ℹ️ This corpus has no verse-level morphological tagging. Lemmas come mainly from word-level tagging of other books in the same language (not from this verse), falling back to dictionary form-matching for the rest. Rare homographs can still be misread; verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
How could ever a ship or a city, how could an army or the full company of a chorus, how could a beloved household ever stand firm, having the harmful element prevail over the ruling one? This, then, was what the people of Christ suffered at that time.
For before it was made firm and had gained confidence, before it was freed from its infant swaddling-bands, not yet having planted its footing securely, the noble offspring was struck, cast down, torn apart before its parents' eyes — by wolves hungering to make me childless.
For it was not to be borne that a man most poor, shriveled, stooped and shabbily clad, wasted by the bridle of the belly [fasting], by tears, and by fear of what was to come — as well as by others' misfortunes — a man not even comely in countenance, a stranger, a wanderer, hidden in the earth's obscurity, should carry more weight than those strong and fair.
'We are slaves to the times and to the desires of the people, always letting the boat go with the blowing wind, and, like chameleons and octopuses, always putting many colors on our words.'
「我們是時勢與民眾慾望的奴僕,總是任船隨風而行,又如變色龍與章魚一般,總在言辭上不斷變換色彩。」
1:236
σὺδ'ἡμὶνἄκμωνἀνήλατος, τῆςὀφρύος
'But to us you are an anvil that cannot be hammered out — of that pride —'
'And where, best of men, do you get the ability, with a glib tongue, to draw the people, and to strike accurately those of ill mind wandering in manifold error — being a double sort of man to friends and to strangers, a magnet-stone to the one, a sling to the other? If these things are no evils — as indeed they are not — why do you take offense as though suffering something monstrous? But if they are evils, and this appears so to you alone, judge rightly, as God's advocate, to tear at me who have erred, but leave the people be, who have done no wrong except loving me and being won over by my teachings.'
For even if the novelty startled me a little — like some sudden noise falling suddenly on the ears, or, to those unaccustomed, the swiftness of a lightning-flash — still I remained unshaken, having strength to bear it all.
And the hope that my circumstances would be free [of trouble], that the same suffering would not befall me again, persuaded me to bear the calamity more easily.
But the evils that came upon me again from these — oh, how could I ever express my sufferings? O purveyor of evils, envious demon, how did you have the strength to accomplish so great an evil? Not blood, nor frogs, nor a cloud of gnats, nor the dog-fly, nor any destruction of cattle, not boils, not hail, not locusts, not darkness, not the death of the firstborn — last of evils — bent me low (for these were the plagues cried out against the savage Egyptians).
There was once in that city a certain effeminate man, an Egyptian apparition, a rabid evil, a dog, a mongrel cur, a lackey of the street-corners, a sprat, a voiceless calamity, a monstrous sea-beast — fair-haired yet dark-haired, curly yet straight of hair: some features old, others but newly devised.
For why should women alone be wise in unseemly and base comeliness — which is a manifesto, even in its silence, of one's character — as though men had no 'Maximuses' of their own? The shearing revealed this, hidden until then.
Such are the marvels we now have from today's 'wise men': to be double in nature, and, most wretchedly, to divide one's very form between both sexes — hair for women, [yet also] the staff for men.
He used to boast, as if he were something to the city, always shading his shoulders with his beloved flowing curls, dispatching his 'wisdom' with locks that swung like a sling, carrying his whole education in his very body.
This man, as we hear, having traveled many wicked roads — but let others concern themselves with which ones, for I have no leisure to search out everything —
Seeing sharply and smelling out shrewdly — for let even a bitterly-contrived scheme be called shrewd — namely, to cast us out of our see, us who neither possessed it [for gain] nor were honored at all in it, save for the guarding and perfecting of the people —
and more cleverly still — for it is not through strangers, but from our own people, that he weaves this whole drama — as a sophist and contriver of evils [directed] against men unaccustomed to such things and utter strangers to intrigue, men who were used to honoring a different kind of skill —
Who will ever see the wickedest of men among the moderate/upright as he deceives, plots, contrives, always stealing himself away with countless twists and turns? For that which is quick to move toward wickedness watches everything and sees what is opportune;
Along with all this, having also caught, from [his time at] the [bishop's] chair, a certain sickness — a remnant of his first disease, and this was unceasing envy, an inbred evil (for wickedness is not easily bent) — judging these matters unevenly, in his own favor, employing two collaborators in his bitterness, the first and the second, both man-slayers, he at last, with difficulty, hatched forth the brood of the asp.
