巴蘭與約撒法 第 1 章 第 14/18 段

And you will find many such things in your Scriptures.

If, then, in truth, as you say, you seek to save my soul, fulfill this small desire of mine.

And though I sought to be joined to you in the full union of marriage, since this is not to your liking, I no longer compel you, doing all things that are pleasing to you;

so then, you too should not utterly abhor me.

But, by obeying me this once, you will save me, delivering me from superstitious error, and thereafter you may do what has been resolved by you for the whole rest of your life.

As she spoke thus (for indeed she had one prompting her, to whom she secretly lent her ears —

and that robber was well-versed in the Scriptures, being indeed the true creator and teacher of wickedness) — thus speaking such things and fawning, weaving nets and snares around him on the right hand and on the left, she began to shake the tower of his soul, to loosen the tension of his resolve, and to make his mind softer.

But the sower of wickedness and enemy of the righteous, seeing his heart being shaken, was filled with joy and immediately called out to the spirits of wickedness that had come with him, crying, 'Behold how this maiden hastens to accomplish what we ourselves were not able to accomplish!'

Come, then, let us now fall upon him with force;

for we shall not find another moment so opportune as this to fulfill the will of the one who sent us.

Having said these things to his own dogs, the crafty-minded one — they set upon the soldier of Christ, throwing into confusion all the powers of his soul, and instilling in him a terrible passion for the maiden, and kindling in him a most violent fire of desire.

But he, seeing himself violently inflamed and taken captive toward sin, and his thoughts — like bait on a hook — being wrapped around the deed at hand under the pretext of the maiden's salvation and conversion to God, and troubling him with the enemy's suggestion that it was not a sin to lie with a woman once for the salvation of her soul, groaned with a deep and melting groan in the perplexity of his soul, and immediately strained himself toward prayer, and pouring forth abundant streams of tears from his eyes, cried out to him who is able to save those who trust in him:

Let me not be put to shame forever.

Nor let my enemies laugh me to scorn, me who cling to your right hand;

but stand by me in this hour, and according to your will direct my paths straight, that your glorious and fearful name may be glorified in me your servant, for you are blessed forever.

Having prayed for a considerable time with tears and having bowed his knees many times, he let himself down upon the ground.

And having slept a little, he sees himself seized by certain fearsome beings, and passing through places he had never seen, and coming to be in a certain vast plain covered with beautiful and very fragrant flowers, where he saw plants of every kind and variety, laden with strange and marvelous fruits, most sweet to see and desirable to touch.

And the leaves of the trees gave a sweet murmuring sound beneath a most delicate breeze, and, being stirred, sent forth an insatiable and most gracious fragrance; and thrones were set there, made of the purest gold and precious stones, giving off a brilliant radiance, and couches adorned with extraordinary coverings that surpassed description in their beauty.

And waters flowed by, exceedingly clear, delighting even the very sight.

Having led him through this wondrous and great plain, those fearsome beings brought him into a city gleaming with an ineffable brilliance, having walls of translucent gold, and battlements built up of stones that no one had ever before seen.

Oh, who could tell the beauty and splendor of that city? A light from above, darting with dense rays, filled all its streets;

and certain winged hosts, each one itself being light, dwelt there, singing a song never before heard by mortal ear.

And he heard a voice saying:

This is the rest of the righteous;

this is the gladness of those who were well-pleasing to the Lord.

Then those most fearsome men, having led him out from there, said they would take him back.

But he, being wholly given over to that delight and gladness, said, 'Do not deprive me, do not deprive me, I implore you, of this ineffable joy;'

but grant me too to dwell in some corner of this greatest city.

But they said, 'It is impossible now for you to be here.'

But with much toil and sweat you shall come here, if you force yourself.

And, passing again through the vast plain, they carried him off to dark places, full of every unpleasantness, possessing a grievousness equal in measure to the brightness he had seen.

For there was darkness, lightless and utterly gloomy;

and everything was filled with affliction and turmoil.

There a furnace of fire was kindled, blazing;

and there was a race of punishing worms creeping about there.

And punitive powers stood over the furnace, and certain persons were being pitiably burned by the fire.

