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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).
'I have not given you pleasures, nor the allurements of lusts, nor the incentives of luxury, nor the coveting of another's beauty; but I have given you the foundations of walls, I have given you the lofty summits of towers, in which, being stationed, you need not fear to be overcome by the enemy, nor dread the terrible assaults, however violent, of the onrushing legions.' Hence you have in Isaiah that the soul of the just, or the Church, says: 'I am a city, a fortified city, I am a besieged city' — fortified through Christ, besieged through the devil. But she ought not to fear the siege whose helper is Christ; for she is fortified by spiritual grace and besieged by worldly perils. Whence also in the Song you have it said: 'I am a wall, and my breasts are towers.'
The Church is the wall, her towers are the priests, who abound both with the word from natural things and with discipline from moral teaching. Know yourself, then, O comely soul, for you are the image of God. Know yourself, O man, for you are the glory of God. Hear in what way you are the glory. The prophet says: 'Thy knowledge is made wonderful from me' — that is, in my work thy majesty is the more wonderful, in the fashioning of man thy wisdom is proclaimed. While I behold myself, whom thou dost discern in those very hidden thoughts and inward affections, I acknowledge the mysteries of thy knowledge.
Know yourself, then, O man, how great you are, and give heed to yourself, lest at any time, entangled in the snares of the devil, you become the prey of the hunter, lest perchance you run into the jaws of that foul lion who roars and prowls about, seeking whom he may devour. Give heed to yourself, that you may consider what enters into you and what goes forth from you. I speak not of food, which is swallowed and voided, but I speak of thought, I assert it of speech. Let not the lust of another's bed enter into you, let it not creep into your mind, let not the eye seize upon the beauty of a passing woman, let not the spirit shut it in, let not your speech weave the engines of temptation, let it not betray in guile, let it not bespatter your neighbour with slanderous reproach. God made you a hunter, not a stormer of cities, for he said:
'Behold, I send many hunters' — hunters not of accusation but of acquittal, hunters not indeed of guilt but of grace. You are a fisher of Christ, to whom it is said: 'Henceforth thou shalt be one who gives life to men.' So cast your nets, so cast your eyes, so cast your words, that you may crush no one, but may lift up him who is tossed by the waves. 'Give heed,' he says, 'to yourself.' So stand, that you fall not; so run, that you may attain to the prize; so contend, that you may often gain the decision, since the crown is owed to a lawful contest. You are a soldier: diligently scout out the enemy, lest he creep upon you by night. You are an athlete: be nearer to your adversary with your hands than with your face, lest he strike your eye.
Let your gaze be unhindered, your step nimble, that you may overthrow the one who rushes in, seize the one who gives ground, evade a wound with watchful eye, and repel it with a strong encounter. But if you have been wounded, give heed to yourself, run to the physician, seek the remedy of repentance. Give heed to yourself, for you have flesh, which quickly falls away. Let the good physician of souls, the divine word, come to you; let it sprinkle upon you the oracles of the Lord as healing medicines. Give heed to yourself, lest a hidden, wicked word arise in your heart; for it creeps like poison and brings deadly contagion. Give heed to yourself, lest you forget God who made you, and lest you take his name in vain.
Give heed to yourself, says the Law, lest, when you have eaten and are filled, and have built houses and begun to dwell in them, and your flocks are multiplied, and you abound in gold and silver, and all things you possess are increased in multitude, you exalt yourself in heart and forget the Lord your God. For what have you, O man, that you have not received? Do not all these things pass away like a shadow? Is not this house of yours dust and ruin? Are not all these things false? Is not the treasure of the world vanity? Are not you yourself ashes? Look upon the tombs of men and see what will remain of you but ashes and bones — that is, of your body. Look, I say, and tell me whether there be there rich and poor. Distinguish the needy and the powerful.
