Consolatory Letter to Arcadius (complete)

Go on, faithful soul, go on; and, confessor of the unity, rejoice, because you have been counted worthy to suffer insult for the name of Christ, as the apostles were when they were scourged. See, that serpent now lies beneath your feet; he was able to fight, but he himself has fallen, because he could not crush you. I beg you, press down his head; let him not rise in this contest of martyrdom; let no one move you. See, Christ rejoices and looks upon you; the angels are glad and help you; the throng of demons watches your heel. Do not fail, lest the demons, who now mourn, rejoice. With you is the whole choir of the martyrs who went before you; the martyrs wait for you and defend you, and hold out the crown. I beg you, "hold fast what you hold, lest another take your crown." How short is the time in which you will fight, and how long the time in which you will live for ever as victor! You have begun already; finish it. Today it appears why you suffer; nothing is hidden from the Lord. Let not the devil deceive you about the cause when he casts a fog over you; what he wants is that you, dearest one, should not suffer. But truly, brother, you have a contest; this confession is whole. If you die, be sure of it, you will be a martyr. Job did not heed his wife, and therefore he conquered; he did not heed his household, nor riches, nor friends, and deservedly he prevailed. Adam loved his woman more than enough, and therefore fell so lamentably. Thus says the Lord: "Whoever does not leave father or mother or wife or sons or daughters for my sake is not my disciple." What if you had died by the chances of the road: could your wife or household have called you back? Look to him whom you have held fast, cling to him; hold him firmly, do not let him go, do not look back to your wife or household. Lift up your heart: you have begun a perfect fight. The very archangel who fell is fighting; he himself wrestles with you; but with you are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. See that you do not fear: he helps you so as to crown you. The Maccabean mother sent seven sons to death for Christ. They were tortured before her, and she urged them all the more to die; and she herself, after her sons were killed, see, now exults, crowned with her sons. Consider that God made you in your mother's womb; he gave you spirit and soul; he adorned you with reason and wisdom. He made heaven and earth and all that is in them. So he wishes to receive you as you die for the faith, that he may show you his full majesty. Look at the world: it is going to perish. Look at the sun and moon and stars: they too are to be dissolved. Fight bravely for your soul, which either lives for ever or perishes for ever. See, your sins have been forgiven you, and for this fight God will blot out all your iniquities, whatever you may have committed up to today. Hear the prophet Ezekiel on this matter, saying: "On whatever day the wicked man turns from his iniquity and does righteousness, I will remember none of his iniquities any more, says the Lord." Your righteousness, your faith (since "the righteous lives by faith"), tribulation, plundering, exile, have brought you forgiveness of sins; and death opens to you the kingdom of heaven. What will you be when you see yourself with holy Stephen? What will you be when you have as friends Peter and Paul, whom you used to entreat as patrons? Your soul will soon see Christ; and your body will be in the refreshment of the resurrection, so that the flesh too may see what your soul will soon see when it has departed. The devil rages, Christ rejoices. Pray, weep, ask for help, and soon you will receive comfort in your mind. Fear the eternal punishments, where there is burning for ever, where body and soul are tortured for ever in darkness, where soul and body burn with the devil for ever. Dread Gehenna, and hold fast to Christ now. Now is the time either to live or to perish. No one will recover you if you fail in this fight. And what does it profit you if you consent to the devil and soon lose your body? Or do you not know that the life of your body is in the power of your God, who can take your flesh from you at once if you abandon the faith? A certain Christian, while he was being tortured on the rack for the faith, related that an angel of shining countenance stood by him with a linen cloth soaked in water, who sprinkled water on his face and wiped it with the cloth. As long as he was tortured, the angel did not depart, consoling and refreshing him; and the confessor of Christ did not feel at all the punishments he was enduring. Torments are felt less when one fights for Christ, because strength of mind overcomes the pains of the world; and when the Godhead has been invoked, the bitterness of torments is softened. See, you are held for the Name; and though afflicted you will not lose the faith, even if you lose the flesh. Show God this perseverance, and do not greatly fear the punishment: for either it will be great and will soon be over, or it will be light and the soul will not be greatly tormented. But pray, since you have begun