And a voice was heard saying:

This is the place of sinners;

this is the punishment of those who have defiled themselves with shameful deeds.

Thereupon those who had led him in also led him out from that place.

And immediately, on coming to himself, he was trembling all over.

And tears streamed down from his eyes like a river.

And all the beauty of that unchaste maiden, and of the rest, seemed to him more foul than mire and rot.

And turning over in his soul the memory of what he had seen, with longing for the good things and fear of those grievous things, he lay upon his bed, scarcely able to rise.

The king was informed of his son's illness.

And he came and asked what had happened.

And he related to him the things he had seen, and said:

Why have you prepared a snare for my feet, and bowed down my soul? For unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would in but a little while have dwelt in Hades.

But how good is God to Israel, to those upright in heart!

who also delivered my low estate from the midst of young lions.

For I lay down troubled.

but my God and my Savior visited me from on high, and showed me of what good things those who provoke Him to wrath deprive themselves, and to what

punishments they have made themselves liable.

And now, O father, since you have stopped your ears so as not to hear my voice, which sings good things to you, at least do not hinder me from walking the straight path.

For this is what I long for, this is what I desire: to be set free from all things, and to reach the places where Barlaam, the servant of Christ, dwells, and to spend the rest of my present life with him.

But if you should wish to hold me back by force, you will soon see me dead from grief and anguish;

and you will no longer be called father, nor will you have me any longer as a son.

XXXI. Then despondency again took hold of the king;

again he disowned his whole life, and, turning dire thoughts over within himself, went away to his own palace.

But the spirits of wickedness sent by Theudas against the godly child, having returned to him, ashamed, confessed their defeat, although they are fond of lying;

for they bore clear tokens of their defeat upon their wicked countenance.

And he said, 'Are you so weak and wretched that you could not prevail over a single youth?' Then the evil spirits, chastised by divine power, brought the truth to light against their will, saying, 'We cannot bear, nor at all endure to face the power of Christ, and the sign of His passion, which they call the cross;'

for when it is being traced, we, all the rulers of the air and world-rulers of darkness, hasten to flee with all our might, thrusting one another aside, even before it is fully traced.

Wherefore also, having fallen upon this young man, we troubled him grievously;

but he, having called upon Christ as his ally, and having armed himself with the sign of the cross, drove us off in wrath and secured safety for himself.

So without delay we found the instrument by which our ruler once conversed with the first-formed man, and by which he subdued him.

And indeed we would have counted the young man's hope as nothing at all; but Christ, being called upon again as an ally, burned us with the fire of wrath from above, and made us fugitives.

And we learned never again to approach him.'

Thus, then, did the evil spirits clearly make known to Theudas what had happened.

And the king, being at a loss on every side, summoned Theudas again, and said:

'We have fulfilled all that you decided upon, O wisest one, and have found no benefit whatsoever;

but now, if any other device remains with you, we shall make trial of that also;

perhaps I may find some solution to the evil.'

And when Theudas requested to come into conversation with the son, the king, taking him along at daybreak, went to visit his son.

And having sat down, the king opened a discourse, reproaching him and blaming him for his disobedience and his unyielding resolve.

And as he again affirmed the same things and cried out that he preferred nothing above the love of Christ, Theudas came forward into the midst and said:

'Ioasaph, what fault have you found with our immortal gods, that you have departed from their worship, and, by thus provoking your father and king, have become hateful to all the people? Is not your life from them? Did they not grant you to your father, having heard his prayer and having released him from the bonds of childlessness?' And as he — grown old in evil — put forward many vain arguments and useless propositions, weaving syllogisms about the preaching of the Gospel, wishing to mock the one while bolstering the idols, the son of the kingdom above, and citizen of that city which the Lord, and not man, established, having paused a little, said to Theudas:

Hear, O depth of error, and darker than palpable darkness; O seed of Babylon, offspring of the tower-building of Chalane, through which the world was thrown into confusion; O vain-minded and wretched old man, than whom even the Pentapolis burned with fire and brimstone has become lighter in its sins.

