these examples, He very clearly corrected those who had been inclined to evil, and kept others from daring to do the same kind of deeds. He led some to a firm foundation of patience. He stopped others from wickedness. And He healed others by having them look at similar cases, bringing them over to what is better.

WHO: while following someone on the road, would not be careful to avoid the same danger if that person fell into a pit first, by making sure not to follow him in his misstep? And what athlete, after learning the way to glory and seeing the one who went before him receive the prize, does not push himself to win the crown by imitating the one older than himself?

THERE ARE MANY SUCH IMAGES OF DIVINE WISDOM: But I will mention one example and explain it in a few words. The fate of the Sodomites was judgment for those who had done wrong, and instruction for those who hear. The Sodomites, through much luxury, had fallen into uncleanness. They practiced adultery shamelessly, and burned with insane love for boys. The all-seeing Word, from whose notice those who commit impieties cannot escape, cast His eye on them. Nor did the sleepless guardian of humanity observe their licentiousness in silence. Instead, He warned us away from imitating them, trained us in His own temperance, and fell on some sinners, lest lust, if left unavenged, should break loose from all the restraints of fear. So He ordered Sodom to be burned, pouring out a little of His wise fire on licentiousness, lest lust, through lack of punishment, should throw wide the gates to those rushing into voluptuousness. Accordingly, the just punishment of the Sodomites became for men an image of the salvation that is well suited for men. For those who have not committed sins like those who are punished will never receive a like punishment. By guarding against sinning, we guard against affliction. For I want you to know, says Jude, that God, having once saved His people from the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their first estate, but left their own habitation, He has reserved for the judgment of the great day, in everlasting chains under darkness of the savage angels. And a little later he presents, in a very instructive way, examples of those who are judged: "Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." For fear keeps from growing insolent those who cannot attain the privilege of adoption. For punishments and threatenings are for this purpose: that by fearing the penalty, we may keep from sinning. I could relate to you punishments for ostentation, and punishments for vainglory, and not only for licentiousness. I could also bring forward the censures spoken against those whose hearts are made bad by wealth. In these censures, the Word restrains from evil deeds through fear. But to avoid too much length in my treatise, I will bring forward the following precepts of the Instructor, so that you may guard against His threatenings.

THERE ARE: then, four reasons for the bath—for from that point I had wandered from my discussion—for which we use it: cleanliness, warmth, health, or lastly, pleasure. Bathing for pleasure must be left out. Shameless pleasure must be cut out by the roots. Women should bathe for cleanliness and health, but men for health alone. To bathe just for warmth is unnecessary, since a person can restore warmth lost to the cold in other ways. Constant use of the bath also weakens strength, relaxes the body's powers, and often causes weakness and fainting. For, in a way, the body drinks like trees do, not only by the mouth, but also over the whole body in bathing, through what they call the pores. As proof of this, people who are thirsty have often gone into the water afterward and had their thirst relieved. Unless, then, the bath serves some useful purpose, we ought not to indulge in it. The ancients called baths places for fulling men, since they make men's bodies wrinkle sooner than they should, and, as if by cooking them, force them to grow old too early. The flesh, like iron, is softened by heat. Therefore, we need cold, as it were, to harden it and give it an edge. Nor should we always bathe. If a person is a little worn out, or on the other hand has eaten to excess, the bath must be forbidden, with attention paid to the age of the body and the season of the year. For the bath is not beneficial to everyone, or at all times, as those skilled in these matters admit. But proper measure, which we call on as our helper in every part of life, is enough for us. For we must not use the bath in such a way that we need an attendant. Nor are we to bathe constantly and many times in a day, as often as we visit the market-place. But to have water poured over us by several people is an offense against our neighbors, because of a love of luxury. It is done by those who do not understand that the bath belongs equally to all the bathers.

BUT MOST OF ALL: it is necessary to wash the soul in the cleansing Word. Sometimes the body also needs washing, because dirt collects and sticks to it. Sometimes it is also washed to relieve tiredness. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" says the Lord. "For you are like whitewashed tombs. On the outside, the tomb appears beautiful, but inside it is full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Matthew 23:27 And again He says to the same people, "Woe to you! For you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of uncleanness. First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean." Matthew 23:25-26 The best bath, then, is what scrubs off the pollution of the soul, and it is spiritual. About this, prophecy speaks plainly: "The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Israel, and will purge the blood from among them" Isaiah 4:4 — meaning the blood of crime and the murders of the prophets. And the Word added the way of cleansing, saying, "by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." The bodily bath, that is, the washing of the body, is done by water alone, as often happens in the countryside where there is no bath.

THE GYMNASIUM IS ENOUGH FOR BOYS: even if a bath is available. And for men too, it may not be a bad thing to prefer physical exercise far more than baths, since in some ways these exercises help the health of young men and produce effort and eagerness to excel. They help a person aim not only at a healthy body, but also at courage in the soul. When this is done without pulling a man away from better work, it is pleasant and not useless. Women also should not be deprived of bodily exercise. But they should not be urged to take part in wrestling or running. Instead, they should exercise themselves in spinning, weaving, and, if necessary, overseeing the cooking. And with their own hands they should bring from storage what we need. It is no disgrace for them to work at the mill. Nor is it a reproach to a wife, who keeps the house and is a helper, to busy herself with cooking so that it may be pleasing to her husband. And if she shakes out the couch, brings her husband a drink when he is thirsty, sets food on the table as neatly as possible, and in this way gives herself exercise that leads to sound health, the Instructor will approve of such a woman. She reaches out her arms to useful tasks, lays her hands on the distaff, opens her hand to the poor, and stretches out her wrist to the beggar.

A woman who follows Sarah’s example is not ashamed of that very great service of helping travelers. For Abraham said to her, "Hurry, knead three measures of meal, and make cakes." Genesis 18:6. And Rachel, Laban’s daughter, it says, came with her father’s sheep. Genesis 29:9. Nor was this all. To teach humility, it is added that she fed her father’s sheep. And Scripture gives countless other examples of simplicity, self-help, and also bodily exercise. In the case of men, some may strip and wrestle. Some may play with a small ball, especially the game they call Pheninda, in the sun. For others, walking into the country or going down into town is enough exercise. And if they were to use the hoe, this economical kind of farm labor would not be ungentlemanly.