to wrestle and have not failed; you have begun martyrdom; guard your soul. I adjure you by the unity of the Trinity, for which you suffer death: keep your heart, and make it firm through the Holy Spirit, whom you refused to have blown out of you, and whom you have honoured in yourself. Fight bravely by the purity of your baptism, which you refused to despise. Be sure of the crown; fight in security, until the Lord wills to complete the victory for you. God is now testing your mind; the eye of God is there; he watches you from hour to hour, what you do, what you think, how you fight, how you stand. If he sees you firm, he rejoices and helps; if weak, he comes to your aid and lifts you up. But you, strive for the truth even to death, and you will be for salvation not only to yourself but also to others; otherwise God will require from you both your own soul and the souls of others. You are Christ's standard-bearer; you march first in the battle line; if you fall, you will not be free of the death of others. Fear this: for if you conquer, you have fought for the salvation of many, and you have received a manifold crown. God is one; God cannot be lesser; God cannot be changed. You know these things: hold fast the truth firmly. But hear briefly what I set down before. God is one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and yet the flesh belongs to Christ alone. Indeed, the soul is one thing and reason another, and yet reason is in the soul. And the soul is one; but the soul does one thing, reason another: the soul lives, reason is wise. Life belongs to the soul, wisdom belongs to reason; and yet neither is the soul without reason nor reason without the soul; and though they are one, the soul alone took on life, reason alone took on wisdom. So the Father and the Son, though they are one and are one God, yet the flesh belongs to Christ alone, just as wisdom belongs to reason alone, though it does not depart from the soul. See, then: in the sun heat and brightness are in one ray, but heat dries and brightness illuminates; heat takes on one thing and brightness another, though heat and brightness cannot be separated from each other. So brightness took on illumination, not heat; heat took on heat, not illumination. They do different things singly, and yet they do not depart from each other. So also the Son alone took flesh, and yet he did not desert the Father nor divide himself from the Father. Thus the Son took flesh as his own property, and yet the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent in majesty. In the Godhead there is equality; in the flesh of the Son, what is proper to him; and yet the Godhead of the Father or of the Holy Spirit did not depart from him. Christ took flesh: did he depart from the Father or from the Holy Spirit? Therefore the unity is true. The Father and the Holy Spirit filled the flesh of Christ, but by majesty, not by taking it on. Do you wish to know that the Father was in him? "I am not alone," says Christ, "but the Father is with me." Hear of the Holy Spirit, how the evangelist reports that he was with him: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan." See, Christ alone took flesh, and yet the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent in majesty. If they fill heaven and earth, they could not desert the flesh of Christ, since they remained in the unity of the Godhead. For this, look at a lyre, how it gives back music with sweet sounds: three things are seen to be present together, skill, hand and string. Skill dictates, the hand touches, the string resounds. Three are at work, but only the string sounds what is heard. Neither the skill nor the hand gives the sound, but they work together with the string. So neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit took flesh, and yet they work together with the Son. The string alone receives the sound; Christ alone received the flesh. The working consists in three; but as the giving of sound belongs to the string alone, so the taking of human flesh belongs to Christ alone. These things come from a small man placed in great grief, so that whatever has been said could scarcely come to my heart. This is the right rule of faith. If anything befalls you for it, you have completed martyrdom. Christ received blows, Christ endured others' spittle, Christ was given gall and vinegar to drink, Christ was crowned with thorns, Christ was crucified and, though righteous, counted among wicked thieves; Christ was pierced with a spear; Christ bore these things for your guilt: how much more firmly ought you to stand for your soul, so that no one may take your crown. You are already in the stadium; tread firmly, do not fear; be not alarmed at anything, be not at all afraid, for the whole church prays for you that you may conquer. The catholic church awaits you as her martyr, to honour you as her Stephen. See that you do not put us to shame in this world. See that you do not humble us in the sight of our adversaries. The Lord Christ bears it with you; the church bears it with you. Be most secure of the crown; do not at all fear the past sins, whatever you may have committed.