Poems 28.1–30.1

In an old act a new thing is born for us, and the usual solemnities grow with an unusual vow, and both the material of my song and the birthday of kindly Felix are doubled in his buildings by these works, newly born, which you see shining out with lofty masses on every side, gleaming with equal adornment. Here, surrounded far and wide by long porticoes, the forecourts open with an enclosed covered space under the roofs, and open the sky to the eyes and the courts to those entering. There halls are joined with walls added, and, open both in their spread position and coming together, join rival roofs with interlocked beams, and stand out, variously beautiful with equal adornments, in marble, painting, coffered ceilings and columns, among which grace is also varied by modest cells; where one portico stretches in one line over a longer space, three openings set close together along its side lay these open, and three doors open with running lattices. Godly names mark the middle one, with painted martyrs whom an equal glory crowned in different sex. But the twin ones, which open on the right and left, faithful painting adorns with two histories each. The sacred deeds of holy men fill one: Job tried with wounds, Tobit with blindness; but the lesser sex holds the other: famous Judith, with whom mighty Queen Esther is also painted. The inner court smiles with various ornaments, glad with roofs above and with serene fronts open to the light, and below wreathed with snowy columns. In its open space stands a shining cantharus, which a bronze tower with latticed top covers.

The other vessels stand under the open air, arranged as little fountains, in which, set variously in pleasing order, the work of art differs while the vein of metal agrees, and one water flows from different mouths into the capacious basins. This court, joined to three basilicas, lies open to all, and from one place opens different approaches to all, and likewise receives in one bosom different exits from the three, spacious with its middle pavement; yet this, with rows of shining shell-basins, a series packed with closely set marble through five ranks, opens a wonder to the eyes and narrows it for those walking; but in the surrounding porticoes there is ample room for walking, and, with lattices set between the columns, for the weary to lean and look from there at the flowing pools, and to see wet floors with dry feet without treading them, and with pleasant rivalry to marvel at fountains leaping with calm murmur. Not only in winter is a pleasing convenience at hand, for the shade of the roof delights in heat just as sunny places please in cold and dry places in rain. On the other side lies open an outer court, which is likewise surrounded by porticoes, smaller in adornment, greater in level space. Before the sacred buildings it spreads a forecourt visible from afar, which, with cells built under a double roof through the joining beams of houses woven together, imitates the appearance of a fortress in the image of a wall, and spreads a forum broad for walking for gatherings. What sign venerable Felix lately gave in this place, I shall tell in a quick account.

In the middle of the field, opposite the threshold of the venerable hall, there remained two huts woven of wood, awkward in position and at the same time ugly to see, which, shameless, destroyed all the beauty of the works, blinding the view with a foul obstacle; for the door of the open basilica, darkened by the interposition of a small hut, lay open in vain, as if its doors were closed. When we wished to remove these, those who were lodging in those huts opposed us with words, and swore they could sooner bargain away their lives than be compelled to move from the places. That talk seemed contemptible indeed; but, I confess, it was itself a reproach to me; for I was weary even of winning by a quarrel. Meanwhile, one night, when the sleepers were beginning to take their first rest, behold, a spark, leaping from a hearth left untended, kindled in one hidden corner of those very huts a sudden fire from the straw of hay onto which it had happened to fall; and soon, spreading through the hut itself, it gained strength through the dry fuel and seized a huge flame from the fragile kindling; then, slipping easily through the rotten wood of the old roof, bursting out, it twisted the turbid conflagration in great whirls, mixed a hot cloud through the air, and hid the stars with black smoke. And its very wrath gave a terrible crash besides, resounding with the heavier crackling of fragile material, and the heat so blew on all the dwellings round marked out by the village settlers, and even on the fields farther from the village, so did the horrid light strike, so did the fiery rain sprinkle roofs set near and far with sparks flying far and wide, that we, suddenly roused by sorrowful laments on every side,