Except not the wise Joshua nor Caleb, but rather whatever insolence there was among young and old — Ammon, Apammon, Harpocras, Stippas, Rhodon, Anubis, Hermanubis, gods of Egypt, ape-shaped and dog-like demons, wretched, rascally little sailors, utterly corrupt, cheap men who, for a small coin, would most readily have offered up many gods — if only there had been more of them.
Then, a little later, [came] those who had sent them — generals worthy of the phalanx, or, to say something more fitting for dogs, their shepherds/handlers.
For I will say no more — though I writhe within with many unspoken words, like some bound wineskin seething with new wine, or a smith's bellows full of breath — out of respect for him who sent them, light-minded though he was, and for those men themselves, who perhaps deserved some forgiveness, having been dragged along from rustic simplicity, moved wherever the wicked might carry them — men whom envy fashioned for us here.
how is it that Peter himself, the arbiter of the shepherds, formerly established me [in office] by letters so plainly free of duplicity — as the very letters addressed to us will prove — and honored [me] with tokens of my installation, yet now has sent us a deer instead of a virgin? These things are not at all evident; they require an interpreter.
...of those wickedly schooled in life? Will something even more absurd be seen? One drinking-companion said that wine prevails over all; another said woman; but the wise one said truth.
A certain presbyter had come here from Thasos, bringing gold from the church there, with which to buy slabs of Proconnesian marble; this man he fawned upon and won as accomplice, and having bound the wretch with many hopes — for evil men most quickly join with evil men — he had the gold as servant for everything, a faithful co-worker, a genuine partner in trade.
For indeed those very ones who once revered me — my dearest friends — now despise me as useless, a friend without gold, and readily incline to the worse, like the swing of a scale-beam.
But they, like wolves suddenly appearing as thieves within the fold, having many hired men from the fleet — men by whom Alexandria is most readily set aflame, for clearly they riot along with the fleet — were eager to shear the dog into the see, before making it known at all to the people, before making it known to the church's own leaders, before making it known even to us ourselves — as if to dogs, at any rate.
For having been led into the wretched dwelling of a flute-player, these solemn ones, dear to god, having as their "people" some of the castoff dogs, they fashion the most wicked shepherd — shearing him, not binding him, nor by force.
The shearing came upon his Euphorbus-like curls, effortlessly loosing the great toil of many hands, having given him only this much: to strip bare the mystery of the hairs — of hairs in which lay all his strength, just as they say of Samson the judge once, whom his shorn hair betrayed — of hairs, an untimely, wind-ravaged harvest, which a woman cut for the sake of enemies.
So what will you do about your fine hair? Will you labor to grow it out again? Or will you remain such a laughingstock? For both are shameful, and there is nothing whatever to be found between the two — except the noose.
Where then will you put my hair, tell me, and where will you send it? To the stages of theaters, tell me, or to maidens? And to which of these, in turn? To your Corinthian women, with whom once you practiced divine things alone, communing most wisely with them alone? In return for which I shall rather set you as the Dog of heaven.
For just as in the body the small afflictions rise up together with the great illnesses, even if till then they happened to lie quiet through its strength, so this final uprising exposed to public shame all his former evils.
What then? Did you not, just yesterday, hold this man among your friends and deem him worthy of the greatest praises? So someone might quickly answer, one of those who know these things and who blame that former facility of mine, by which I honored even the worse of dogs.
And what else does any of you think he might have done, when the church was then still so straitened that one had even to gather stubble? For the narrow circumstance does not grant as much scope as a season full of abundance grants.
Why has it not been cut? Or does it indeed seem so to you — this tongue that has long been silent and will be silent still more, perhaps paying the penalty for its ill-timedness, so that it may learn not to be pleasing to everyone? And that too, what a thing:
For what else could he ever do, whom kindness itself did not make gentle? And as for him for whom honor itself becomes reproach, what will you say his character is? A great evil, surely? If these things are trustworthy, seek no further;
What could be harder to contend against than this? Thus, on the one hand, an evil man was driven out from here in disgrace; but to speak the truth more exactly, an evil man was driven out rightly.
But when the eastern emperor, bringing harm to the tribes of the barbarians, held Thessalonica as his base of operations, what does the all-wicked dog contrive at that time? Watch with me again:
having taken up the motley rabble of Egypt — I mean those who had shorn him so improperly — as though to fix the see for himself by imperial decree, he runs to the camp.