Naked we are all born, naked we die. There is no distinction among the corpses of the dead, save perhaps that the bodies of the rich, when their span is full, stink the more, distended with luxury. Whom have you heard of as a poor man dying of surfeit? His poverty profits him; it exercises his body and does not make it decay. Yet neither have we heard his offspring forsaken or his seed begging bread, since he who works well in his own land abounds with nourishment. Give heed, then, to yourself, O rich man, for you too bear flesh like the poor man. Give heed to yourself. Your soul is light in the day. Though the flesh be mortal, the soul is enduring; though you lack money, you lack not grace; though there be no ample house, no widespread possession, heaven lies open, the earth is free. The elements are given to all in common:
the adornments of the world lie open alike to rich and poor. Are the gilded ceilings of the most precious houses more beautiful than the face of heaven adorned with shining stars? Are the broad estates of the rich more spacious than the expanses of the earth? Wherefore to those who join house to house and farm to farm it was said: 'Shall you alone dwell upon the earth?' You have a greater house, O poor man, in which you cry out and are heard. 'O Israel,' says the prophet, 'how great is the house of God, and how vast the place of his possession! It is great and has no end, lofty and immeasurable.' The house of God is common to rich and poor; yet it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But perhaps you grieve that no light of gilded lamps shines for you:
but a far more glorious light illumines you — the resplendent moon shines for you. Perhaps you complain of winter, that no heated chamber is provided for you to be warmed by its fires; but you have the heat of the sun, which tempers for you the round world and defends you from the wintry cold. Or do you think those men blessed who are thronged by crowds of attendant servants? But those who require other men's feet know not how to use their own; in short, they are preceded by a few and carried by very many — unless perhaps you marvel at this, that they abound in gold and silver and money.
You see how much they abound; you do not see how much they lack. You think it precious to recline on ivory couches, and you do not consider that the earth is more precious, which spreads for the poor man beds of grass, on which his rest is sweet and his sleep delightful — which that other, laid out upon a golden bedstead, seeks all night long awake and does not attain. O how much more blessed than he, waking, you depart while you rest! Besides, that which is far more excellent is this: that the just man who has been in want here will alone abound there, and he who has had labour here will have consolation there; but he who has received good things here cannot hope for their reward there. For poverty reserves its reward; wealth consumes it.
Give heed, then, to yourself, O poor man; give heed, O rich man, for both in poverty and in riches there are temptations. Therefore the wise man says: 'Give me neither riches nor poverty.' And he tells for what reason he asks this: 'It is enough for a man to have what suffices him.' Riches distend the belly with feasts, and likewise the mind with cares and anxieties. And so he asks that there be appointed for him the things that are needful and sufficient, 'lest,' he says, 'being filled, I become a liar and say, Who sees me? or, being made poor, I commit theft and swear by the name of the Lord.' The temptations of the world, then, whether of the lifted-up, are to be fled, lest the poor man despair and the wealthy grow insolent. For it is written: 'When you have driven out the nations and have begun to use their lands, do not say, My own strength, and not...'
Such is the man who ascribes his wealth to his own merit, and therefore, as though approved, does not recognize his own error, but drags out his sin with a long rope. For if he should believe that the increase of money comes from chance or from fortuitous occurrence or from base cunning, there is no room for insolence in matters wherein there is either no praise and only empty labour, or a shameless greed that knows not how to set a limit to pleasure. But now some things must be said about the body of man itself, which who would deny to be more excellent than all other things in comeliness and grace?
For although the substance of all earthly bodies may seem to be one and the same, and although strength and height are greater in certain beasts, yet the form of the human body is upright in posture and lofty, so that there is neither monstrous tallness nor mean and abject littleness. Then the very build of the body is pleasant and graceful, so that there is neither beast-like vastness to cause horror nor a thin slenderness. And first of all let us recognize that the structure of the human body is a likeness of the world; for as heaven rises above the air, the lands, and the sea, which are as it were certain members of the world, so also we see the head rise above the rest of the limbs of our body and be the most excellent of all — as heaven among the elements, as a citadel among the rest of the walls of a city.
In this citadel there dwells, as it were, a royal wisdom, according to the prophetic saying that 'the eyes of the wise man are in his head'; and this head is safer than the rest, and from it vigour and providence are supplied to all the members. For what would the strength and sturdiness of the arms avail, what the swiftness of the feet, unless the imperial power of the head, as their chief, were to lend its support? For from it all things are either deserted or upheld. What would fortitude do, unless it use the eye as a guide to battle, what flight, if there be no sight? The whole body is a dark prison, unless it be illumined by the gaze of the eyes. What, therefore, the sun and moon are in heaven, that the eyes are in man.
The sun and moon are the two lights of the world; but the eyes, like certain stars in the head, shine from above and illumine the lower parts with clear light, and do not suffer us to be wrapped in the darkness of night. They are like certain watchmen who keep guard by night. For even out of sleep, while the rest of the limbs are forgetful, they are roused more quickly than the others, and, watchful, look round upon all things; for they are nearer to the brain, whence all the use of seeing flows. Nor let anyone think that I have descended too hastily to this point, that, leaving aside the crown of the head, I should extol the eyes, since it is not amiss to praise the chief thing in a part; for it is certain that the eyes are a portion of the head. The head, therefore, explores all things with the eyes, searches out hidden things with the ears, learns secrets, hears what is done by others in the lands.
