Poems 18.1–19.98

A law laid down for me by godly right, to celebrate this day every year with the service of eloquence, demands a solemn gift from my mouth: to tell of Felix in verse, to set my joy to a vowed song, and to sing the great merit of my dear patron, who, by the hard road, where the way is passable for few, seeking the heights through narrow places, made his way into the citadels above. Join in harmony with my songs, I pray, brothers, and applaud, and pour out your hearts in chaste festivity. Holy joys and chaste songs befit the faithful; for what man, to whom Christ is love and fear, may rightly not rejoice today, and come forth empty of his vow, with whatever resource of wit and tongue and means he can, when even the elements with festal colour reveal that the heavenly ministers rejoice with Christ? See the gladness of the world shine out in the splendour of the day with sacred insignia; glad whiteness holds all things; a dry rain is laid down from ash-grey clouds, and the earth is veiled with a snowy mantle; covered with snow, adorned with snow, the ground, the woods, the roofs, the hills bear witness to the white-haired honours of the holy old man, and they teach, as the angels do, that Felix, shining, possesses light and peace in the calm region of the godly, where milky fleeces glide in the silent sky. Christ, God of Felix, be present, give me now a word, O Word who is God; O Wisdom, give me a clear mind. It is not in the power of human eloquence to tell your praises; for your saints are your glory. I yield: let others bring precious gifts and surpass me in the expense of their service, who bring beautiful curtains to cover the doors, whether shining with pure linen or woven and dyed with coloured figures.

Let these polish smooth inscriptions with pliant silver and cover the holy thresholds with plates fixed on them. And let others kindle lights in painted wax and fit many-holed lamps to the hollow ceilings, so that the hanging tapers may flicker with trembling flames. Let these be eager to drench the martyr's tomb with nard, so that they may carry back healing ointments from the godly tomb. I yield indeed, empty of gold, to many more powerful, whose pockets, heavy with money, are lightened as the needy are filled, who with rich hand open their wealthy storerooms and stand by, pledging their souls with various dowries, equal in mind, different in means; and not less zealously let them dedicate dishes rich with food, wax candles, hangings, lamps, generous indeed but dumb: I, with the gift of my tongue, possessing no wealth, serve, paying what I owe from myself, and weigh out myself for myself, though a cheap victim. Nor shall I fear being scorned, since the libations of a poor man's service are not cheap to Christ, who gladly received with praise the two coins, the fortune of the godly widow. Then too rich men were bringing many gifts to God, filling the holy treasury with great talents; but Christ was the spectator, who, looking into the hearts of the givers, gave the palm to the widow; she had put the means of her daily food, two coins, all her substance, into the sacred chest, with no anxiety for the body. Therefore, from the very mouth of the Judge who is to come, she earned before the day to receive in advance the praise of her deed, and to be preferred to those whose gold her small coin had conquered, a poor old woman in her gift, but with a heart lavish in faith. So, good brothers, to whom favour has been granted here and there, turn your ears to me with calm minds, and hear gladly not who speaks, but of whom I speak.

I shall speak of things to be despised and yet to be wondered at: to be despised for my talent, to be wondered at for the merit of blessed Felix, which may not be told without the praise of Christ, since whatever we wonder at in him is from Christ, from whom the godly have their power, and through whom the buried have life. In past little books I have sung his homeland, family and deeds, and, going back to the very origin, I told of holy Felix, until he closed the times of his perfect life and, laying down his body on the deserted earth, went on to the merits of fellowship in the eternal kingdom. But since tombs do not hide the merits of the godly as they do their limbs, the life of souls, surviving when their bodies are done, experiences the fruits sought in the body, and after bodily death, not dead, it feels the good with joy and the evil with torment; and, recalled in time to come into the same body, mingled again with it, it will reap them in common with the body, received back undivided. So my material is long; as much as there will be of time, so much will there be to say on this, for anyone free to tell the deeds of Felix, if his speech were as abundant as his works and merit remain. For from that time when this day first laid Felix to rest with a blessed end and gave his flesh to the earth, his soul to the stars, from that day almost everything is seen to be done by the working of God's confessor, and Christ proves him alive even without the body, to show that there is greater power in the death of the godly than the force remaining in the life of the wicked. Behold, you see the tomb covering the martyr's sacred bones and the silent body kept under the marble drawn over it; no one appears to human eyes in the way we see with the body; the limbs of the one laid to rest are hidden; the flesh rests in a calm death, buried in a hope not empty of life restored.