Why do you attempt to mock that which belongs to

salvation's proclamation, through which things darkened were illuminated, through which those who had strayed found the way, through which the lost and those grievously taken captive were called back; tell me, what is better: to serve God the Almighty, together with the Only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, God uncreated and immortal, the source and fountain of good things, whose power is beyond comparison and whose glory beyond comprehension, before whom stand a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand of angelic and heavenly ranks, and heaven and earth are full of His glory, through whom all things were brought forth out of that which did not exist, through whom the universe is held together, sustained, and governed by His providence — is it better to serve Him, or destructive demons and lifeless idols, whose glory and praise consist of adultery and the corruption of children and the rest of the works of lawlessness, which are recorded concerning your gods in the writings of your superstition? Are you not ashamed, wretches, food for unsleeping fire, likeness of the Chaldean race? Are you not ashamed, worshipping dead carved images, works of human hands? For having hewn a stone, or carved a piece of wood, you have called it god;

then, taking the finest bull from the herds, or perhaps some other of the most comely animals, you foolishly sacrifice it to a lifeless object of worship.

The victim is more precious than that which you worship;

for man made the carved image, but God fashioned the animal.

And how much wiser than you, the rational one, is the irrational animal? For it knows the one who feeds it;

but you have failed to know God, through whom you were brought forth out of what did not exist, through whom you live and are preserved; and you call 'god' that which but a little while ago you saw being struck with iron, burned and melted in fire, and beaten with hammers — that which you clothed in silver and gold, and raised up from the ground, setting it aloft on high;

then, falling upon the ground, you lie lower than the lowly stone, worshipping not God but the dead and lifeless works of your own hands.

Or rather, the idol could not even rightly be called dead.

For how could that which never lived be called dead? Rather, some new name ought to be invented for it, one worthy of so great a madness.

For the one made of stone crumbles, the one made of earthenware is broken, the bronze one rusts, and the gold and silver ones are melted down.

But your gods are even bought and sold — some cheaply, others at the highest price.

for it is not their divinity, but their material, that gives them their costliness.

But who buys a god? Who sells a god? And how can a motionless god be called god? Or do you not see that the one standing never sits, and the one sitting never rises? Be ashamed, foolish one; put your hand upon your mouth, senseless one, for praising such things.

For having become estranged from the truth, you have gone astray after false forms, fashioning statues, and placing the name of God upon the works of your own hands.

Come to your senses, wretched one, and understand that you are older than the god that was made by you.

and you have persuaded yourself, being but a man, that you are able to make God.

And how is it possible for this to come about? So then you make not God, but a mere shape of a man or of some animal, having no tongue, no throat, no brain, nor any of the inward parts at all;

so that it is neither the likeness of a man nor of an animal, but altogether useless and full of vanity.

Why then do you fawn upon senseless things? Why do you sit in devotion to things that are immovable and useless? If the skill of the stonecutter, or the carpenter, or the hammer-worker had not been present, you would not have had a god.

If guards had not been sitting beside it, you would have lost your god.

For that to which a populous city of fools often prays, as to a god, to be kept safe, has but a few guards remaining beside it, lest it be stolen.

And if it be made of silver or of gold, it is carefully guarded;

but if it be made of stone or clay, or some other such cheaper material, it guards itself;

for perhaps, by your own reckoning, the clay one is stronger than the gold one.

Is it not fitting that you, the foolish, the blind, and the senseless, should justly

be laughed at, or rather be lamented over? For your deeds belong to madness, not to piety.

For one, having been trained in warfare, set up a carved image in imitation of a soldier's form, and called it Ares;

and another, having refashioned his soul after a woman-mad desire, deified that passion, calling it Aphrodite;

another, on account of his own fondness for wine, fashioned an idol, which he called Dionysus;

and likewise the devotees of other evils also set up idols of their own passions;

For they named their passions gods.

And because of this, at their altars there are voluptuous dances, the sounds of licentious songs, and frenzied impulses.

Who could recount their abominable conduct in order? Who could endure, in listing their obscenities, to defile his own mouth? But it is plain to all, even though we remain silent.

These are your objects of veneration, Theudas, you who are more senseless than your own idols; these you bid me to worship, these to revere.

Such indeed is the counsel of your wickedness and senseless mind!

But may you become like them, you and all who put their trust in them.