And the very crown of the head — how pleasant and pleasing it is, how comely the hair, how venerable in the aged, how decorous in the young, how trim in women, how soft in boys! Long hair becomes one sex, and shorn hair becomes another. From trees one may estimate what is the grace of the human head. On the head of a tree is all its fruit, there is all its beauty; its foliage either shelters us from the rains or defends us from the sun. Take away the tree's foliage, and the whole tree is unpleasant. How great, then, is the adornment of the human head, which fortifies and clothes our brain — that is, the seat and origin of our senses — with the hairs of the head, lest it be vexed either by cold or by heat!
For there is the fountain of all things, and therefore where injury harms, there grace stands preeminent. What is a man without a head, since he is wholly in the head? When you see the head, you recognize the man; if the head be lacking, no recognition can be present; the trunk lies ignoble, without honour, without name. Only the heads of princes cast in bronze, and faces wrought of bronze or marble, are worshipped by men. Not without reason, therefore, do the other members serve this as their counselor, and carry it about with servile bearing as though it were a deity, and bear it set on high. Whence by a censor's power it directs whither it will the obedient services of certain little servants, and decrees the precepts to be performed by each. You may see them serving their emperor with free, unhired soldiery.
Some carry, some feed, some defend or render their service; they obey as to a prince, they wait as upon a lord. Whence there issues, as it were, a kind of watchword, telling what region the feet should traverse, what duties of warfare the hands should perform in completing works, what rule of abstaining or of eating the belly should hold under the imposed discipline. To this head the forehead is free, open with bared temples, which betrays the disposition of the mind by its appearance — now glad, now sadder, now drawn up to severity, now relaxed to gentleness — which by its outward signs expresses the inward will. A kind of image of the soul speaks in the countenance, the base of faith, on which the name of the Lord is daily written and kept.
The same forehead is followed by the twin hedges of the eyebrows, which stretch forth defenses before the eyes and weave in grace, so that both the charm of comeliness may smile and the care of protection may stand by. For if anything of filth fall from the head, or the dust of sand, or the dew of mist, or the sweat of a moist crown, it is caught by the eyebrow, lest, with its keen edge being offended, it disturb the tender visions of the soft eyes. The eyes cleave, as it were, to certain brows of mountains, that, both protected by the mountain's summit, they may be safer, and, set as on a height, they may look out upon all things as from some loftier stage. For it was not fitting that they should be lowly like the ears or the mouth and the inner cavities of the nostrils themselves.
For a watchtower is always set on high, so that the approach of oncoming hostile bands may be reconnoitered, lest unawares they surprise the idle townsfolk or the emperor's army. So too they break up the inroads of robbers, if scouts be stationed on the walls or towers or on the brow of a lofty mountain, that from above they may behold the plains of the regions, in which the ambushes of robbers cannot lie hidden. On the sea also, if one stationed there conjectures that he is drawing near to land, the lookout of his vow climbs to the very summit of the mast and the high horns of the yard-arms, and from afar salutes the land still invisible to the rest of the voyagers. And perhaps you may say:
If a higher lookout was necessary, why were not the eyes set above the very top of the head, as they are at the top in crabs or beetles, which, though no head appears, yet have their necks and backs loftier than the rest of the body? But those have a strong shell and not so thin a membrane as ours, which can easily be offended and cut through by bramble and other thorns. To other living creatures also there is a form of this kind, that they can turn their eyes either toward the neck, as horses or oxen, and well-nigh all wild beasts, or toward their wings, as birds, that they may enjoy safe rest. But for us it was fitting that the eyes be set in the highest part of the body, as in a citadel, and be defended from every even the slightest injury — two things which seemed mutually opposed.
For if they were in a low place for protection's sake, their function would be hindered; if on the very top, they would lie open to injury. And so, that nothing might be detracted either from the use of their function or from the warding off of injury, he set the eyes in that place to which the eyebrows from above impart not the least protection, and beneath, the somewhat raised cheeks add no slight fortification; the nostrils hedge in the inner part, and the outer part too the projecting bosses of the forehead and the cheeks, and — though it seem that they wall round the joined and leveled confines with a framework of bones — between these in the middle are set the orbs of the eyes, safe for taking precaution and free for beholding, and beautiful for grace, shining as they do with the appearance of crystal.