and, seeing everything around us lit as if in the open, the roofs flooded with immense light, we thought everything was seized by flames and burning, and that the very palaces of the saints were blazing with so great a fire, and that those flashes were reflected from all the roofs at once, flashes which filled even distant places with scattered fires and scorched the countryside with great heat, so that each feared the torches as if near his own roof, drawing in the burning heat close by and air infected with dire fumes. We, trembling, since our houses were in nearer danger, presumed nothing from our own help; for whence would strength and hands be sufficient for the weak to extinguish that mass, when the flame went on more inflamed by its own fuel, and, sprung suddenly from a small hut, was flooding all the roofs at once with threatening fire? So we run, relying only on faith and suppliant prayer, to the neighbouring threshold of my Felix, and from there with equal vows we run to the adjoining hall, and beg healing help from the power of the apostolic ashes, our faces laid beneath the altars set over them. Returning home myself, I bring out wood, small but great for salvation, taken for me from a fragment of the eternal cross, and, holding it in my hand, thrust it from afar against the opposing flames, as though holding a shield before my breast, with which I might cover myself and ward off the enemy, beaten back by the boss brought against it. Believe, and do not credit it to me, but return thanks to Christ and give just praises to the Almighty; for our salvation stands by the cross of Christ and in his name; hence faith, resting on the cross, helped us in this danger too, and the flame recognized our salvation.

Not my voice or right hand, but the power of the cross terrified that fire, and in the very place from which it had risen, as if the flame were hedged round by a prescribed boundary, compelled it to sink and be extinguished with a dying roar, and the storm born of ash to return to ash. How great the power of the cross! Nature forsakes itself: fire, which devours all wood, is burned by the wood of the cross. Many hands then, sprinkling those fires with frequent vessels, wished to conquer them with abundant water; but though they made up showers by exhausting the fountains, yet the fire, with greater force, had conquered all the water as the sprinklers tired. We extinguished the fire with wood, and a little splinter conquered the flame that water could not. Afterward, when fear had departed and the busy light had brought back the longed-for day, we went out to see the deeds of the night and to look with secure eyes at the traces of the extinguished flame, though still smoking far and wide. And we believed we would see very great damage to the houses, remembering the great terror and fire; but at once, when we saw things, our opinion diminished, and we see nothing burned except what ought to have been burned, and that one of those two lodgings had burned, which our hand would have removed if the flame had not taken it. But even in this the grace of Felix provided for us by a gift, in that, forestalling our labour, it furnished us a saving of work by useful flames; for the flame had left there a house like the burned one, not so as to allow it to stand and itself obstruct the double doors in the same way, but so that the flame might punish that tenant with this too, preserving for him what he himself would soon overthrow.

For he who had lately preferred his hovel to the holy roofs, first fined by the flame in one hut, soon begins himself with his own hand to destroy the other, and completes his own loss with swift fury, and laments his beloved houses and empty loves. Looking at the burned and the demolished roofs together, he marvels at the unlike ruins in a like heap, the two-coloured wreck of rubble and ash joined. Seeing that this triumph had been yielded to us without a quarrel, he accuses only himself, wretch, for whom no thanks for service remained, and the shame of punishment remains. Now, since the fronts have been opened, the obstacle removed, let us walk in speech and mind through these very spaces, rejoicing, and let us be carried into the holy halls, and marvel at the sacred figures, monuments of the ancients, and in three spaces read the two testaments, seeing also this reason with right sight, that the new law is painted in the old buildings, the old in the new; for it is equally a useful ornament for us, newness in the old and oldness in newness, so that there may be at once new life and grey-haired prudence, and, old in gravity and little ones in simplicity, we may draw a temperate mind from twofold age, joining different ages in our characters. There is also, set in the inner part of the greater hall, a chapel far in, as it were a daughter of that building, beautiful with a starry dome and curving with a threefold recess in arranged places; in the middle it shines with the fountain of piety, and wondrously renews and is renewed at once. For today a twofold renewal adorns it twice, while the bishop performs there the twin gifts of Christ;