Whence, then, does such great awe surround the threshold? Who drives such great peoples here? What hand presses the demons and seizes them against their will, and, as they cry out in vain with rebellious voice, drives them all the way to the martyr's tomb, and halts them as if fixed at the holy boundary? I look back to this day long ago, how sorrowful it was for the world left behind, how glad for heaven, when Christ, God, taking up the friendly soul, drew it from his chaste mouth. He added an ornament to the heavens, nor did he bereave the earth of its pledge; those above enjoy the mind of Felix, we his body; the spirit of his mighty soul lives there, and here his merit. But it delights to present the whole honour that Nola spent on the kindly funeral. For the city had lost a priest in sacred things and a parent in years, but, devoted, it would have him as a godly patron in heaven; it consoled its love with hope. So with all the crowds that pack it, flowing together, it runs, pouring out its faithful peoples in service. Then grief and piety come together in all hearts; faith, mixed with piety, rejoices and grieves. And though it believes that Felix, summoned by Christ, is raised above the heavens, yet it grieves to be left by so great a teacher; and what alone remains in a holy funeral and its rites as a consolation of love: after the bier had been set down at the place of burial, the people, pouring around in a rivalry of piety, from every side crown the laid-out limbs with a dense gathering, and a religious fight of lovers is fought in godliness. Each strives, outdoing another, to stand nearer the relics, and rejoices to touch the body with his hand.

Nor is it enough to have seen once; it delights to linger on and fix their eyes, and, where it is allowed, kisses on the exposed limbs; the people in harmony give Christ deserved praise and build the sacred honour of the resting place of Felix. Where a region far from walls and houses lay empty, a field spread out smiled with glad turf, flowering more richly in that place, as if already then, foreknowing the tomb always to be honoured by a venerating world, it rejoiced to be blessed by the sacred body, and the earth, lovely in spring's attire, so as to be more worthy of burying the martyr, strewed itself with fragrant grasses. But him, as he climbed the heights with calm flight, taken up from his chaste body, the glad crowd of the godly had come to meet and received through the heavenly clouds; and the angelic choirs, the ranks of the sevenfold heaven, running to meet him from all the gates where heaven opens, gladly carried the winged soul in starry triumph into the sight of the King and before the face of the highest Father. Then they adorned his sacred head with a snow-white crown, but the Father, with Christ as judge, added a rosy one too, and doubled the snowy robes with a purple garment, because each honour was his by merit. For he took the bright garlands as one carried to heaven by a calm death, but he earned equally the purple of a slain martyr, he who died a confessor. So he holds the rewards of one who suffered, because he was ready in virtue, nor does he lack the honour and adornment of peace, because he did not die in combat. So, the due rites performed, they covered the godly body in the tomb; but the grace divinely planted in the holy limbs could not die or be covered with the flesh, but at once from the laid bones a light flashed out, which from that time has never ceased until now to give signs of his mighty merit by healing powers.