In the midst of these are the pupils, which perform the office of seeing. Lest these be harmed by any onset of incoming injury, they are guarded all around by hairs set close on this side and that, as by a kind of rampart. Whence the prophet, asking for sure help for himself, says: 'Keep me, O Lord, as the pupil of the eye,' that there might be made for him so anxious and safe a guarding by divine protection as he deigned to fortify the pupil of the eye with a most secure rampart of nature; likewise because innocence and integrity, when sprinkled with even a light filth, are violated and lose the gift of their grace, and therefore it must be foreseen lest any gathering dust befoul it or any straw of sin vex it, since it is written:
'First cast out the beam from your own eye, and then you will see to cast out the mote from your brother's eye.' And so, on account of the eyes, those skilled in healing hold that the brain of man is placed in the head, but that the other senses of our body are set in a neighbouring dwelling on account of the brain. For the beginning of the nerves and of all the senses of voluntary motion is the brain, and from it flows the whole cause of those things which we have mentioned. But the beginning of the arteries and of the innate heat, by which the vital parts are animated and warmed, most men judge to be the heart. The nerves, moreover, are as it were the instrument of the senses, which, springing from the source, flow down and are derived through the parts of the body into each several function.
And therefore the brain is softer than the rest, because it receives all the senses. Hence also the nerves, which report all things that either the eye has seen, or the ear heard, or the smell inhaled, or the tongue uttered, or the mouth received of taste. For what is soft is more apt for compassion (suffering-with), but what is hard, from a certain rigidity of the nerves, is more effective for action. The office of hearing also is most excellent, and a grace next to that of sight. Therefore the ears stand out more prominently, both that they may display the comeliness of adornment and that they may receive all that has flowed down from the crown of any filth or moisture, and likewise that in their windings the voice, struck back, may enter the inner passages without offense.
For unless it were so, who would not be rendered thunderstruck at every louder sound of voice, since amid these very aids we frequently feel ourselves struck by innumerable cries, an unforeseen blow? Then you may see, as it were, certain bulwarks stretched out against the harshness of cold and the burning of heat, so that neither does the cold penetrate the open ducts nor does excessive heat scorch them. But the winding of the inner ears furnishes a kind of measure and discipline of modulation, since through the windings of the ears a certain harmony is wrought, and the sound of the entering voice is expressed in certain measured tones.
That the windings of the ears are, moreover, retentive of the speech received, experience itself teaches us; for whether in the cleft of mountains, or in the recess of rocks, or where it is built up in the winding of rivers, the voice is heard sweeter, and the echo, returning pleasant responses, resounds. The very wax of the ears too is not useless, which binds the voice, so that there may be in us both a more retentive memory and grace of it. But what shall I say of the nostrils, which by their forked and elongated opening furnish a kind of cavern for receiving odours, so that the smell may not pass as a guilty thing, but may cling longer to the nostrils and feed the brain and the senses by their channel? Therefore an odour, once received, smells longer than speech resounds or sight appears.
Very often what you have smelled for a brief moment breathes in your nostrils the whole day long. Through them also the purgings of the head flow down and are drained off without harm or any offense to the body. There is also no slight sense in touch, and in it a most pleasing delight, pure and clean; for very often by touch we test things which we cannot test by the eyes. The last office too is that of the mouth or the tongue, which nevertheless supplies strength to all. For neither would the eyes have vigour for their wanderings unless they received the power of bodily substance, which is supplied by food and drink, nor the ears for hearing, nor the nostrils for smelling, nor the hands for touching, unless the whole body be strengthened by nourishment.
For we fail in strength unless we repair it by the constant supply of suitable food. In short, those worn out by hunger take delight in none of the pleasures of the senses, but, as though deprived of them, do not feel their allurements. Why should I describe the rampart of the teeth, by which food is prepared and the utterance of a full voice is made? What nourishment would please without teeth? In short, we frequently perceive those mature in age to grow old the more quickly for this very reason, that, having lost their teeth, they can take in no substance of stronger food. Therefore infancy is mute, because it does not yet have the instrument of voice. The office of the tongue too is most precious, not only in speaking but also in eating.
For the tongue is, as it were, the plectrum of the speaker, and is the hand, so to speak, of one who eats, which thrusts forward the food as it slides down and serves it to the teeth. The voice too is carried along by a kind of rowing of the air and is borne through the empty space, and by its own force it strikes the air, now stirring up, now soothing the feeling of the hearer; it calms the angry, it raises up the broken, it consoles the grieving. Let song, then, be something we share in common with the birds; but to whom, and with what sound of voice one should employ it — that which is rational — cannot be shared in common with all living things that are, of course, irrational. For the senses themselves are also common to us with the other animals, yet the other creatures do not use them with the same skill as we.