I almost forgot to say that the well-known Pittacus, king of Miletus, practiced the hard work of turning the mill. It is honorable for a man to draw water for himself and to cut the pieces of wood that he himself will use. Jacob fed Laban’s sheep that had been put in his care. As a royal sign, he had a rod of storax, which by means of its wood was meant to change and improve nature. Reading aloud is also an exercise for many people. But such athletic contests as we have permitted must not be taken up for empty glory, but for the healthy sweat of manly effort. Nor should we struggle with trickery and showiness, but in an upright wrestling match, by working the neck, hands, and sides free. A struggle like that, with graceful strength, is more fitting and manly, since it is done for useful and beneficial health. But those others, who claim to practice disgraceful positions in gymnastics, should be rejected. We must always aim at moderation. For just as it is best for work to come before food, so working too much is also very bad, very exhausting, and likely to make us sick. So then, we should neither be completely idle nor wear ourselves out. In the same way as we have taught about food, we must act this way everywhere and in everything. Our way of life must not train us in pleasure and lack of self-control, nor in the opposite extreme, but in the middle between them. It should be a life that is balanced and self-controlled, and free from both evils, luxury and stinginess. And now, as we have said before, taking care of your own needs is an exercise free from pride. For example, putting on your own shoes, washing your own feet, and rubbing yourself after being anointed with oil. To do the same service in return for someone who has rubbed you is an exercise in mutual justice. And to sleep beside a sick friend, help the weak, and provide for someone in need are proper exercises. And Abraham, it is said, served dinner for three under a tree, and waited on them while they ate. Genesis 18:8. The same is true of fishing, as in Peter’s case, if we have free time from the necessary teaching of the Word. But the better enjoyment is the one the Lord gave to the disciple when He taught him to catch men like fish in the water.

THEREFORE: wearing gold and using softer clothing should not be completely forbidden. But irrational desires must be restrained, so that they do not carry us away through too much ease and drive us into sensual pleasure. For luxury, when it rushes on to excess, is likely to rear up, toss its mane, and throw off the charioteer, the Instructor. But he pulls back the reins from a distance and leads and drives the human horse to salvation—that is, the irrational part of the soul—which is wildly bent on pleasures, sinful desires, precious stones, gold, many kinds of clothing, and other luxuries.

ABOVE ALL: we must keep in mind what was spoken in the Holy Scriptures: "Keep your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by seeing your good works, glorify God." 1 Peter 2:12

THE INSTRUCTOR: then, allows us to wear simple clothing, and it should be white, as we said before. So, instead of fitting ourselves to colorful art, we should fit ourselves to nature as it is. We should push away whatever is deceptive and hides the truth, so that we may embrace the consistency and simplicity of the truth.

SOPHOCLES: rebuking a young man, says:

Dressed in women's clothing.

FOR: just as a soldier, a sailor, and a ruler each have proper clothing, in the same way the right clothing for a self-controlled person is plain, fitting, and clean. For this reason, in the law given by Moses, the rule about leprosy rejects what has many colors and spots, like the many-colored scales of a snake. Therefore, he wants a person to be clean, no longer decorating himself in a showy variety of colors, but being white all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. In this way, by moving from the body to the soul, we may put away the many-colored and changeable passions of the person, and love the unchanging, clear, and simple color of truth. And the one who also imitates Moses in this—Plato most of all—approves of a fabric on which no more work has been done than what a modest woman would do. And white colors suit dignity well. And elsewhere he says, "Do not use dyes or weaving, except for military decorations."

THEREFORE: white is suitable for people of peace and light. Signs are very closely connected to causes. By being present, they indicate, or rather clearly prove, that a result exists. Smoke is a sign of fire, and a healthy complexion and a steady pulse are signs of health. In the same way, clothing of this kind shows the character of our habits. Self-control is pure and simple, since purity is a habit that produces pure conduct, unmixed with what is shameful. Simplicity is a habit that removes excess.

THICK CLOTHING: especially cloth that has not been fulled, also protects the heat that is in the body. This is not because the clothing has heat in itself, but because it turns back the heat coming out from the body and does not let it pass through. And whatever heat falls on it, it takes in and holds. Being warmed by that heat, it in turn warms the body. For this reason, it should be worn especially in winter.

TEMPERANCE IS ALSO CONTENT: And contentment is a habit that does without unnecessary things and, so that there may be no lack, accepts what is enough for a healthy and blessed life according to the Word.

LET WOMEN WEAR SIMPLE AND PROPER CLOTHING: But it should be softer than what is suitable for a man, while not being immodest or completely given over to luxury. And let their clothing fit their age, person, figure, nature, and activities. For the divine apostle gives us this beautiful counsel: "Put on Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the lusts of the flesh." Romans 13:14

THE WORD FORBIDS US TO DO VIOLENCE TO NATURE BY PIERCING THE EARLOBES OF THE EARS: For why not the nose too? Then what was spoken might be fulfilled: "Like a gold ring in a pig's nose, so is beauty in a woman without discretion." Proverbs 11:22 In short, if someone thinks he is made beautiful by gold, he is lower than gold. And the one who is lower than gold is not master of it. But to admit that one is less beautiful than Lydian gold ore—how monstrous! So then, just as gold is defiled by the filth of the sow that stirs up the mud with her snout, in the same way those women who are excessively luxurious in their sensual indulgence, puffed up by wealth, dishonor true beauty by the stains of lustful pleasures.

SO: the Word permits them to wear a gold finger ring. This is not for decoration, but for sealing things that should be kept safe in the house while they carry out their duty of managing the household.

FOR IF EVERYONE WERE WELL TRAINED: there would be no need for seals, if servants and masters were equally honest. But since lack of training produces an inclination toward dishonesty, we need seals.

BUT THERE ARE SITUATIONS IN WHICH THIS STRICTNESS MAY BE RELAXED: Sometimes an allowance must be made for women who have not had the good fortune to have chaste husbands, and who adorn themselves in order to please their husbands. But their aim should be only to gain the approval of their husbands. I would not have them give themselves to outward display, but attract their husbands by chaste love for them, which is a powerful and lawful charm. But since their husbands want their wives to be troubled in mind, the wives, if they want to be chaste, should aim to calm the irrational impulses and passions of their husbands little by little. And they are to be gently led to simplicity by gradually getting them used to self-control. For decency is not produced by forcing on what is burdensome, but by taking away what is excessive. For women’s luxury items are to be forbidden, since they are swift-winged things that produce unstable follies and empty pleasures. By these, women are often lifted up and given wings, and they fly away from the bonds of marriage. Therefore women ought to dress neatly and bind themselves with the band of chaste modesty, lest through giddiness they slip away from the truth. It is right, then, for men to place confidence in their wives and entrust the management of the household to them, since they are given to be their helpers in this.

AND IF IT IS NECESSARY FOR US: while we are engaged in public business, or doing other work in the countryside, and are often away from our wives, to seal something for the sake of safety, He, the Word (Logos), allows us to use a signet for this purpose only. Other finger rings are to be cast off, since, according to Scripture, instruction is a golden ornament for a wise man. Sirach 21:21

BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT WOMEN WHO WEAR GOLD ARE AFRAID THAT: if someone takes away their jewelry, they will be mistaken for servants without their ornaments. But the true nobility that is found in natural beauty, which has its place in the soul, judges a slave not by buying and selling, but by a slavish attitude. And we must not only seem to be free, but actually be free, trained by God and adopted by God.