And through all the age the world will last the same light will shine, guardian of the holy ashes through the ages. This proves the life of the dead martyr, and the good gifts of Christ, working at the tomb of Felix, spread over all lands far and wide the wondrous name of Felix, and ennoble Nola, alone above all cities deemed worthy of so great a guest, which the grace of Christ has so enlarged by Felix's merits that, increased, see, with new citizens and walls, here too there is a city, where at first there was a poor tomb, which, in a savage time, when religion was a crime under the threats of the profane, the Lord's people had built cramped, trembling amid swords and fires, as the ancient age has handed down to later generations. A small roof had shut in an immense light, and once a sacred corner was the possessor of so great a deposit; it, conscious of the hidden light, stood out like a fountain for ample buildings and remains in their midst like a jewel set among the roofs, spreading the spacious courts of the sacred tomb through five basilicas, whose summits, seen from afar, offer the eye the likeness of a great city. Yet these roofs, ample as they are, are outdone by the crowds, because, as faith grows, the grace of Christ overflows, which grants the peoples to have Felix alive by his gift of healing. He, enduring even after his bodily life, himself presides over his own, holy in his bones; and the bones of his holy body in the tomb, not covered with the dust of death, but endowed with the secret seed of eternal life, breathe the life-giving fragrance of a victorious soul, by which mighty healing is given to the sick who pray.

How great the power and glory that will surround the risen one may guess, when so great a grace surrounds the buried, and with what beauty the bodies restored to life will shine, when there is so great a light in their dark ashes! What will the crowns of these not suffice to grant to us, the least, whose very ashes give benefits to the living? It often delights to see the wonderful spectacles, in varied forms, of those who greet him, each asking for what suits his prayers; you might see even farmers from the countryside not only bringing their children in their fatherly bosom, but often leading in sick cattle with them by hand and freely commending them to the saint as if he were visible, and soon, trusting that healing has been given to their prayers, rejoicing in God's help experienced, and now believing them well, and indeed often, healed quickly under the very threshold, leading their animals back glad to their homes. But since it is long and pointless to run through all the miracles that Felix does by the power of Christ, I shall bring out one wonderful work of many, like countless others; but judge from the one those left aside, which the same power did, differing in their occasions. Open your hearts, I pray; the wrong to you is short while I tell a great work in few and slight words. And, remembering the widow told of at the start of my discourse, whom God, judging by the value of the mind, not of the gift, preferred to those who sent much, since she gave all, bear with me too as I tell great things in a light account. For my words also rival those mites, to which piety gave a golden value though they were cheap.

A certain man of slender means, plebeian by origin, rustic in way of life, was supporting his narrow poverty from a pair of oxen by hiring out their yoke, now accustomed to put them under wagons to carry loads over an agreed route, now having the return of his poverty from hiring them out for work under others' ploughs; his anxious hope and his whole property, poor man, was that pair. His children were not dearer to him, nor he himself; but he counted them as his children and as himself; nor was his care less to fill his steers than to bring up his sweet children; he was rather more sparing with his children than with his dear cattle; not with cheap grass or barren chaff, but in a sunny shelter, himself cold, and with the grain denied to himself and his children, himself hungry, he fed them, needy for himself, rich in them, whose fruitful labour fed the needy man to the full. These, then, so dear a comfort of his life, the wretched man, buried one night in heavier sleep, lost, driven off by the theft of a silent robber; and rising at the return of day to yoke them as usual, the unhappy man first sought them in the empty stalls within, and then outside, in vain, in the familiar fields; but soon, weary of fruitless wanderings to and fro, after he sees that the tracks give no sure signs, his hopes frustrated and his search come to nothing, he despairs of human help, and, filled with piety, as God breathed on him, he lifted to heaven the mind cast down in his broken breast; and soon, his heart restored, with faith anticipating, he drinks in hope that his prayers will be granted, and seeks the holy courts of Felix in a swift run, and, entering the sacred hall with great weeping, lies prostrate before the doors and fixes kisses on the doorposts and waters all the ground with tears, poured out on the ground before the holy threshold, and demands back the steers stolen by night's fraud from godly Felix as from their guardian, reproaching him, and mixes praying words with complaints:

