Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 26.1–32.2

I longed for you, children, and was longed for in return in equal measure. For I am persuaded of it, if I must add an oath to my word: “Yes, by my boasting in you, brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” For the Holy Spirit made this oath for me, by whom we were moved toward you, that we might prepare for the Lord a people for his own possession. See how great the confidence is: I am sure of my own feeling and I vouch for yours. And it is no wonder. For those who have the Spirit in common have their feelings in common; and those whose experience is equal are equal in believing. For what someone has not experienced he would not believe from another; but the one who has experienced it is readier to assent, an invisible witness of an invisible feeling, a familiar mirror of another’s form. For this reason I could not bear to stay away from you any longer, though I am quite annoyed and vexed with things here: not only with what cities bring (crowds, uproar, markets, theatres, surfeit, insults, people leading and led, fining and fined, mourning and mourned, weeping, rejoicing, marrying, burying, praised, blasphemed, the stuff of vice, the seething of the world, its rapid changes, as in a Euripus and its winds), but also with these more solemn and venerable things, I mean those around this sanctuary and the holy table. Over these we seem to have authority, and we are among those who draw near to God; but I fear that we may draw near badly and, like straw to fire, not bear the fire.

Yet I have returned to you, having run away under compulsion, but having run back not under compulsion but very eagerly, with feet that moved of themselves, as the saying goes, the Spirit leading me like a stream, forced uphill but hastening downhill. So one day is a whole human life to those weary with longing. Jacob’s case seems to me to have been different: serving the Syrian Laban fourteen years for the two maidens, he did not grow weary; for “all the days,” it says, “were to him as one day, because he loved them.” Perhaps because what he longed for was before his eyes, or because toil is light to love, even if the delay brings grief. So what is at hand is slow to desire, as one of those before us said. I at least, when I was present, scarcely felt the passion; but when I was separated, I came to know longing, that sweet tyrant. Nothing new in this. For if a herdsman so laments a calf that has strayed from the herd, and a shepherd a sheep missing from the ten, and a bird the nest it left for a little while, so that the herdsmen and shepherds take their pipes, climb some lookout, fill the reeds with their dejection, and call back the strays as though they were rational; and if they obey, they rejoice over them more than over all the others, about whom they did not worry; while the bird, twittering, darts back to its nest, falls upon its twittering chicks, and covers them with its wings: how precious must rational flocks be to a skilful shepherd, especially those for whom he has run risks, since this too adds to his affection? … since they watch for unguarded moments, being unable to prevail openly. I fear the robbers and thieves, lest, climbing over the fold, they either plunder by shamelessness or steal by deceit, so as to sacrifice, kill, and destroy, seizing their prey and devouring souls, as one of the prophets said. I fear the side door, lest someone of those who were ours yesterday and the day before, finding it unlocked and entering as one of our own, should plot against us as a stranger. For many and various are the wiles of the one who works such things, and no architect of anything intricate is so skilled as the adversary, the sophist of vice. I fear now even dogs that force themselves to be shepherds, and (the paradox!) bring nothing to shepherding except cutting off the hair they cultivated so badly; who neither remained dogs nor became shepherds, except to tear, scatter, and undo the labour of others. For destroying is always easier than preserving: a man is born with labour, says Job, and a ship is built and a house constructed with labour; but to kill, or destroy, or burn is in the power of anyone who wishes. So let those who set the dogs against the flock not be proud now; they could not name a single sheep that they brought in or saved; for they did not learn to do good, having practised wickedness. If they trouble the flock, so does a small storm, so does a slight disease, so does a single wild beast falling on it suddenly. Let them stop, then, who glory in their own shame; and, ceasing from their wickedness, if they can, let them worship and fall down and weep before the Lord who made them, and mingle with the flock, as many as are not altogether incurable.