THEREFORE: in the way we stand and move, in our walk, in our clothing, and, in a word, in our whole way of life, we must be as worthy as possible of free people. But men should not wear a ring on the middle joint of the finger, because that is feminine. Instead, they should wear it at the base of the little finger. In that way, the hand will be as free as possible for work, whatever we need it for. And the signet ring will not easily fall off, because the large knuckle protects it.

LET OUR SEALS BE A DOVE: or a fish, or a ship driven before the wind, or a musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship's anchor, which Seleucus had engraved as a symbol. And if someone is fishing, he will remember the apostle and the children drawn out of the water. For we must not draw the faces of idols, since we are forbidden to cling to them; nor a sword or a bow, since we follow peace; nor drinking cups, since we are self-controlled.

MANY IMMORAL PEOPLE HAVE IMAGES OF THEIR LOVERS OR MISTRESSES ENGRAVED ON THEM: as if they wanted to make it impossible ever to forget their sexual indulgences by being constantly reminded of their immorality.

ABOUT HAIR: the following seems right. A man's head should be shaved, unless his hair is curly. But he should keep the hair on his chin. Twisted locks should not hang far down from the head, falling into womanish ringlets. A full beard is enough for men. And if a man also shaves part of his beard, he must not make it completely bare, because this is a disgraceful sight. Shaving the chin down to the skin is blameworthy. It comes close to plucking out the hair and smoothing the skin. For example, the Psalmist, taking delight in the hair of the beard, says, "Like the ointment that comes down on the beard, the beard of Aaron."

AFTER PRAISING THE BEAUTY OF THE BEARD AGAIN: he made the face shine with the Lord's ointment.

SINCE TRIMMING SHOULD BE DONE NOT FOR THE SAKE OF APPEARANCE: but because it is necessary, the hair on the head should be cut so that it does not grow so long that it hangs down and gets in the way of the eyes. The moustache should be cut in the same way, because it gets dirty while eating. It should be trimmed evenly, not with a razor, because that would not be proper, but with a pair of trimming scissors. But the hair on the chin should not be touched, since it causes no trouble and gives the face dignity and a fatherly sternness.

MOREOVER: a person's appearance teaches many not to sin, because it makes detection easy. Those who do not wish to sin openly find most agreeable a style that will escape observation and is not conspicuous. When they adopt it, they can transgress without detection. Then, since they cannot be distinguished from others, they may fearlessly go their length in sinning. A closely cropped head not only shows a man to be serious, but also makes the skull less likely to be injured, by accustoming it to the presence of both cold and heat. It also averts the harms that come from these, because the hair soaks up the effects of cold and heat like a sponge, and so keeps bringing constant harm to the brain through moisture.

IT IS ENOUGH FOR WOMEN TO PROTECT THEIR HAIR AND FASTEN IT SIMPLY AT THE NECK WITH A PLAIN HAIRPIN: caring for modest hair in a simple way for the sake of true beauty. For prostitute-like braiding of the hair, and arranging it in curls and twisted strands, only makes them look ugly. It cuts the hair and pulls it out because of those deceptive braids. Because of this, they do not touch their head, since they are afraid of disturbing their hair. Even sleep comes with fear, lest without knowing it they ruin the shape of the braid.

BUT HAIR ADDED FROM OTHER PEOPLE MUST BE COMPLETELY REJECTED: It is a very sacrilegious thing for false hair to cover the head, shading the skull with dead locks. For on whom does the presbyter lay his hand? Whom does he bless? Not the woman who is dressed up, but another person's hair, and through that, another head. And if the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of the man, how is it not impious for them to fall into a double sin? For they deceive men by the excessive amount of their hair. And, as far as they are able, they dishonor the Lord by adorning themselves like prostitutes in order to hide the truth. And they bring shame on the head, which is truly beautiful.

SO: hair should not be dyed, and gray hair should not have its color changed. For we are not allowed to make our clothing varied for show, either. Above all, old age, which wins trust, should not be hidden. Instead, God's mark of honor should be shown openly in the light of day, so that it may gain the respect of the young. For sometimes, when they have been acting shamefully, the sight of white hair, coming like a teacher, has changed them to self-control and stopped youthful desire by the splendor of what they saw.

Painting the Face

WOMEN MUST NOT SMEAR THEIR FACES WITH THE DECEPTIVE TRICKS OF CLEVER CUNNING: Instead, let us show them the adornment of self-control. First of all, the best beauty is spiritual beauty, as we have often said. For when the soul is adorned by the Holy Spirit, and filled with the bright charms that come from Him — righteousness, wisdom, courage, self-control, love of what is good, and modesty, than which no more lovely color has ever been seen — then bodily beauty too should be cared for: a well-shaped body and limbs, with a healthy complexion. Here the adornment of health is proper. Through it, the artificial image is brought over to the truth, in keeping with the form that God has given. But self-control in drink, and moderation in food, are effective in producing natural beauty. For these not only keep the body healthy, but also make beauty appear. For from what is fiery come gleam and sparkle; from moisture come brightness and grace; from dryness come strength and firmness; and from what is airy come easy breathing and balance. From these this well-proportioned and beautiful image of the Word is adorned. Beauty is the free flower of health. Health is produced within the body, while beauty blossoms out from the body and shows the clear beauty of the complexion. So, these very proper and health-giving practices, by exercising the body, produce true and lasting beauty, because heat draws to itself all moisture and cold spirit. Heat, when stirred by movement, draws things to itself. And when it does this, it gently sends out through the warmed flesh the excess of food, along with some moisture, but with an excess of heat. Therefore the first food is also carried off. But when the body is not moved, the food that has been eaten does not stick, but falls away, like a loaf from a cold oven, either whole or leaving only the lower part behind. Accordingly, waste matter is excessive in those who do not cast off excrement by the rubbings required by exercise. Other unnecessary matter also becomes abundant in them, and so does perspiration, because the food is not absorbed by the body but is flowing out uselessly. From there also lusts are stirred up, as the excess flows to the private parts through corresponding movements. Therefore this excess ought to be liquefied and scattered for digestion, by which beauty gains its reddish color. But it is monstrous for those who are made in the image and likeness of God to dishonor the archetype by putting on a foreign ornament, preferring the harmful device of man to the creation of God.

The Instructor tells them to go out in proper clothing and to dress themselves with modesty and self-control, as 1 Timothy 2:9 says, being subject to their own husbands. Then, if any do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, while they observe, he says, your pure conduct. Their beauty should not be outward beauty, such as braided hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine clothes. Instead, let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:1-4

ABOVE ALL: the labor of their own hands adds genuine beauty to women. It exercises their bodies, and they adorn themselves by their own effort. They should not bring in the false ornament made by others, which is vulgar and meretricious, but the adornment proper to every good woman, supplied and woven by her own hands whenever she most requires it. For it is never suitable for women whose lives are shaped according to God to appear dressed in things bought from the market, but in their own homemade work. For a thrifty wife is a most beautiful thing. She clothes both herself and her husband with fine clothing of her own making. In this all are glad: the children because of their mother, the husband because of his wife, she because of them, and all in God.