“Felix, holy to God, substance of the needy, always fortunate for the wretched and always rich for the poor, God has set you as rest for the weary and relief for the afflicted, as healing for the sorrowful, for wounded hearts; therefore, as if trusting in a father's bosom, poverty lays its head on you and rests. Holy Felix, who have always pitied my labours, now forgetful of me, why, I ask, do you desert me, stripped to the skin? I have lost my dear steers, your gifts, which as a suppliant I used often to commend to you, which your care kept with constant favour and fed for me. For your guardianship kept them safe, and your sufficient right hand made them fat, the ones this night has taken from wretched me. Alas, what shall I do now? Where shall I go, deceived? Whom shall I accuse? Or shall I complain to you about you and accuse my patron of forgetting me, you who allowed so dense a sleep to creep over me in my slumber that I should not feel robbers breaking my bolts, and did not break my hard heart with any fear, nor give light to the darkness and the theft? Or did you take care to betray the fugitives by any signs? Where shall I run now? Whither shall I be carried? All things are built against me in blind hiding places; now even my own house seems closed to me, where, desolate, my nurslings led away, I have nothing that I would wish to have, nothing that a grace not vain might offer, sweet to see and sweet as I labour, delighting a poor man with the sense and fruit of his little property. Where shall I seek these now, pitiable as I am? Or where, or when shall I find such, or whence shall I procure them, if found, I, a rustic, who had them as the only riches of a contented poverty? So give me back those same ones; I want no others. Nor shall I seek them in any region; here they are owed to me; these thresholds will give them back, in which as a suppliant I bind you yourself, and cling to you. Why should I seek robbers I do not know, or where?

My debtor is here; I shall hold the guardian himself in place of the thief. You, saint, are answerable to me, an accomplice of theirs. I hold you; you know where they are, you who by the light of Christ see all things, even hidden ones, and see far-off absent ones, and grasp them, since God encloses all, by whom all things are held. And therefore the hidden thieves, in whatever hiding place, are not concealed from you, nor can they escape you, though they be anywhere, since one hand holds them. God is one everywhere, the right hand of Christ gentle to the godly, but an avenger to the wicked. So give back to me, give back my oxen, and seize the thief. But I do not seek the guilty; let them go; I am not ignorant of your ways, saint; you do not know how to repay evil deeds; you prefer to amend the wicked by pardon rather than destroy them by punishment. So let us agree: divide with me thus what is yours and what is mine; let my interest stand unharmed through you, and let mercy claim your share alongside, and let your judgment stand with balanced scale: release the guilty for yourself, give me back my steers. See, you have the bargain; there is no longer any cause for you to delay your servant; hasten to release me from such great cares. For my resolve stands sure never to give way until you help me, nor to be unfastened from this doorpost; unless you hasten, I will lay down my life on this threshold, and you will no longer find anyone to whom to return them, brought back too late.” Such things he said with a complaining voice but faithful mind, weeping and praying all day without end; the martyr heard him gladly, for the suppliant was not flattering, and, sporting with his Lord, laughed at his reproaches; and, moved by the faith of the one asking, not by the boldness of the one grieving, he hastens help; the delay is drawn out a few hours. Meanwhile, as the day slipped away and evening came on, he set no limit to prayers nor to tears; his one cry, fixed to the doors, was: “I will not be torn from here;

here I will die, unless I receive at once, here, a reason to live.” At last, however, when the deepening night was now compelling the shrine to be made secure, and he, forgetful of time, mindful of his loss, pressing the doors with his face down, was blocking the bars with his whole body, the violent hands of those who had knocked at his ears in vain with many words set upon him, and at last the crowd tore him away struggling and drove him far from the holy hall. Pushed out by the sacristans, he weeps more bitterly and, mourning, makes for his house; the silences of the night resound with his lament, and the lonely places echo far and wide with great complaints, until, unwilling, he arrived. And entering the black inner room of his silent hut, again, from the very entrance under the roof, when he saw the bare stalls of the oxen and no bells giving their sound, as they used to rattle softly when the oxen shook their necks or struck the hollow bronze with slow tongues, while the herd chewed the cud in the throat, he renews his lamentation more heavily, as if a wound had been reopened; and although care denies the sick man rest, yet it gives this comfort to his wakeful grief, that he lies with his body stretched over the places where his oxen had been stalled, pressing them; nor do his limbs ache, broken by the hard bed; the very injury delights him; nor does he shudder at the filth of the dirty stall, because it gives back the familiar smell of his beloved cattle, and the stench does not stink to a lover. If there were any footprints they had left with their last steps, he looks at them, and with groping hand going over the trodden places he groans and rubs with all his limbs the now cold tracks of their feet; and his mind, though he is absent in body far away, he sends to the consecrated hall of Felix, calling Felix with weeping, Felix by name, nor does he despair of help or cease to pour out prayers.