he dedicates the venerable sanctuary for twin uses, joining the godly sacraments with the chastening washing; so equally the sacrifice renews the temple and grace the font, and the new font, renewing the man whom it receives, gives a gift, or rather, what ceases to be new by use, begins to hand over to mortals by divine use. For the font itself, once put into use for renewing, ceases to be new; but, always to be used for such a gift, it will never cease to renew the old. See this gift of the Lord, this likeness, by which, by Christ's gift, the same man becomes new and the old perishes, in the twin hall of Felix with its roofs restored. What had been old now appears to stand new also; for they had stood with a vast row of ugly pillars. Now, supported in turn by better columns given, they have gained increase of space and of light, and, their mould put off, have taken back returning youth. For in these a double grace of viewing shines, in which the renewed roofs vie with the new roofs in equal light; the age of the roofs differs, the appearance agrees; the hands of old and recent workers come together; in a like face one beauty adorns both works; things founded long ago come together with new. Nor is there any distinction for the eyes; one antiquity shines in old and new places; the black horror is hidden, and painting has given back youthful brightness to the aged roofs by pouring in the bloom of various colours. Hence the age of the works is confused, and newness shines outside on the walls, while covered antiquity lies hidden within; painted old age is covered with the face of youth, veteran age has flowered again into a girl's face;

and they are at once old and new, neither new nor old equally, not the same and at once the same, which is the figure of future and present good; for now too it is useful for us, the squalor of the old life wiped away, to be renewed with godly mind and to follow Christ and be prepared for the kingdom. Then also, when it is given to rise again as life returns, that order of the risen will be counted better which, its flesh flooded over with a shining garment, will change the servile form for the image of the Lord, and, conformed to God, about to reign with him, will receive honour, like Christ, but by the gift of Christ. This same likeness warns us to lay aside the old form and wear the new, and to abolish what is past, and to turn the mind and direct it to the future things of God, to draw fitting forgetfulness over past cares and bring into the mind the care of the heavenly kingdoms, and to die in mind to human affairs and the ways of this age before dying in death, and not to be released from the bonds of the body before those of sin. So let us be renewed in our senses, and let us hasten to shake far from our body the muddy acts of the earthly image, our garments shaken out, so that, the dirt struck off, we may give back the bright garments of body and soul pure. And not only committed sin but sin contemplated let us flee, like the disease-bearing air from the corruption of a corpse, with nostrils closed, as a sad smell. Solomon warns that sins are to be feared and dreaded like the face of a serpent, and says they are armed with the teeth of a lion; and truly, as with the wild mouth of a lion, they savagely devour the soul which sick pleasure of the body has conquered, and which, conquered, the dragon has led away as his food, he who devours the peoples of the Ethiopians, not scorched by the sun, but black with vices and coloured like night with crime.

The serpent eats such Ethiopians, in whom, condemned, he has the food that is his to take, because God called the sinner and the serpent's food by one name, earth, and the one who devours sins is himself devoured by the dragon bearing that name. The time is here to change our ways, to rise from sleep, and at last to keep watch for God, and in turn to sleep to those deeds for which a mind dead to Christ stays awake. If God, by the light of his Word, does not open our understanding through the teaching of God, let us at least take examples from these very buildings, and let stones and timbers be teachers to the dull, so that the kind of work we have made here with our hands we may make by faith; though the work of the mind is far from the labour of the hands, yet from an unequal cause an equal reasoning of work is drawn; see, I shall prove it, how unlike forms come together in a like appearance. Many remember the places where the new roofs stand; for it is a short time since all were begun that now stand finished; sweated over for two years, the third year completed them by the prayer of the saints and the help of Christ. Part of the space was a small garden, part a heap of rubble, which joined hands, with the people taking care, removed, and dug out the cheap herbs of vegetables with the brambles, so that the area, purged, might lie open with a shining surface, which now shines far and wide, paved over an acre adorned with marble stones, forgetful of its former cultivation. How well it has changed its look! After the use of dung, the adornment of marble; after cheap cabbage it bears Parian shell-basins, and shines with waters where it shone with filth. In what way, then, will this building now give me a pattern by which I may cultivate, build and renew myself in my senses and set myself as a dwelling to be marked out for Christ?