IN SHORT: a storehouse of excellence is a woman of worth, who does not eat the bread of idleness. The laws of mercy are on her tongue. She opens her mouth with wisdom and in the right way. Her children rise up and call her blessed, as the sacred Word says through Solomon: "Her husband also, and he praises her." For a godly woman is blessed, and let her praise the fear of the Lord.

AND AGAIN: “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” Proverbs 12:4 As far as possible, they must correct their gestures, looks, steps, and speech. They must not act like some people who imitate comic actors and practice the delicate movements of dancers. Such people carry themselves in public as if they were on a stage, with sensual movements, gliding steps, and affected voices. They cast weak and longing glances around, dressed up as bait for pleasure. For “honey drips from the lips of a woman who is a prostitute.” By speaking to please, she smooths your throat. But in the end, you will find it more bitter than bile and sharper than a two-edged sword. For the feet of folly lead those who practice it to hell after death.

THE NOBLE SAMSON WAS OVERCOME BY A PROSTITUTE: and by another woman he was stripped of his manly strength. But Joseph was not deceived like this by another woman. The Egyptian prostitute was defeated. And chastity, even when it takes on chains, appears greater than reckless immorality. Very excellent are these words:

IN SHORT: I do not know how to whisper, or walk about in a soft, womanish way with my neck twisted, as I see others do—those lustful men in great numbers in the city, with their hair plucked out.

BUT WOMANISH MOVEMENTS: looseness, and luxury must be completely forbidden. Sensual movement in walking, and an affected, mincing way of walking, as Anacreon says, are entirely like those of a prostitute.

“As it seems to me,” says the comedy, “it is time to leave behind the steps of prostitution and luxury.” And the steps of sexual immorality do not lead to the truth, because they do not come near the paths of life. Its tracks are dangerous and not easy to know. The eyes especially should be used with restraint, since it is better to stumble with the feet than with the eyes. So the Lord deals with this sickness very directly: “If your eye causes you to sin, cut it out,” He says, pulling lust up by the root. But weak, longing looks, and ogling, which means winking with the eyes, are nothing less than committing adultery with the eyes, while lust makes its attack through them. For of the whole body, the eyes are the first to be ruined. The eye that looks at beautiful things gladdens the heart. That is, the eye that has learned to see rightly brings gladness. “Winking with the eye, with guile, heaps woes on men.” Proverbs 10:10 In this way they portray the soft and effeminate Sardanapalus, king of the Assyrians, sitting on a couch with his legs drawn up, handling his purple robe, and rolling up the whites of his eyes. Women who follow such practices offer themselves for prostitution by their looks. For “the lamp of the body is the eye,” says the Scripture, and by it the inside, lit by the shining light, is made visible. “Fornication in a woman is in the raising of the eyes.” Sirach 26:9

THEREFORE: put to death the parts of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, uncleanness, uncontrolled passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience, the apostle cries in Colossians 3:5-6.

BUT WE STIR UP OUR PASSIONS: and we are not ashamed.

SOME OF THESE WOMEN CHEW MASTICH AS THEY GO ABOUT: showing their teeth to those who come near. Others, as if they had no fingers, give themselves airs and scratch their heads with pins. These are made either of tortoise or ivory, or of some other dead creature that they obtain with much trouble. And others, as if they had certain adornments, stain their faces by decorating them with bright-colored ointments, in order to appear attractive in the eyes of those who look on. Solomon calls such a woman foolish and bold, who knows no shame. "She sits at the door of her house, plainly visible on a seat, calling to all who pass by the way, who go straight on their ways." By her style and whole life she plainly says, "Who among you is very silly? Let him turn to me." And she urges those who lack wisdom, saying, "Touch sweetly secret bread, and sweet stolen water," meaning by this secret love. From this point the Boeotian Pindar, coming to our help, says, "The secret pursuit of love is something sweet." But the miserable man does not know that the sons of earth perish beside her, and that she tends to the level of hell. But the Instructor says, "Hurry away, and do not stay in the place; nor fix your eye on her. For thus you shall pass over a strange water, and cross to Acheron." Proverbs 9:13-18. Therefore the Lord says by Isaiah, "Because the daughters of Sion walk with lofty neck, and with winkings of the eyes, and sweeping their garments as they walk, and playing with their feet, the Lord shall humble the daughters of Sion, and will uncover their form"—their deformed form. I consider it wrong that servant girls, who follow women of high rank, should either speak or act unbecomingly to them. But I think it right that they should be corrected by their mistresses. Accordingly, with very sharp censure, the comic poet Philemon says, "You may follow at the back of a pretty servant girl, seen behind a gentlewoman; and anyone from the Plataeicum may follow close, and ogle her." For the wantonness of the servant falls back on the mistress. It allows those who try to take smaller liberties not to be afraid to go on to greater ones, since the mistress, by allowing improprieties, shows that she does not disapprove of them. And not to be angry at those who act wantonly is clear proof of a disposition inclined to the same. For, as they say in the proverb, like mistress, like wench.

WE MUST ALSO GIVE UP WALKING IN A RUSHED: wild way, and choose a serious, unhurried step, but not one that is slow and dragging.

A PERSON SHOULD NOT SWAGGER IN THE STREETS: or throw back his head to stare at people he meets when they look at him, as if he were strutting on a stage and being pointed at. Nor, when going uphill, should they be pushed up by their servants, as we see with those who live in greater luxury. They seem strong, but they are weakened by softness of soul.

A TRUE GENTLEMAN MUST HAVE NO MARK OF EFFEMINACY VISIBLE ON HIS FACE: or on any other part of his body. Then let no blot on his manliness ever be found either in his movements or in his habits. Nor should a man in health use his servants as horses to carry him. For as they are commanded to be subject to their masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:18, so fairness, forbearance, and kindness are what fit masters well. For he says, "Finally, be all of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be pitiful, be humble," and so forth, that you may inherit a blessing, excellent and desirable.

The Model Maiden

ZENO THE CITIAN THOUGHT IT BEST TO PORTRAY THE IMAGE OF A YOUNG WOMAN IN THIS WAY: Let her face be clean. Let her eyebrows not be lowered, and let her eyelids neither be wide open nor drawn back. Let her neck not be thrown back, and let the parts of her body not be slack. But let the parts that hang from the body appear well tightened. Let there be the sharpness of a well-ordered mind for conversation, and a memory that holds on to what has been rightly said. Let her posture and movements give no hope to the licentious. But let there be the bloom of modesty and an expression of firmness. And let her be far from the wearisome fuss that comes from the shops of perfumers, goldsmiths, and wool dealers, and from the other shops where women dressed like prostitutes spend whole days, as if sitting in brothels.