Night, having now passed the middle of the sky, had flooded the world with sleep-bringing peace; all things were silent on the earth; only his hope and care kept him wakeful. Behold, suddenly he hears a noise before his doorposts and the doors resound with knocking, at which, terrified, out of his mind, he cries out, believing that thieves were at hand again: “Why do you cruelly wish to break empty doors in vain? I have no ox now; what more do you seek? Others got here first; only my life survives, which has remained, worthless as booty, for your companions.” He said this in fear; but the sound at the threshold continued without end. As it grew more frequent, and no voice of the knockers answered him, he draws near in suspense with hesitant step, and puts an anxious ear to the doorposts, and his eye to the cracks through the gaping bars, where the white colour of the sky shines in amid the darkness, and he looks long and explores, and still does not trust himself as to what he sees; for in the dim light of night there is no clear faith for the eyes; yet through the shadows the very bodies of the knockers, though doubtful, began to take away his trembling fears and to promise hope of good by their shapes. He does not see men knocking; but what he sees to be true he does not dare to believe. I will tell great things, though small miracles for God, for whom every living creature has sense, by which the Creator himself has ordered cattle of every kind. Behold, bearing a mind led by divine power, the notable pair of oxen, through pathless places unknown at night, had come to the known house with no drivers, as if of their own accord, yet not of their own accord, because Felix, guiding them with hidden reins, had driven them by divine action, snatched by a stronger hand from the robbers.

And after they had reached the familiar straw roof of their house, rejoicing at their return and fearing the hands they had experienced with lively remembering terror, as though they feared the robber pressing on behind them, they began to shake the doors with their joined foreheads, and to use their horns as hands, to rouse their master by the sound. But he, terrified again, as at a hostile uproar around his bolts, feared even what was safe; again wisdom breathes on the brute cattle to sense the reason for his delay and to open the understanding of their fearful master: they give a lowing, by which, his fear driven off, he might securely open the way to his shut-out nurslings. He, seeing the unexpected tokens of the divine gift, still hesitates, and even his joys trouble the trembling man. He does not dare to believe, he fears not to believe; he sees them close by and thinks his eyes are dim; while he looks at himself, he distrusts that he could have deserved so much; but, reflecting on the other hand on him from whom he had hoped, he dares to believe, recognizing the deeds of Felix his patron. And now the twilight was reddening as morning broke the night, and with the flight of its last part, the stars thinning, in a half-dark light or with shadows glimmering, it had begun to unlock the doubtful colours of things. Then at last, the oxen plainly shown to him in their familiar look, as soon as their bristles began to grow clear to his eyes, now more certain, he exults, and removing the bolts from the bars he opens the doors, creaking on their loosened hinge. While he does this, the yoked steers burst in together and forestalled the efforts of the one still unbolting.