But I shall serve my God, and to Him I shall sacrifice my whole self — to God the Creator and Provider of all things, through our Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, through whom we have obtained access to the Father of lights in the Holy Spirit, through whom we were redeemed from bitter slavery by his blood.

For if he had not humbled himself even to the form of a slave, we would not have been deemed worthy of adoption.

He was humbled, then, for our sake, not counting divinity a thing to be seized, but remained what he was, and took on what he was not; he consorted with men, went up on the cross in his flesh, was laid in the tomb for three days, went down into Hades, and led out those whom the fearsome ruler of this world held bound, sold under sin.

What harm, then, came to him from these things, which you presume to mock? Do you not see this sun — to how many useless and filthy places it sends down its ray? How many stinking corpses of the dead does it look upon? Is any blemish smeared upon it? Does it not dry up and shrivel the filthy and putrid things, while it illuminates the darkened ones, and yet itself remains wholly unharmed and incapable of receiving any defilement at all? And what of fire? Does it not take cold black iron into itself and make it wholly flame-like and fired through? Has it thereby partaken at all of the properties of the iron? When the iron is struck by hammers and lashed, does the fire suffer anything, or sustain any harm whatsoever? If, then, these created and corruptible things are by nature incapable of suffering anything from association with meaner things, by what reasoning, you senseless and stone-hearted man, do you dare mock me for saying that the Son and Word of God, in no way having departed from the Father's glory, but being the very same God, took up a human body for the salvation of mankind, that he might make men partakers of the divine and intellectual nature, and, having led our substance out from the depths of Hades, might honor it with heavenly glory — so that, having by the assumption of flesh lured the ruler of the darkness of this age, he might overpower him, and set our race free from his tyranny?

Hence indeed he, impassibly, submits to the passion of the cross, thereby manifesting his two natures:

for as man he is crucified, but as God he darkens the sun, shakes the earth, and raises many sleeping bodies from their tombs;

again, as man he dies, but as God he rises again, having despoiled Hades.

Wherefore also the prophet cried out:

"Hades was embittered, having met you below."

For it was embittered and mocked, thinking to receive a mere man, but encountering God, and suddenly being emptied and made captive.

He rises, therefore, as God, and ascends into the heavens, whence he was never at all separated.

And he has made our lowly nature — the most senseless of all, ungrateful and dishonored — higher than all things, and has enthroned it upon a throne of glory, radiant with immortal splendor.

What harm, then, came to God the Word from this, that you do not blush to blaspheme? What then? Is it not better to confess these things, and to worship such a God, good and loving toward mankind, who commands righteousness, enjoins self-control, ordains purity, teaches mercy, grants faith, proclaims peace, and is called, and is, Truth itself, Love itself, Goodness itself?

Is it not better to worship him than your gods — full of passions and evil, shameful both in their deeds and in their names? Woe to you, more stony than stones and more irrational than irrational beasts, sons of perdition, heirs of darkness!

But blessed am I, and all Christians, who have a good and loving God.

For those who serve him, even if they suffer for a short time in this present life, shall harvest the immortal fruit of recompense in the kingdom of unending and divine blessedness.

XXXII. Theudas said to him:

Behold, it is evident that our religion was set forth as law by many great sages and expounders, men admirable in virtue and knowledge, and that all the kings and rulers of the earth received it as good and containing nothing harmful; but that of the Galileans was preached by certain rustic men, poor and lowly, themselves few in number and not exceeding the measure of twelve.

How, then, is the preaching of the few, obscure and rustic men, to be preferred to the legislation of the many great men who shone with such great wisdom? What proof is there that these speak the truth, and those lie? Again, then, the king's son answered:

Perhaps, Theudas, you are, as the saying goes, an ass listening to a lyre and remaining uncomprehending — or rather, an asp stopping its ears so as not to hear the voice of the charmers.

Well, then, did the prophet speak concerning you:

"If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard its spots, then you also shall be able to do good, having learned evil."

Foolish and blind man, how does the power of truth not bring you to your senses? For this very fact — that your polluted objects of worship are praised by many admired for their wisdom, and upheld by many kings, while the preaching of the Gospel was proclaimed by few and obscure men — shows the strength of our piety and the weakness and destructiveness of your wicked doctrines.