Amusements and Associates

THEREFORE: men should not spend their time in barbershops and taverns, babbling nonsense. They should stop chasing after the women who sit nearby, and stop constantly speaking slander against many people just to get a laugh.

DICE PLAYING MUST BE FORBIDDEN: and so must the pursuit of profit, especially by gambling with dice, which many eagerly practice. Luxury, in its wastefulness, invents such things for idle people. For the cause is idleness, and a love for trivial pleasures apart from the truth. For otherwise, it is not possible to get pleasure without harm. And each person's choice of a way of life matches his disposition.

BUT: it seems, only close association with good people is beneficial. On the other hand, the all-wise Instructor, speaking through Moses, recognized companionship with bad people as swinish. So he forbade the ancient people to eat pork. By this he meant to show that those who call on God should not mix with unclean people, who, like swine, take pleasure in bodily desires, in impure food, and in the filthy craving for the harmful pleasures of sexual immorality.

FURTHER: He says, "You are not to eat a kite, or a swift-winged ravenous bird, or an eagle," in Leviticus 11:13-14 and Deuteronomy 14:12. This means, "You shall not come near men who make their living by robbery." Other things also are presented figuratively.

Then who should we associate with? He says, again in a figurative way, that we should associate with the righteous. For everything that has a divided hoof and chews the cud is clean. The divided hoof points to the balance of righteousness, and chewing the cud points to the proper food of righteousness, the word. It comes in from outside, like food, through instruction. But then it is brought back from the mind, as from the stomach, into thoughtful remembrance. And the spiritual person, having the word in his mouth, chews over this spiritual food. And righteousness rightly divides the hoof, because it makes us holy in this life and sends us on our way to the world to come.

Public Spectacles

THE INSTRUCTOR: then, will not lead us to public shows. It would not be wrong to call the racecourse and the theater the seat of plagues. For there was evil plotting against the Just One, Acts 3:14, and therefore the assembly gathered against Him is cursed. These gatherings are full of confusion and wrongdoing. These excuses for coming together cause disorder, as men and women mix together for the sake of looking at one another. In this way, the gathering has already shown itself to be bad. For when the eye is lustful, desires grow hot. Eyes that get used to looking boldly and shamelessly at their neighbors during leisure stir up sexual desires. Therefore, spectacles and plays that are full of vulgarity and endless gossip must be forbidden. For what shameful act is not shown in the theaters? And what shameless word is not brought out by the clowns? Those who take pleasure in the evil found in these things impress clear images of it on themselves at home. On the other hand, those who are resistant to these things and are not affected by them will never stumble when it comes to pleasures of luxury.

IF PEOPLE SAY THEY GO TO THE SPECTACLES AS A PASTIME FOR RECREATION: I would say that cities are not wise when they make a serious business out of amusement. Cruel contests for glory, which have caused so much death, are not sport. Neither is the senseless spending of money, nor the riots caused by these things, a sport. Peace of mind is not something to be bought by eagerly chasing trivial things, because no one who is in his right mind will ever choose what is pleasant over what is good.

Religion in Ordinary Life

BUT IT IS SAID THAT WE DO NOT ALL PRACTICE PHILOSOPHY: Do we not all, then, pursue life? What do you say? How have you believed? How, I ask, do you love God and your neighbor, if you do not practice philosophy? And how do you love yourself, if you do not love life? It is said, "I have not learned letters." But if you have not learned to read, you cannot excuse yourself when it comes to hearing, for it is not taught. And faith is the possession, not of those who are wise according to the world, but of those according to God. And it is taught without letters. Its handbook, at once simple and divine, is called love, a spiritual book. It is in your power to listen to divine wisdom, yes, and to shape your life in agreement with it. No, you are not forbidden to conduct affairs in the world properly according to God. Let no one who sells or buys anything name two prices for what he buys or sells. But let him state the set price, and make it his aim to speak the truth. If he does not get his price, he gets the truth, and is rich in possessing rectitude. But above all, let an oath on account of what is sold be far from you. And let swearing, too, on account of other things, be banished.

AND IN THIS WAY: those who spend time in the marketplace and the shop practice philosophy. For, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes His name in vain." Exodus 20:7

But those who act against these things—the greedy, the liars, the hypocrites, and those who sell the truth for profit—the Lord drove out of His Father's court. He was not willing for the holy house of God to become a house of unrighteous trade, whether in words or in material things.

Going to Church

WOMEN AND MEN ARE TO GO TO CHURCH DRESSED PROPERLY: walking naturally, embracing silence, showing sincere love, pure in body and pure in heart, and ready to pray to God. Let the woman observe this also. Let her be completely covered, unless she happens to be at home. For this way of dress is dignified and protects her from being stared at. And she will never fall if she keeps modesty and her shawl before her eyes. Nor will she lead another person to fall into sin by uncovering her face. For this is the wish of the Word, since it is fitting for her to pray veiled.

They say that Aeneas's wife was so modest that, even in her terror when Troy was captured, she did not uncover herself. But while fleeing the fire, she remained veiled.

SUCH IS HOW THOSE WHO ARE CONSECRATED TO CHRIST OUGHT TO APPEAR: and shape themselves through their whole life, just as they shape themselves in the church for the sake of gravity. They ought to be such, not seem such: so meek, so pious, so loving. But now I do not know how people change their fashions and manners with the place. As they say that polypi become like the rocks to which they cling, taking their color from them, so these people, after leaving the assembly, lay aside its inspiration and become like the others with whom they associate. No, when they put aside the artificial mask of solemnity, they are proved to be what they secretly were. After paying reverence to the discourse about God, they leave inside the church what they heard. Outside, they foolishly amuse themselves with impious play, and love-struck quavering, occupied with flute-playing, and dancing, and intoxication, and all kinds of trash. Those who sing in this way, and sing in response, are the same ones who before were hymning immortality. At last they are found wicked, and wickedly singing this most pernicious palinode: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." But in truth it is not tomorrow, but already, that these are dead to God; "burying their dead," Matthew 8:22, that is, sinking themselves down to death. The apostle very firmly assails them: "Do not be deceived; neither adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers," and whatever else he adds to these, "will not inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Love and the Kiss of Charity

AND IF WE ARE CALLED TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD: let us live in a way that is worthy of the kingdom, loving God and our neighbor. But love is not proven by a kiss, but by kind feeling. Yet there are some who do nothing but make the churches ring with kissing, while not having love itself within them. For this very thing, the shameless use of a kiss, which ought to be sacred and hidden, causes shameful suspicions and evil reports. The apostle calls the kiss holy. Romans 16:16

WHEN THE KINGDOM IS TESTED IN A WORTHY WAY: we direct the soul’s affection through a pure and guarded mouth, by which gentle character is chiefly expressed.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER UNHOLY KISS: full of poison, pretending to be holy. Do you not know that spiders, simply by touching the mouth, cause people pain? And often kisses also put in the poison of sexual sin. So it is very clear to us that a kiss is not love. For the love meant here is the love of God. And this is the love of God, says John, that we keep His commandments; 1 John 5:3, not that we touch each other on the mouth. And His commandments are not burdensome. But greetings between loved ones in the streets, full as they are of foolish boldness, belong to people who want to be noticed by outsiders and do not have even the smallest part of grace. For if it is proper, in a spiritual sense, to pray to God in the inner room, then it follows that we should also greet our neighbor in a spiritual way, our neighbor whom we are commanded to love as second to God, indoors, making the best use of the time. For we are the salt of the earth. Matthew 5:13. Whoever blesses his friend early in the morning with a loud voice will be considered no different from one who curses him. Proverbs 27:14.