And from there again, cast out like a dog with much wrath and dreadful oaths — for as yet no one's ears had been ill-disposed against us, but they were still sound — he slinks off ruined once more to Alexandria, doing this rightly, and this alone wisely.
For he fastens himself upon Peter — whose pen was once cloven in two, writing all things readily as their opposites — with a hired band of vagrants, and harasses the old man, either demanding the see he had hoped for, or declaring he would not relinquish the one he presently held — until the prefect, fearing, as was natural, that the kindled flame might be added to the old calamities, sends him away.
And now he seems to be quiet, but I fear lest somewhere the terrible cloud, pregnant with hail, driven together by a violent wind, may pour out its hail upon those who do not expect it.
Shall I utter something more trustworthy than the Pythia? "Of all men, Maximus is wisest." But I — if any mortal ever was — was long-suffering from the beginning, and am more so now: through toils on land, through perils at sea, from which I was saved — and great thanks are owed even to my fears.
Nevertheless, not bearing the disgrace of that time, and having gladly seized the occasion, when I perceived that the most wicked one had been shorn — while all our friends pressed upon me, who even kept me within a secret guard, watching my comings, goings, movements, and while all watched the struggle of our enemies, who thought the cutting to be the dissolution of my case — seeing these things, then, and not enduring to bear them, I did something of a rather too-simple man, I will not deny it, rather than of a wiser one.
Men, women, maidens, youths, children, old men, nobles, commoners, magistrates, quiet folk, some from the army — each one seething equally with anger and longing, with anger against the enemies and longing for the shepherd.
How could I hold back my tears? Anastasia — you whose very name is "Resurrection" — most honored of shrines, who raised up faith that lay prostrate on the ground; ark of Noah, you who alone escaped the flood that overwhelmed the world, bearing in your seed a second world, the orthodox one — to you a vast people streams from every side, as though the gravest of dangers stood before us: whether the victory should be ours, or that of their longing.
Voices failed; the women were seized with fear, and there was the wailing of the children of those who were most truly mothers; and the day was declining.
Each one swore that he would not relax his toil before either being nobly entombed within the temple itself, or bringing out some word of those he longed for.
"For you will cast out the Trinity along with yourself," he said to me — until, fearing lest some danger should arise, he pressed for an oath; yet not even so did I swear — for indeed I am one who takes no oaths, that I too might boast a little in God, from the gift of the Spirit by which I have been washed — but I gave my word, made trustworthy by my character, that I would remain, until some of the watchmen should appear (for indeed they were then expected), hoping then to free myself from cares not my own.
And once more the divine word flashed forth, when the stricken part of the people was very swiftly massed together, like a palisade or a phalanx, through speed of generalship and multitude of hands.
For those who before were bound captives to their doctrines, having only this — to stand united together — when they saw what they were suffering, loved the truth all the more.
For some were drawn by the Trinity now being proclaimed — having journeyed far away from that teaching for a long time (I hesitate to say, as though long entombed) — the ancestral preaching, become as it were a new convert.
Some say, "Learn these things from those who know them well"; others, "Relate them fully to those who do not know" — if indeed any of you are so far off, or beyond the dominion the Italians now hold — so that this too may be told to those who come after, as one more of the new evils of life, of which the vain procession of days brings ever more, weaving the worse together with the better.
I do not yet speak of the people upright in faith, the noble offspring of my travail, of whom it may be said that, though none like-minded had yet appeared, they hastened to the one at hand, as the parched to waters newly sprung, making the word their help against famine, or as those deep in darkness to a small light.
And what could one say of those strangers to the faith, remembering how they rejoiced in the word? Very many indeed are the by-paths leading astray from the unerring and ordered way, all bearing down to the depths of perdition, into which the Destroyer has divided the image of God, that thereby he might gain some secret entrance, cleaving opinions — not the tongue, as God did of old.
those who honor Bythos the Deep and Sige the Silence as pre-temporal natures, and the male-female Aeons — the venom of Simon Magus — whose offshoots are those who compose the Godhead out of numerical letters.
And again of these, as if many necks of impiety had grown from a single hydra — the one who ranks the Spirit alone with creation, and the one who also adds the Son to the Spirit.
Of these, who then was so unmoved as not to incline his ear to my words? For some were captured by the force of the doctrines, others were tamed by the manner of the speech.