The heifer too lifts its eyes to heaven, but it knows not what it gazes upon; wild beasts lift their gaze, birds lift it, all have free vision; but in man alone is there an interpreter of the feeling for the things he beholds. He gazes with his eyes upon the risings and settings of the constellations, he sees the adornment of heaven, he marvels at the orbits of the stars, he understands too the various brilliances of each, when the evening-star rises, when the morning-star; why the one shines at evening, the other at dawn; what motions Orion has, what eclipses the moon undergoes, how the sun knows its own settings and keeps the circuits of its course by a fixed observance. The other living creatures hear as well, but who except man understands by hearing?
Man alone of all the kinds that are on the earth gathers up the secrets of wisdom by hearing, by meditation, and by prudence — he who can say: I will hear what the Lord God will speak within me. This is the most precious thing: that man becomes the instrument of the divine voice and with bodily lips gives utterance to the heavenly oracle, as in that passage: Cry out. What shall I cry? All flesh is grass. He received what he should say, and he cried out. Let those keep their own prudence who measure out with a measuring-rod the spaces of heaven and of the lands; let them keep their own understanding, of which the Lord says: And the understanding wherewith you feed I will reject. Nor will I set in this place the numbers of speech and the measures of musical wisdom on which men feast. But I define as wisdom that of which the prophet speaks:
The uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me. But what shall I say of the kiss of the mouth, which is a token of devotion and of love? Doves too kiss one another, but what is that compared with the loveliness of the human kiss, in which the badge of friendship and of humanity shines forth, in which the faithful affection of full charity is expressed? Hence the Lord, condemning it in the traitor as a kind of monstrous thing, says: Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? That is: turning the badge of charity into a sign of betrayal, do you use this pledge of peace as a mark of faithlessness, to the workshop of cruelty? Therefore by the oracle of the divine voice He convicts the one who by the beastly homage of the mouth brought death rather than offering the bonds of love.
This also is a chief thing: that men alone express with the mouth what we feel in the heart, and so we mark out with the speech of the mouth the silent thoughts of the mind. What then is the mouth of man but a certain sanctuary of speech, a fountain of discourse, the hall of words, the storehouse of the will? We have set it forth as a kind of royal palace of the human body, in which, though there be a certain smallness of proportion, yet its form surpasses the rest. There follows the throat, through which the vital exchange and the passage of breath is poured into the whole body. Then come the arms and the strong muscles of the upper arms, the hands strong for working and, with their rather long fingers, apt for grasping.
Hence comes the readier use of working, hence the elegance of writing and that pen of the scribe writing swiftly, by which the oracles of the divine voice are expressed. The hand is what serves food to the mouth, the hand is what stands out by glorious deeds, which, as the mediatrix of divine grace, is laid upon the holy altars, by which we offer and receive the heavenly sacraments; the hand is what works and likewise dispenses the divine mysteries, by whose name Elisha did not disdain to declare himself a man of God, since David says: The right hand of the Lord has wrought strength, the right hand of the Lord has exalted me. The hand is what made all things, as almighty God said: Has not my hand made all these things? The hand is the bulwark of the whole body, the defender of the head.
And though it is lower in position, it grooms the whole crown of the head and adorns it with becoming ornament. Who could worthily set forth the lattice-work of the breast and the softness of the belly? For otherwise the softer inner organs could not be cherished, and the folds of the intestines would without doubt be injured by the hard bones. What is so salutary as that the lung should be joined to the heart by a neighboring boundary, so that when the heart blazes up with anger and indignation, it may the more quickly be tempered by the blood and moisture of the lung? And for this reason the lung is also soft, because it is always moist, so that it may at once soften the harshness of indignation. These things we run through cursorily for this reason: that we may seem, like the unlearned, to touch only on what lies at hand, not, like physicians, to scrutinize more fully and to track down the things that are hidden in the recesses of nature.
The spleen too has a fruitful nearness to the liver, for while it takes in what it may feed upon, it wipes away whatever of filth it has detected, so that through the finer fibers of the liver the thin and subtle remnants of food may pass, which are turned into blood and serve the strength, and are not expelled with the filth of dung. And the encircling coils of the intestines, bound to one another in turn though without any knot, what else do they show but the divine foresight of the Creator, namely that the food should not pass through quickly and at once run down from the stomach? For if this happened, a perpetual hunger and continual lust of devouring would be bred in men.