The Government of the Eyes

BUT ABOVE ALL: it seems right that we turn away from the sight of women. For it is sin not only to touch, but also to look. And he who is rightly trained must especially avoid them. “Let your eyes look straight, and your eyelids wink right.” Proverbs 4:25 For while it is possible for one who looks to remain steadfast, care must still be taken against falling. For it is possible for one who looks to slip. But it is impossible for one who does not look to lust. For it is not enough for the chaste to be pure. They must give all diligence to be beyond the range of censure, shutting out every ground of suspicion, for the completion of chastity. So that we may not only be faithful, but also appear worthy of trust. For this also must be guarded against, as the apostle says, “that no man should blame us,” while “providing things honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” 2 Corinthians 8:20-21 But “turn away your eyes from a graceful woman, and do not contemplate another’s beauty,” says the Scripture. Sirach 9:8 And if you ask the reason, it will further tell you, “For by the beauty of woman many have gone astray, and at it affection blazes up like fire.” Sirach 9:8 The affection that rises from the fire which we call love leads, because of sin, to the fire that will never cease.

I WOULD ADVISE MARRIED PEOPLE NEVER TO KISS THEIR WIVES IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSEHOLD SERVANTS: Aristotle does not allow people even to laugh with their slaves. So a wife must certainly not be seen being greeted with a kiss in their presence. It is also better that, beginning at home with marriage, we should show proper behavior in it. For marriage is the strongest bond of chastity, and it breathes pure pleasure. A line from tragedy says this very well:

Well! Well! Ladies, how is it, then, that among men, not gold, not empire, or the luxury of wealth, gives such remarkable delights as the right and virtuous disposition of a worthy man and a dutiful wife?

SUCH COMMANDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS SPOKEN BY THOSE WHO KNOW WORLDLY WISDOM ARE NOT TO BE REFUSED: Knowing, then, the duty of each one, spend the time of your stay here in fear. Since you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver or gold, from your empty way of life received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 Peter 1:17-19 For, Peter says, the past time of our life may be enough for us to have done the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries. 1 Peter 4:3 We have the cross of the Lord as a limit, by which we are fenced and hedged about from our former sins. Therefore, since we have been regenerated, let us fix ourselves to it in truth, and return to sobriety, and sanctify ourselves. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And who is he that will harm us, if we are followers of what is good? 1 Peter 3:13 — us for you. But the best training is good order, which is perfect decorum, and stable and orderly power, which in action maintains consistency in what it does. If these things have been brought forward by me with too much harshness, in order to bring about the salvation that follows from your correction, they have also been spoken by me, says the Instructor: “Since he who reproves with boldness is a peacemaker. And if you hear me, you shall be saved. And if you do not listen to what is spoken, it is not my concern.” And yet it is my concern in this way: for He desires the repentance rather than the death of a sinner. Ezekiel 18:23 “If you hear me, you shall eat the good of the land,” the Instructor says again, calling beauty, wealth, health, strength, and sustenance by the name “the good of the land.” For the things that are truly good are those which ear has not heard, nor has ever entered into the heart, 1 Corinthians 2:9 concerning Him who is truly King, and the things truly good that await us. For He is the giver and the guard of good things. And with respect to sharing in them, He applies the same names as things in this world, the Word thus training the weakness of men in God from sensible things to understanding.

THE INSTRUCTOR HAS FULLY EXPLAINED WHAT MUST BE OBSERVED AT HOME: and how our life should be ordered. He also gives the kinds of things He usually says to children along the way, while He leads them to the Master. He presents these teachings and brings forward the Scriptures themselves in a brief form. He sets out simple commands, fitting them to the time of guidance, and leaves their interpretation to the Master. For the purpose of His law is to drive away fear, setting free the will for faith. “Listen,” He says, “O child, who are being rightly instructed, to the main points of salvation. For I will make my ways known, and set good commandments before you. By them you will reach salvation. And I lead you in the way of salvation. Turn away from the paths of deceit.”

FOR THE LORD KNOWS THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS: and the way of the ungodly will perish. Therefore, my son, follow the good way that I will describe, and listen to me carefully. And I will give you the treasures of darkness, hidden and unseen by the nations, but seen by us, Isaiah 45:3. And the treasures of wisdom never fail. In wonder at them, the apostle says, "Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom!" Romans 11:33. And through one God many treasures are given out. Some are revealed by the law, others by the prophets, some to the divine mouth, and others to the heptad of the Spirit singing in harmony. And since the Lord is one, He is the same Instructor through all these things. Here, then, is a complete command, and an instruction for life that includes everything: "As you would want people to do to you, do the same to them." Luke 6:31. We can sum up the commandments in two, as the Lord says: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength; and your neighbor as yourself." Then from these He concludes, "On these hang the law and the prophets." Further, to the one who asked, "What good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?" He answered, "You know the commandments?" And when the man replied, "Yes," He said, "Do this, and you shall be saved." The love of the Instructor is especially clear in the different commands that bring salvation, so that discovery may be easier through the richness and arrangement of the Scriptures. We have the Ten Commandments given by Moses. By a basic principle, simple and of one kind, they identify sins in a way that leads to salvation: "You shall not commit adultery. You shall not worship idols. You shall not corrupt boys. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother." Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5. And so on. These things must be kept, along with whatever else is commanded in reading the Bible. And by Isaiah He commands us: "Wash yourselves, and make yourselves clean. Put away wickedness from your souls before my eyes. Learn to do good. Seek judgment. Rescue the wronged. Judge for the orphan, and justify the widow. And come, and let us reason together," says the Lord. And we will find many examples in other places also. For example, about prayer, Scripture says, "Good works are an acceptable prayer to the Lord." And the manner of prayer is described: "If you see the naked, cover him, and do not overlook those who belong to your own seed. Then your light shall break forth early, and your healing shall spring up quickly; and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall surround you." What, then, is the fruit of such prayer? "Then you shall call, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking, He will say, 'I am here.'"

ABOUT FASTING: it is said, "Why do you fast for me?" says the Lord. "Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, just a day for a man to humble his soul? You must not bend your neck like a circle and spread sackcloth and ashes under yourself. You must not call this an acceptable fast."