These things I say, a timid and circumspect shepherd, and therefore accused of indolence for my caution. For I am not one of those shepherds who eat the milk, clothe themselves with the wool, slaughter the fat ones, and work them hard or sell them, saying, “Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich”; who feed themselves, not the sheep, if you remember any of the prophetic words by which the prophets drive out the bad shepherds; but rather one of those who can say with Paul: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and it is not my burning and care?” “For I seek not what is yours, but you.” And: “I was consumed by the heat by day and pinched by the frost by night”: the voice of a patriarch shepherd, whose sheep were marked, and trained to conceive at the watering troughs there. So, then, and for these reasons, I have come back to you, and to you in this state. And since I have come, let us give an account to one another of what we have accomplished in the meantime. For it is good that we be required to give account not only of word and deed, but of every moment, and of the very hour, however brief and slight. You report to me your work; I will set out what I pondered in quiet, conversing with myself. What contemplation of lofty things, either received from me and kept, or contributed from yourselves, about theology or about the other doctrines that I set before you many times? For I seek not only the loan but the interest; not only the talent but the trading with it; lest anyone, having hidden and buried what was entrusted to him, should also lie against the one who entrusted it, as though he were hard and covetous of what belongs to others. What praiseworthy action have you borne as fruit, without even your left hand knowing it, so that your light shines before men; that the tree may be shown by its fruit, and the teacher known through his disciples; and that one of those who watch our affairs (and they are many, some out of goodwill, others out of curiosity) may say that truly God is among you, not only soundly preached but also worshipped? For as there is no approved action without faith (since many pursue the good for glory’s sake, or because they are so by nature), so faith without works is dead. And let no one deceive you with empty words, those of people who readily concede everything for the sake of this one thing, impiety in doctrine, and so pay a bad wage for a bad deed. Show, then, your faith by your works, the fertility of your land: whether we have not sown in vain, whether there is among you a sheaf strong enough to make flour and worthy of the barns, so that we may cultivate you more eagerly. Who bears fruit a hundredfold, who sixtyfold, who at least thirtyfold; who, in the reverse order, advancing from thirty to sixty (for we have this order too in the Gospels), has ended at a hundred; so that, advancing like Isaac, he may become great, going from strength to strength, singing the Songs of Ascents and setting ascents in his heart?

I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. For the gain is yours, not mine; and if it is ours too, it is because it is yours, the benefit reflecting back to us as in rays that are reflected. Have you fed the poor, entertained strangers, washed the feet of the saints? Have you, while enjoying yourselves with a belly that will be brought to nothing (let that be granted), also enjoyed yourselves through the commandments? For there is no better or more lasting enjoyment than this for those who wish to enjoy. Have you given rest, as far as you could, to some of those who serve the altar and are rightly poor (let me say this too), so that they may attend the altar more free from distraction, and, sharing in what is yours, may give in return what is theirs? For it is shameful that we should have to demand this, and that you should not provide it. I have not admonished you about this so that it may be done in my case (for it would be better for me to die than that my boasting should be emptied and the gospel become without reward for me by my profiting from it here; for preaching the gospel is a necessity, but the honour lies in making it free of charge); but so that you may learn to do good to Christ by doing good to one of the least. For as he became for my sake all that I am, except sin, so he takes upon himself even the least of mine; whether you give shelter or clothing, or visit in prison, or look in on one who is sick, the smallest thing, or cool with only a cup of cold water a tongue that is suffering, as the rich man suffering in the flame begged of Lazarus the poor man, receiving, in return for his luxury here and for overlooking Lazarus hungry and covered with sores, this: to beg of Lazarus there and not obtain it. [8] This, then, is what we require of you; and I know that you are not ashamed to be asked for an account either by us or by the last day, into which all our things are gathered, according to what is said: “And I come to gather your counsels and your deeds,” and, “Behold the man, and his work, and his reward with him.” Now for our own things, which we bring you from the solitude. For Elijah too gladly practised philosophy on Carmel, and John in the desert; and Jesus himself assigned his actions to the crowds, but his prayers, for the most part, to leisure and solitude. What was he legislating? To my mind, that one must also be quiet, so as to converse with God undisturbed and to draw the mind back a little from wandering things. For he himself did not need to withdraw (for he had nowhere to contract himself into, being God and filling all things), but he did it so that we might learn that there is a time for action and a time for loftier leisure. What, then, are the fruits of my solitude? For I wish, like a good merchant who profits everywhere, to bring you some merchandise from there too. … having grown dizzy (which I suffer now too), I took in the sight not idly, and the spectacle became a lesson to me. For did I not say to myself that our life and human affairs are a sea (for there is much salt and instability in these too), and that the temptations that fall upon us and all unexpected things are the winds? This, it seems to me, the most wonderful David perceived when he said, “Save me, O Lord, for the waters have come in to my soul,” and, “Rescue me from the depths of the waters; I came into the depths of the sea, and the storm overwhelmed me.” Of those tempted, some seemed to me to be swept away like the lightest and lifeless things, not resisting the assaults even a little, for they had in themselves no firmness and no weight of sober reason to oppose what falls upon them; others seemed to be rock, worthy of that Rock on which we stand and whom we worship, all those who use the reason of philosophy and have risen above the lowliness of the many, and bear all things unshaken and unmoved, and laugh at those who are shaken, or pity them (the one out of philosophy, the other out of humanity). And they count it among shameful things to despise terrors when they are absent, or rather not even to think them terrors, but to be defeated by them when they are present, and by what? By things that pass, as though they stood firm; and to practise philosophy out of season, but to appear unphilosophic in time of need; as if someone thought himself the best of athletes without even going down into the stadium, or an approved pilot who prides himself on his skill in fair weather but lets go of the rudder in storms.