The doorposts yielded easily as the barrier was moved, and the oxen, glad, recognize their master, presented to them on the very threshold, and lick him in turn as he strokes them, and wet his feeling hands with their lips, and befoul his whole clothing with foamy kisses, while, pushing softly against the kindly breast of their master who embraces their dear yoke, they caress it in turn. Nor do the horns of his beloved cattle hurt him, and he draws their foreheads to his breast as if they were soft, and the tongue that scrapes even wild fodder as it licks does not seem rough to his hands. But even amid these things the faithful rustic, with no vain heart, remembered his duty, and does not care to lead his panting oxen first into the stalls, and, after their labour and hunger, refresh them with food, before leading them with him to the place from which he had earned them back. So he came, leading them back, and does not hide his joys in silent vows, and as he tells it he draws dense crowds to his words and enters the sacred house as all marvel. Those whom the wretched man had wept as lost yesterday, the same he now leads present today and shows the people the triumph of the holy martyr; and the steers themselves are led through the midst of the gatherings, lately the thieves' plunder and now Felix's spoil; the huge crowd makes way for them as they go, and the glory of Christ is celebrated in dumb cattle. But he, who had been the cause of so great a gift from the high Lord, standing out among thousands and weeping again, but now with joy, pays the vows due to the saint, not with heavy money nor with a dumb gift, but pouring out the living gift of tongue and mind; the poor debtor testifies with godly voice his abundant love, and pays Christ enough with this pledge, for whom the spotless sacrifice of his praise suffices:

“See, saint, your captives, before all the people, I lead as victor to you, and again entrust the conquered to you to guard; preserve those brought back, you who have deigned to return the stolen. But now look upon me myself, good martyr; for you see that something still remains for you to do, but in me, who stand close at your threshold with eyes almost blinded; for I have drowned my eyes in much weeping, lamenting not only in loss but also amid joys. You have removed the cause of tears; remove now the wounds born of the tears; having pitied, saint, the loss of my oxen, pity likewise now the loss of my eyes. You have given me back my cattle; in turn, for them, give back my eyes. For what good is it that they are brought back, if, with my sight failing, though present I am absent from them present?” The people present laughed at him complaining so. But the ears of the hidden martyr, turned to him from afar, received the godly words of the simple suppliant, and soon his restored eyes felt the sacred right hand. Then, rejoicing, with his eyes and his oxen recovered, he went home as the people praised God, and the glad victory of a twofold prayer followed him.

If the stars can be absent from heaven, if grass from the earth, honey from the combs, water from the springs, milk from the udders, so will the praises of the godly be able to cease from tongues; in them the strength of life and the glory of death is God himself, for whom they willed to pledge their lives, and by dying to ratify the godly faith of peoples, and to purchase the sacred kingdom with precious blood, the blood with which the martyrs, sprinkling the whole world, became heavenly seed for countless nations. From the number of these chiefs, Felix, the confessor given to this city, shone far and wide through the world by the renown of his name. But Nola, made the home of the buried saint, applauds herself as for her own star. For every martyr, on whatever shore he lies entrusted, is at once the star of the place and the medicine of its worshippers. For the Creator, pitying the world dark with ancient gloom and the languishing souls in it, so arranged the sacred monuments of the godly on earth as he scattered the lights of the stars in the night sky. And though one faith, equal grace, and rival virtue remain for all the martyrs, yet in all of them we see unlike forms of works stand out. In some places we remember and honour lofty merit in silent tombs, in others we marvel at crying signs, conspicuous powers. Where, I believe, a harder impiety holds more evil, there a graver disease demands greater help; or where a blinder error still draws out the deep night of faithlessness, and faith labours, sick, in a wavering people, there it is altogether fitting that greater lights be kindled, and that the darkness of the world be destroyed as God illumines it, and that minds, astonished, with their eyes dazzled, and trembling, should turn toward the very rays of divine truth, from the foul gloom