WHAT: then, does a fast mean? Look, this is the fast that I have chosen, says the Lord: loosen every bond of wickedness. Untie the knots of oppressive contracts. Let the oppressed go free, and tear apart every unjust bond. Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house. If you see someone naked, cover him. Isaiah 57:6-7 About sacrifices also: "What is the purpose of your many sacrifices to me?" says the Lord. "I am full of burnt offerings of rams. I do not want the fat of lambs, or the blood of bulls and goats, or for you to come and appear before me. Who has required this from your hands? You shall no longer tread my court. If you bring fine flour, your worthless offering is an abomination to me. I cannot endure your new moons and your Sabbaths." Isaiah 1:11-14 How, then, shall I sacrifice to the Lord? "The sacrifice of the Lord," He says, "is a broken heart." How, then, shall I crown myself, or anoint myself with ointment, or offer incense to the Lord? "A pleasing fragrance," it says, "is the heart that glorifies Him who made it." These are God's crowns and sacrifices, fragrant aromas, and flowers.

FURTHER: about forbearance. "If your brother sins against you," it says, "rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you the seventh time and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." Luke 17:3-4. Also, through John, He commands soldiers to be content with their wages only, and tax collectors to collect no more than what is appointed. To judges He says, "You shall not show partiality in judgment. For gifts blind the eyes of those who see, and corrupt just words. Rescue the wronged."

AND TO HEADS OF HOUSEHOLDS: Wealth gained through wrongdoing grows less. Proverbs 13:11

ALSO ABOUT LOVE: He says, "Love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

AND ABOUT CIVIL GOVERNMENT: Give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and to God the things that belong to God.

ABOUT SWEARING AND REMEMBERING INJURIES: Did I command your fathers, when they came out of Egypt, to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices? No, I commanded them, "Let none of you hold malice in his heart against his neighbor, or love a false oath."

HE ALSO WARNS LIARS AND THE PROUD: He warns the liars this way: "Woe to those who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter." And He warns the proud this way: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." Isaiah 5:20-21. For whoever humbles himself will be exalted, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled.

AND HE BLESSES THE MERCIFUL: because they will receive mercy.

WISDOM DECLARES THAT ANGER IS A MISERABLE THING: because it will destroy the wise person. And now He commands us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. And He says, "If anyone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other to him also; and if anyone takes away your coat, do not stop him from taking your cloak also." Matthew 5:40; Luke 6:27-29

ABOUT FAITH: He says, "Whatever you ask for in prayer, if you believe, you will receive." Matthew 21:22. To the unbelieving, nothing is trustworthy, according to Pindar.

SERVANTS TOO ARE TO BE TREATED LIKE OURSELVES: because they are human beings just as we are. For God is the same God to both the free and the slave, if you think about it.

WE MUST NOT PUNISH THOSE OF OUR BROTHERS WHO TRANSGRESS: but rebuke them. For he who spares the rod hates his son. Proverbs 13:24

FURTHER: He completely drives out the love of glory, saying, "Woe to you, Pharisees! For you love the chief seat in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets." Luke 11:43 But He welcomes the repentance of the sinner—repentance that He loves—which comes after sins. For this Word (Logos) we are speaking of alone is without sin. For sinning is natural and common to all. But returning to God after sinning is a mark not of just any person, but only of a person of worth.

ABOUT GENEROSITY: He said, "Come to Me, you who are blessed. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me in. I was naked, and you clothed Me. I was sick, and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me." And, "When did we do any of these things to the Lord?"

THE INSTRUCTOR HIMSELF WILL SAY AGAIN: since He loves to apply to Himself the kindness shown to the brothers, "Since you have done it to these least, you have done it to Me." And these will go away into everlasting life.

These are the laws of the Word (Logos), the comforting words written not on tablets of stone by the finger of the Lord, but inscribed on human hearts, where alone they can remain imperishable. Therefore, the tablets of those whose hearts were stone are broken, so that the faith of the children may be impressed on softened hearts.

HOWEVER: both sets of laws served the Word for the instruction of humanity: both the law given by Moses and the law given by the apostles. Therefore, it seems to me that we need to discuss what the training given by the apostles is like. Under this heading, I, or rather the Instructor speaking through me, will explain it. I will also set the precepts themselves before you again, as if in seed form.

PUT AWAY LYING: and let each person speak the truth with his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil an opportunity. Let the one who stole steal no more. Instead, let him work, doing good work with his hands, so that he may have something to give to the one who is in need. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, shouting, and evil-speaking be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be wise, following God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also has loved us. Let wives be subject to their own husbands, as to the Lord. And let husbands love their wives, just as Christ also has loved the Church. Let those who are joined together love one another as their own bodies. Children, obey your parents. Parents, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Servants, obey those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, with sincere hearts, as to Christ, serving with good will from the soul. And you masters, treat your servants well, and stop threatening them, knowing that both their Lord and your Lord is in heaven, and with Him there is no partiality.

IF WE LIVE BY THE SPIRIT: let us walk by the Spirit. Let us not seek empty glory, provoking one another and envying one another. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up.

BE AT PEACE AMONG YOURSELVES: Now we admonish you, brothers: warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, and be patient toward all people. See that no one repays evil for evil to anyone. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things. Hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

KEEP ON PRAYING: staying watchful in it with thanksgiving. Live wisely toward those who are outside the faith, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

FEED YOURSELVES ON THE WORDS OF FAITH: Train yourselves in godliness, because physical training helps only a little. But godliness is useful for all things, because it holds the promise of the life we have now and the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:6-8

LET THOSE WHO HAVE FAITHFUL MASTERS NOT DESPISE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE BROTHERS: Instead, let them serve them, because they are faithful. 1 Timothy 6:2

THE ONE WHO GIVES SHOULD DO IT WITH SINCERITY: The one who leads should do it with diligence. The one who shows mercy should do it with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Hate what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Be devoted to one another with brotherly love. In honor, put one another first. Do not be lazy in your work. Be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Continue steadfastly in prayer. Practice hospitality. Share with the saints in their needs. Romans 12:8-13

THESE ARE A FEW COMMANDS: chosen as examples from many others, which the Instructor presents to His children as He goes through the divine Scriptures. By these commands, so to speak, vice is pulled up by the roots, and evil is kept within bounds.

COUNTLESS COMMANDS LIKE THESE ARE WRITTEN IN THE HOLY BIBLE FOR CHOSEN PERSONS: some for presbyters, some for bishops, some for deacons, and others for widows, of whom we will have another opportunity to speak. Many things spoken in riddles, and many in parables, may benefit those who come across them. But it is not my task, says the Instructor, to teach these things any longer. We need a Teacher to explain those sacred words, and to him we must direct our steps.