Since I have once entered on these themes, I came to another image, very apt to the present. Perhaps you will think me an old man and a teller of tales if I make it known to you too; but it must be told, since I know that Scripture often uses such things to explain more clearly. There is in a myth a plant which flourishes when it is cut and contends with the iron; and, to speak paradoxically about a paradoxical thing, it lives by death, grows by cutting, and increases by being consumed. … So runs the myth, with the freedom of fiction; but to me the philosopher clearly seems to be something of this kind. He wins approval through sufferings, makes painful things the material of virtue, and prides himself in adversity; neither lifted up by the weapons of righteousness on the right, nor bent by those on the left; but the same, though not always in the same circumstances, or even found more approved, like gold in the furnace. Let us consider it this way. Is he well born? He will show a good character to match his blood, so as to be approved on both counts, by his genealogy and by what is seen. Is he low born in his statue and clay (if indeed clay differs much from clay)? He will set against it the nobility of the mind, which each fashions in himself for worse or better, and will strike out the other kind, which is sown or written, as worth nothing and counterfeit. For birth is threefold: one begins from above, by which we are all equally noble, since we have come into being in the image of God; one comes from the flesh, and I do not know whether anyone is noble by it, since it consists in corruption; and one is recognized by virtue as against vice, in which we share more or less, I think, as we keep the image or corrupt it. This nobility the man who is truly wise and a philosopher will love. As for the fourth kind, that which consists in documents and decrees, I will think it worth mentioning when I accept beauty in paint, and revere an ape that has been ordered to be a lion. [11] Is he young? He will be manly against the passions, and he will have this enjoyment from his youth: not to suffer what the young suffer, but to show an old man’s prudence in a body in its prime; and he will rejoice in the victory more than those crowned at Olympia, for he will conquer in a common theatre, the world, and win a victory that cannot be bought. Is he nearing old age? He will not grow old in soul; he will accept dissolution as the appointed term of a necessary freedom; he will gladly pass on to what follows, where no one is untimely or old, but all are perfect in spiritual stature. Has he been given beauty? He will set beauty against beauty, that of the soul against that of the body. Has his bloom passed without abuse? He turns to himself and does not know that he is looked at. Is he ugly in appearance? But he is well formed in what is hidden, like the sweetest fragrance of a rose in full bloom within a bud that is neither blooming nor fragrant. Is he beautiful beyond the sons of men? He gives no occasion for the outside to be gazed at, turning the beholder toward the inner man. Is he healthy? He will use his health for the best: he will admonish, rebuke, speak freely, keep vigil, sleep on the ground, fast, empty out matter, contemplate things earthly and heavenly, and practise death with all zeal. Will he fall ill? He will fight; and if he is defeated, he will conquer by gaining release from the fight. Is he rich? He will practise the philosophy of giving away his wealth; he will share what he has with the needy, as a steward of what belongs to others, so that the other may be benefited by the sharing and he himself may be gathered to God having nothing but the cross and his body. Is he poor? He will be rich in God, and in laughing at those who have, since they are always acquiring and always poor, needing more, and drinking only to thirst the more.