to loose them and anoint them with the eye-salve of Christ the healer. This salve is ground on a godly whetstone by apostolic arts for healing the senses, because Christ's yoke is gentle and his burden light for those turned to Christ with a now pure light and with their breasts suffused with the gospel's juice, by which the mists are well purged with which the loves of the deceiving world cover the inner sight, loves that drive the wandering senses round through the great void without an oarsman, and dull them, captured by heavy fog, with soft enticements, so that they break the strength of life and follow hollow pomps through slippery pleasures. So, desiring to turn these diseases away from us, the all-healing Lord, with saving kindness, gave forth saints as physicians to sick mortals through various nations; and so that divine power might show its care more clearly, he brought them into the more powerful cities; and though small towns keep some martyrs, yet God brought the chief ones themselves into ample walls and distributed them, when dead, in a few regions, the very ones whom before their death he had given as teachers to the whole world. Hence he fixed Peter and Paul in the Roman city, since the head of the world needed chief physicians, mad as it was with many vices and blind with darkness. But since God is more powerful to restore our salvation than Satan is to keep his captives even now by deceit, the darkness of the world grows thin, and now piety has prevailed through almost all, and life has subdued death. As faith grows thicker, error, defeated, slips away, and with almost none now left to crime and death, all Rome is enrolled under the godly name of Christ, laughing at the fictions of Numa and the fates of the Sibyl.

And when the godly crowd answers its holy shepherds with a glad Amen throughout the numerous folds of the reigning God, a holy shout strikes the sky with praises of the eternal Lord, and the Capitol nods, its summit shaken. The squalid images tremble in the empty temples, struck by godly voices and driven by the name of Christ. The demons flee trembling from their deserted shrines. The livid serpent rages in vain with bloody mouth, mourning human salvation with hungry jaw, and himself cheated now also of the blood of cattle; the plunderer, groaning, flies in vain around the dry altars. So God, granting godly gifts to the other lands also, scattered his members everywhere through great cities. So he gave Andrew to Patrae and John to Ephesus, that he might heal Europe and Asia together in them and dispel heavy darkness through such great lights. Parthia embraces Matthew, India Thomas, Libya Lebbaeus, the Phrygians received Philip, Crete took Titus, Boeotia Luke the physician. Mark, Alexandria, was given to you, so that, the ox driven out, mad Egypt might no longer worship cattle in Apis together with Jupiter, nor Crete wrongly worship in Jupiter a citizen buried there, nor the Phrygians perform the rites of Cybele with their gelded Galli, consoling the impure mother with a foul wound; and so that at last Ida might bloom with chaste mountains, bringing back untouched pines on a carefree summit, and vain Greece might no longer consult dumb Delphi and, scorning it, might trample its Olympus, walking higher on Zion, where Christ, the gentle yoke, crowns the hill of his nurslings with a lofty summit. Diana too fled from Ephesus, as John drove her out, accompanying her brother, whom Paul, commanding in the name of Christ, put to flight when he drove out the Python.

Satan fled from Egypt too, where he had taken a thousand shapes, a thousand names fitted to his various monsters, so that he shaped holy Joseph into Serapis, hiding a venerable name under a deadly name, when yet the very form of the image taught the truth, in that a measure sits on its head, because once, when grain had been gathered before the famine as the Lord inspired, he fed countless nations from the breast of Egypt and filled the barren years from the fat years. But so that the saint might no longer be worshipped with profane honour, the secret mind of God sharpened the breasts of the devout people with goads sent in, and closed the worship of the unspeakable demon by overturning and breaking Serapis. No longer does wandering Isis seek Osiris in the Pelusian forests with bald soothsayers, who, beating their breasts, lament others' laments with their own grief, and then likewise, mad, their lament put to rest, carry on vain rejoicings, pretending with the same fraud that he is found whom, wandering, they sought though he was not lost to them. Alas, into what a whirlpool of folly minds sink that are empty of God's light! For what, I ask, is blinder than those who seek one not lost, and find one who remains nowhere, and some lament what does not grieve themselves? Choose what you are doing, wretched error. What do you worship, or what do you lament? The things you join do not go together; grief does not follow honour; you worship laments and believe things to be mourned which you think divine. If they are gods, they are not wretched; or if they are wretched, they are not gods, but are men, and wretched. So pity those who suffered mortal things, or worship glad gods; for this madness is plainly blind, either to worship the wretched or to mourn the blessed.