AND NOW: truly, it is time for me to stop my instruction, and for you to listen to the Teacher. And He, receiving you who have been trained in excellent discipline, will teach you the oracles. For a noble purpose the Church has sung, and the Bridegroom also, the only Teacher, the good Counselor of the good Father, the true Wisdom, the sanctuary of knowledge. And He is the propitiation for our sins, as John says: Jesus, who heals both our body and soul, which are the proper man. And not for our sins only, but also for the whole world. And by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in Him. He that says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked. 1 John 2:2-6. O nurslings of His blessed training! Let us complete the fair face of the church. And let us run as children to our good mother. And if we become listeners to the Word, let us glorify the blessed divine arrangement by which man is trained and sanctified as a child of God, and has his life in heaven, being trained from earth, and there receives the Father, whom he learns to know on earth. The Word both does and teaches all things, and trains in all things.

A HORSE IS GUIDED BY A BIT: and a bull is guided by a yoke, and a wild beast is caught in a noose. But man is transformed by the Word, by whom wild beasts are tamed, and fish are caught, and birds are drawn down. He is, in truth, the one who fashions the bit for the horse, the yoke for the bull, the noose for the wild beast, the rod for the fish, and the snare for the bird. He both manages the state and tills the ground. He commands, and helps, and creates the universe.

THE EARTH: the sky, and the sea were portrayed, along with the ever-circling sun, the full moon, and all the constellations that crown the vault of heaven.

O divine works! O divine commands! Let this water move within itself. Let this fire hold back its anger. Let this air pass into the ether. And let this earth become firm and gain motion. When I want to form man, I want matter, and I have matter in the elements. I dwell with what I have formed. If you know me, the fire will be your servant.

SUCH IS THE WORD: and such is the Instructor, the Creator of the world and of man. He Himself is now the world's Instructor. By His command, we and the whole universe continue to exist, and we await judgment. For it is not the one who brings a secret spoken word to people, as Bacchylidis says, who will be the Word of Wisdom. Rather, according to Paul, it is the blameless, pure, and faultless sons of God who shine as lights in the world in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

THEREFORE: in a celebration of the Word like this, all that now remains is for us to offer our prayer to the Word.

Prayer to the Instructor

BE GRACIOUS TO US: your children, O Instructor, Father, Charioteer of Israel, Son and Father, both in One, O Lord. Grant that we who obey your commands may complete the likeness of the image, and with all our strength know him as the good God and not a harsh judge. And you yourself cause that all of us who live in your peace, who have been brought into your commonwealth, and who have sailed calmly over the waves of sin, may be carried gently in calm by your Holy Spirit, by the ineffable wisdom, by night and day, to the perfect day. Then, giving thanks, may we praise; and praising, may we give thanks to the only Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, Instructor and Teacher, with the Holy Spirit, all in One, in whom is all, for whom all is One, for whom is eternity, whose members we all are, and whose glory the ages are; for he is the All-good, All-lovely, All-wise, All-just One. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.

AND SINCE THE INSTRUCTOR: by bringing us into His Church, has united us to Himself, the teaching and all-seeing Word, it is right that, now that we have come to this point, we should offer the Lord the proper reward of thanksgiving—praise that fits His good instruction.

A Hymn to Christ the Savior

BRIDLE FOR UNTAMED COLTS: ruling over our wills; wing of birds that do not wander, guiding our flight safely. Rudder for unbending youth, firm against every adverse shock; Shepherd, wisely tending the lambs of the royal flock. Bring your simple children into one, so that they may sing, in solemn songs, their hymns of praise with guileless lips to Christ their King.

O KING OF THE SAINTS: almighty Word of the Father, highest Lord; chief and head of wisdom; relief of all grief; Lord of all time and space; Jesus, Savior of our race; Shepherd who keeps us; Husbandman who tills us; Bit to restrain us; Rudder to guide us as You will; Wing of the all-holy heavenly flock; Fisher of men, whom You bring to life; gathering pure fish in from the evil sea of sin and from the billowy strife, caught with the sweet bait of life. Lead us, Shepherd of the sheep, holy One who gives reason; King of youths, whom You keep so that they shun pollution. Christ, the heavenly Way; eternal Word, unending Age; Life that never can decay; Fountain of mercy, giver of virtue; majestic Life of those who raise their hymn of praise to God, Jesus Christ!

FED WITH THE MILK OF HEAVEN: given to our young mouths, with the milk of wisdom from the breast of that bride full of grace, filled with a refreshing spirit and poured out from the breast of beautiful Reason, let us who are like infants join in lifting up our hymns of praise with pure lips, as our thankful offering, clean and pure, to Christ our King. Let us, with hearts that are undefiled, celebrate the mighty Child. We who are born through Christ, the choir of peace, we who are the people of His love, let us sing to the God of peace above and never stop.

WE ADD THE FOLLOWING LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE HYMN GIVEN ABOVE:

BRIDLE OF UNTAMED COLTS: Wing of birds that do not wander, sure Helm of babes, Shepherd of royal lambs, gather Your simple children to give holy praise, to sing hymns without deceit with innocent mouths, to Christ the guide of children. O King of saints, all-subduing Word of the Most High Father, Ruler of wisdom, Support of sorrows, rejoicing through the ages, Jesus, Savior of the human race, Shepherd, Husbandman, Helm, Bridle, heavenly Wing of the all-holy flock, Fisher of men who are saved, catching the chaste fishes with sweet life from the hateful wave of a sea of vices. Guide us, Shepherd of rational sheep. Guide children unharmed, O holy King, O footsteps of Christ, O heavenly way, perpetual Word, immeasurable Age, Eternal Light, Fount of mercy, performer of virtue. Noble is the life of those who sing hymns to God, O Christ Jesus, heavenly milk of the sweet breasts of the graces of the Bride, pressed out of Your wisdom. Babes nourished with tender mouths, filled with the dewy spirit of the rational pap, let us sing together simple praises, true hymns to Christ our King, holy payment for the teaching of life. Let us sing in simplicity the mighty Child. O choir of peace, O Christ-begotten people, O chaste people, let us sing together the God of peace.

To the Paedagogus

TEACHER: I offer You a crown, woven from words gathered from the pure meadow where You feed Your flocks. I am like a bee, that skillful worker, which gathers treasure from many flowers so that it may bring a sweet offering to its master's hand. Though I am the least, I am still Your servant. It is fitting to praise You for Your commands. O King, great Giver of good gifts to men, Lord of the good, Father, Maker of all: by Your divine word You alone made heaven and the beauty of heaven, arranging all things rightly. You brought forth the sunshine and the day. You appointed the courses of the stars, and You fixed the place of the earth and the sea. You also appointed the seasons in their cycle—winter and summer, spring and autumn—so that each would come according to a well-ordered plan. Out of a confused heap You created this ordered world, and from shapeless matter You adorned the universe. Grant me life, and let that life be well spent, enjoying Your grace. Let me act and speak in all things as Your Holy Scriptures teach. May I always praise You and Your co-eternal Word, all-wise, proceeding from You. Give me neither poverty nor wealth, but what is fitting, Father, for this life, and then a happy end to life.