The reasoning is ready: what my earth is, what is rubble in me, and whence thorns are born in my field. The heart is earth; the faults of a depraved heart are rubble; idle luxury, impure love, stained lust are the rubble of the soul; so anxious care for the body, gnawing envy and greedy hunger, heavy anger, light hope, ambition prodigal of its own and thirsty for another's, are thorns to the mind, because they always torment wavering souls with empty goads, souls continually burned by wretched fear of want and wretched ardour of having. And so, amid riches, they thirst, needy, like that Tantalus amid the waters, and do not have what they seem to have. For they fear to use what they have gained, they leave what they have kept, and while they prepare the means of living, they lose the time of living. These thorns, then, this rubble must be cleared from bristling minds, and this first root of all crimes, from which the unhappy tree sprouts, must be plucked from our fibres; let it fall, struck at the root by the Lord's axe, so that it may never sprout in our fields. If this root, its fuel cut off from us, dries up, every wickedness will fall, every vice will perish, and all evils will follow the fall of their mother, and as their tree dies the fruits will perish with it. Then, the garden well purged, the house will be built, and, founded on living soil, the structure of divine effort will rise well on high. Christ himself will raise columns in us and dissolve the old pillars of the obstructed soul, and the King will make space for himself in our senses, to walk about in them, as in Solomon's five porticoes Wisdom used to lead healing steps with godly mouth, healing bodies by touch and hearts by teaching. So let us not be old among new roofs, so that Christ, who dwells in the heart, may revisit new hearts. For a worse tear results when new and old are forced together, and new wine is well put into new wineskins. Let the former life perish, lest the future life perish. Let us leave the world willingly, which we must lose unwillingly unless we flee it willingly; let us die, that we may not die; let us cover a deadly life with a life-giving death. Let the earthly image perish, let the heavenly come in, and let Adam be turned into Christ; let us be changed here too, that we may be changed there; whoever now remains in himself the same will not be changed from himself for eternity either.

Make spring with songs; let my articulate voice flow in modest measures. Be present, Felix, my rich cause for speaking, and glide into my heart with silent breath. Your spirit will run through my mouth. Be the fountain of my eloquence; I shall be the pipe for your streams, which you supply to me from the river of the divine Word. Rise, then, and enter my breast with gentle breath, O Felix, father and lord and patron, you, Felix, my house and medicine and wisdom; now sharpen my mind, dulled through long leisure, quickening my heart with fiery light. But my speech is not to be poured out on this sea, to run through the merits or miracles of the saints, and to try to set out in verse what God grants and does through all the saints from the origin of things, which neither the human mind grasps nor the tongue can utter. And what wonder in this, if a sheet in a whole volume cannot contain what the whole world does not contain? For the sower of the world is greater than the world, God the King himself, who fills earth and heaven; him whom this world does not contain, the saints contain, not by amplitude of body, but, humble in piety, capacious with a pure heart. So now, that I may tell the divine good deeds of my patron Felix, either the benefits of life he has conferred on me, or those which, excelling with heavenly help, he does not cease to confer as gifts on the godly almost every day, bestowing godly gifts with various signs, the order of his merits demands that Christ be praised; I shall seem to praise not a man but rather him by whose authority Felix, mighty, holds a venerable name and gives healing riches, by which he visits sick bodies and frees souls captive to the power of the black demon, God overcoming. Nor in this help alone does bountiful Felix perform the gifts of Christ and triumph most mightily over the viperous enemy.

The sanctuary of Felix, venerable with ancient worship, now opens a new light in widened spaces. You who remember the narrow throne, rejoice to see how this throne shines to the praise of the patron. Before, the place was small, narrow for performing the sacred rites, and refusing suppliants room to spread their hands; now it offers the people spacious altars for the sacred services, in the bosom of the martyr in the middle. All things renewed please God; Christ always renews all things and enlarges them to a fullness of light. So, honouring also the throne of beloved Felix, he has advanced it in splendour and in space at once.