Is he hungry? He will be fed with the birds, whose life knows neither sowing nor ploughing; he will live with Elijah at the house of the widow of Zarephath: “The jar of oil shall not fail, and the pitcher of flour shall not run low”; the one will ever flow and the other yield richly, so that a hospitable widow may be honoured and may feed the one who feeds her. Will he thirst? Springs and rivers are his drink, a drink that neither intoxicates nor is measured out; and if all fail through drought, perhaps he will be given drink from a brook. Will he be cold? So was Paul; but for how long? There is a clothing even of rock; let Job persuade you, who says, “Because they had no shelter, they wrapped themselves in the rock.” Consider also the more perfect things. Will he be reviled? He will conquer by not reviling in return. Persecuted? He will endure. Blasphemed? He will entreat. Slandered? He will pray. Struck on the right cheek? He will offer the other too; and if he had a third, he would present that as well, so as to teach the one who strikes him patience, instructing him by deed in what he could not teach by word. Reproached? So was Christ; he will be honoured by sharing his suffering. Even if he hears himself called a Samaritan, even if he is accused of having a demon, he will accept everything together with God. Many things still: … a reed for a sceptre, a scarlet cloak, a cross, nails, robbers crucified with him, passers-by insulting him. For God must have the advantage in bearing more dishonour.

Nothing is harder to capture than philosophy, nothing harder to seize. Everything else will give way before the philosopher does. “He is a wild ass in the desert,” says Job, “let loose and free, laughing at the crowds of the city, not hearing the tax collector’s reproach.” He is a unicorn, an animal that is its own master. “Will he be willing to serve you? Will you bind him at a manger? Will he be brought under the yoke?” When he is shut out from everything on earth, wings are made ready for him like an eagle’s; “he will return to the house of his master”; he will fly up to God. Let me state the sum of it. These two are hard to master, God and angel; and the third is the philosopher: immaterial in matter, uncircumscribed in the body, heavenly on earth, impassible in sufferings, defeated in everything except his mind, and conquering, by being conquered, those who think they prevail. Since my discourse has portrayed the philosopher for us, beginning from where I said, come, let us look at our own affairs beside his (for I think that I too have the Spirit of God, even if in some of these things I am vulnerable and can be captured); so that, if those who hate and war against us find me defeated, they may at least be pardoned for their attempt, if not for their intention; but if they find me superior to those who war against me and loftier, they may either be freed from their wickedness or devise some newer way of injustice, since the present one is despised, and may not be charged with folly in addition to wickedness, as acting lawlessly in vain and not even knowing how to do the wrong they are eager for. … this tunic as quickly as possible, so that I may take a lighter one. Will they call me a deserter of my homeland? How little they think of us, truly insolent haters of strangers! Do I, my friends, have a homeland with boundaries, I to whom every land is homeland and none is? And are you not a stranger and a sojourner? I do not praise your settled dwelling, if you are so disposed, lest you fall away from the true homeland, in which one must deposit one’s citizenship. Will you reproach us with old age and sickness? Not all of this comes from matter and nature (so that you may know one of my secrets); some of it reason too has consumed, if I may boast a little. Nor are you, swelling and nourishing your flesh, a pleasant sight to me. Would that some grey hair and pallor had bloomed on you too, so that you might at least be believed to be intelligent and a philosopher. What else? Will they depose me from my throne? Which throne did I ever mount gladly, now or before? Do I count those who mount them blessed? Or do you make thrones pleasant to me, mounting them so unworthily? Did not what happened recently show you my mind? Or was that too an affectation, and a test of the people’s longing? Artful people may suspect or say of others anything that belongs to themselves. What of my crushing grief? What of the curses that I twice pronounced publicly against myself? What of the tears, and my becoming almost pitiable to you, and hated for my resistance? Will they deprive me of the presidency? Which of the right-minded ever admired it? Now even to flee from it is, to my mind at least, the first mark of understanding. Because of it all our affairs are shaken and tossed; because of it the ends of the world are in suspicion and in a kind of deaf war that has not even a name; because of it we are in danger of belonging to men, though we came into being from God, and of losing the great and new name. Would that there were no presidency, no preference of place and tyrannical prerogative, so that we might be known by virtue alone! But as it is, this right and left, this middle, this higher and lower, this walking ahead or walking together, have caused us many breaches in vain, thrust many into the pit, and led them away to the place of the goats; and not only those below, but even some of the shepherds, who, though teachers of Israel, did not know these things.