For it was not with hatred, nor more with reviling than with solicitous care, that I brought forth my words — grieving, not striking, nor puffed up by the fleeting and errant occasion as some are (for what fellowship is there between reason and force?), nor making boldness a screen for irrationality (for this is a terribly cunning and cuttlefish-like thing, to vomit blackness from the depths, so as to escape refutation by the murk) — but meeting my hearers gently and fittingly with words, as advocates of a reason that is compassionate and mild and strikes no one.
Whence even to be worsted is still a reasoned thing, and to prevail is far more honorable, winning souls for God through a persuasion mighty in its own power.
not to know only one way of piety — the easy and wicked glibness of tongue — nor, laughing together in theaters and marketplaces and at drinking-parties, made loose and giddy by songs, before the tongue has even been washed clean of shameful words, nor to cast the mystic words recklessly before profane ears and those strange to Christ, playing with the very things that are hunted down only through toil.
but rather to be pious, above all, by the commandments — feeding the poor, entertaining strangers, tending to the sick, enduring hardship — and by psalm-singing, prayers, groanings, tears, sleeping on the bare ground, subduing the belly, restraining the senses, and by the good order of anger, laughter, and lips, lulling the flesh to sleep through the strength of the spirit.
But if you are one fond of speech, or full of zeal, and it seems terrible to you should speech not flow freely for you (for even here I make a human allowance for you)—
then speak — but in fear, and not at all times; not everything, nor to everyone, nor everywhere, but to some, and how much, and where, and when is fitting.
For the words of the former are for display, amid gatherings of young lads and fictions, in which it matters little whether one fails or succeeds — mere shadow, for they are nothing stronger than a shadow.
Wherefore one must guard one's words above all — speaking some things wisely, and hearing others wisely, and there are times when one must withdraw from both equally, using fear as a just measuring-line.
Having thus been taught by the oracles of Scripture, on which we were nourished before our mind had come to maturity, and thus guiding both citizens and strangers, I was already counted among the wealthy farmers, even though my harvest was not to be gathered all at once.
others were being leveled; in others the seed was being cast; others were still in the milk, others' growth had only just risen above the ground; others were turning green, others were being bound into sheaves, others were ripening, and others stood white, ready for harvest.
others were being winnowed, others were within the granaries, and others had already become bread — the end of the whole labor of farming — bread that now does not feed the farmer who toiled for it, but feeds those who poured out none of that labor's sweat.
While we stood in this condition, an emperor suddenly set upon us, having raised up out of Macedonia a cloud of barbarians, whetted keen by their great numbers and boldness.
A man not evil, as regards faith in God, so far as to hold sway over the simpler natures, and marvelously overcome by the Trinity — for this is, indeed, the reckoning of the inmost heart and of all things, when they stand securely fixed upon a firm foundation.
For I deemed it lawful not to compel but to persuade, and this more to our advantage, and to that of those whom we shall bring to God — for that which is unwilling, mastered by force, like an arrow bound by bowstring and hands, or a stream constricted on every side in its channel, when opportunity offers, scorns the force that held it;
but that which is voluntary remains firm for all time, bound tight by the unbreakable bonds of longing. Pondering this, it seemed best to me, restraining fear for a time, to draw all men gently, setting up 'willingness' as the unwritten law of persuasion.
So when he came, himself rejoicing, to a people thrice-rejoicing — with what honors he honored me at our first meeting, with what he said and what he heard, both most graciously — what need is there for me to tell? For indeed it would be shameful, if, being such as I am, I should seem to take pride in such things — I, for whom this alone is precious: God.
For thus the city stood fast in violence — so great and terrible was the ferment — that even if something untoward should occur, they would not yield, but would hold fast to what they controlled;
And the whole populace surged forth against them, like the sand of the seas, or falling snow, or the heaving movements of waves, mingling wrath and entreaty — wrath against us, but entreaty toward the imperial power.
Full were the marketplaces, the streets, the broad avenues, every place, and the two-storied and three-storied buildings, with men, women, infants, and the very aged leaning down to look.
But I, the valiant one, the general — and this while sick and enfeebled, this flesh of mine scarcely breathing — caught between commander and army, looking upward, went on with hope as my helper, until, I know not how, I found myself standing in the church.
For to many it seemed to be, of all that happened then, a thing beyond words — to those for whom nothing seen is ever simple, especially at the greatest turning points of the times.