Will they shut me out from the altars? But I know another altar, of which the things now seen are types; on which no chisel has gone up, nor hand, nor has iron been heard, nor any of the tools of craftsmen and decorators; but it is wholly the work of the mind, and the ascent to it is through contemplation. At this I will stand; on this I will offer acceptable things: sacrifice, offering, and whole burnt offerings, better than those now offered, as much as truth is better than shadow. About this altar, I think, the great David too speaks as a philosopher, saying, “And I will go in to the altar of God, who gladdens my spiritual youth.” From this altar no one who wishes will lead me away. Will they drive me from the city? But not from the city above. Let those who hate us be able to do this, and they will truly have made war; but as long as they cannot, they pelt us with raindrops, strike us with breezes, or play with dreams; so I regard their war. Will they take away my possessions? Which? If mine, let them cut off my wings too, which I have not put on. If those of the Church, this is what the whole war is about; for this the thief covets the money box and betrays God for thirty pieces of silver, the most dreadful thing of all; for it is not the betrayed but the betrayer who is worth so much. [17] Will they shut me out of houses? Cut off my luxuries? Estrange my friends? For, as you see, I have been a burden to a great many, though they invited me (for I will not be ungrateful); and if I was a burden to anyone, it was by sparing them rather than by accepting from them. The reason is that a pious and God-loving house gave us rest, like that of the Shunammite to Elisha, kin to me in body, kin in spirit, generous in everything; with whom this people too took root, while still having to steal the piety that was being persecuted, not without fear or danger. May the Lord repay them on the day of recompense! If we pursue luxury, may those who hate us luxuriate over us; for I will call down no greater curse on myself. As for friends, some will not flee us, I know well, even if they suffer nothing (for sharing the wrong has made them share the pain); but with others we have already been trained to bear being overlooked when we are overlooked. For of our friends and neighbours, some openly drew near from the opposite side and stood against us; others, and this was the kindest thing, stood far off; and all were made to stumble on this night. Peter too almost denied me; and perhaps he does not even weep bitterly, to heal his sin.

I alone am bold and full of rashness, it seems; I alone am hopeful amid fearful things, I alone enduring, both set forth in public and despised in private, and known to East and West by being warred against. What madness! “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise against me, in this I will hope.” So far am I from thinking anything present fearful that, leaving my own case aside, I lament those who have grieved me. Members of Christ once, members precious to me, even if now corrupted, members of this flock, which you almost betrayed even before it was gathered! How were you torn apart, and how do you tear apart, like calves let loose from their bonds? How did you raise altar against altar? How did you become a desolation …? How have you yourselves been deadened by the cutting, and made us grieve? How did you misuse the simplicity of shepherds for the breaking up of the flock? For I do not blame them for inexperience, but I will accuse you of wickedness. “For your destruction, Israel, who will help?” What healing medicine shall I find? What bandage? How shall I join what is broken? With what tears, what words, what prayers shall I heal the breach? Or perhaps in this way? [19] O holy Triad, worshipful and perfect, rightly brought together and revered by us, yours is the work, yours the achievement. May you restore these to us, separated only so far as to be taught concord by the separation; and give us in return for our labours here the things of heaven, which know no strife. Of these the first and greatest is to be illumined by you more perfectly and purely: how the same is conceived as Monad and found as Triad; how the unbegotten, the begotten, and the proceeding are one nature, three properties; one God, who is over all, through all, and in all; neither exceeded, nor changed, nor diminished, nor divided; grasped in part now, sought in part, and some day perhaps to be grasped, as far as he is, by those who have sought well here through life and contemplation; to whom be all glory, honour, and might for ever. Amen.

Since you have come together eagerly, and the festival is crowded, and so this is above all a time for work, come, let us give you some merchandise, even if it is not worthy of the common eagerness, at least not short of our ability. For the one demands greater things, while the other contributes moderate ones; and it is better to contribute according to one’s ability than to fall short altogether. For it is not the one who is unable to do such things who is accountable, but the one who is unwilling who is to blame, both in divine and in human affairs. I am a small and poor shepherd, and not yet pleasing to the other shepherds (to put it moderately), whether through my good repute and right doctrine, or through pettiness and strife, I do not know: “God knows,” says the divine apostle; and the day of revelation will show it clearly, and the last fire, by which all our affairs are judged or purified. Yet I will try, as far as I can, not to hide the gift, nor to put the lamp under the bushel, nor to bury the talent (things I have often heard from you, as you reproached my idleness and were displeased with my silence), but to educate you with words of truth and to fit you together in the Spirit.

Where, then, shall I begin to set you in order, brothers? And with what words shall I honour the athletes whose festival this is? What shall I say first? What is greatest? What is most beneficial to your souls, or most useful for the present time? We might find it out in this way. What is the finest thing in our doctrine? Peace; and I will add that it is also the most profitable. And what is most shameful and most harmful? Discord. Since I have asked this and answered, I will ask the second question: What most dissolved the former, and what brought in the latter?