For your teachings, though they have wise advocates and powerful defenders, are nevertheless being extinguished and grow weak, while the things of true piety, possessing no human help whatsoever, shine more brightly than the sun and have taken hold of the fullness of the world.

For if it had been set forth by orators and philosophers, and had had kings and rulers cooperating with it, you, being wicked, would have found grounds to say that the whole thing came about by human power;

but now, seeing that the holy Gospel was composed by humble fishermen, was persecuted by all tyrants, and after this took hold of the inhabited world (for "its voice went out into all the earth, and its words to the ends of the world"), what could you say, except that it is a divine and unconquerable power, confirming its own claims for the salvation of mankind? What proof, senseless man, do you seek, greater than what has been said, that yours are false and ours are true? For if all your teachings were not nonsense and falsehood, they would not, despite possessing such great power from men, be diminishing and growing weak.

"For I saw," it says, "the ungodly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon;

and I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found."

These things the Prophet has spoken concerning you, the shield-bearers of idol-madness.

"For yet a very little while, and your place shall not be found; but, as smoke vanishes,

you shall vanish, and as wax melts before the face of fire."

But concerning the Gospel's knowledge of God, the Lord said:

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

"You, Lord," says the psalmist again, "in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands;

and they all shall grow old like a garment, and like a mantle you shall roll them up, and they shall be changed; but you are the same, and your years shall not fail."

And the divine heralds of Christ's coming, the wise fishermen of the world, who drew all men up out of the depths of deceit — whom you, base as you are, and truly a slave of sin, disparage — shone with signs and wonders and manifold powers like the sun in the world, granting light to the blind, hearing to the deaf, walking to the lame, life to the dead.

For their shadows alone healed all the afflictions of men.

Demons, whom you fear as gods, they drove not only from human bodies but pursued from the very inhabited world, by the sign of the cross, through which they made all magic vanish and rendered all sorcery ineffective.

And they, having thus healed human weakness by the power of Christ and having renewed the whole creation, are, as heralds of the truth, deservedly admired by all who think rightly.

But what do you yourself have to say about your sages and orators, whose wisdom God made foolish — the advocates of the devil? What worthy of remembrance did they leave to human life? Tell me.

What could you say about them, except irrationality and shamefulness, and a vain art that, with the elegance of words, conceals the filth of their foul-smelling religion? But even among the poets themselves, as many as have been able to recover a little from their great madness have spoken the truer thing — that those called gods were men, and that, because some of them ruled over lands and cities, and others did some other trivial thing in their lifetime, men, having been deceived, called them gods.

For at the beginning, that Serug is recorded to have invented images.

For it is said that he honored with statues and monuments those who, in ancient times, displayed a memorable deed of courage, friendship, or some other manly virtue.

But those who came after, not knowing the intention of their forebears — that it was only for the sake of remembrance that they had set up statues and monuments for those who had done something praiseworthy — being little by little led astray by the working of the demon who is the author of evil, attached themselves, as though to immortal gods, to mortal men subject to the same passions and corruptible; and they devised for them sacrifices and libations, the demons obviously having taken up residence in the idols and having drawn to themselves the honor and the sacrifices.

Those demons, then, persuade those who do not see fit to have God in true knowledge to consider them gods, for two reasons: so that they themselves may be glorified by this title (for they delight, being full of arrogance, in being honored as gods), and so that they may drag those whom they have deceived into the unquenchable fire prepared for them.

Wherefore they taught them every transgression and shamefulness, once they had submitted to their deceit.

Having come, then, to this culmination of evils, men, being darkened, each set up a monument to his own passion and his own desire, and named it a god, becoming detestable in their error, more detestable than the absurdity of the things they worshiped — until the Lord came, through the bowels of his mercy, and redeemed us who believe in him from this wicked and destructive error, and taught us the true knowledge of God.

For there is no salvation except in him, and there is no other god, neither in heaven nor on earth, except he alone, the maker of all things, who upholds all things by the word of his power.

"For by the word," it says, "of the Lord the heavens were established, and

by the breath of his mouth all their host";

and, "all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be that has come to be."

But Theudas, having heard these words, and that the speech was full of God-taught wisdom, was struck as if by the sound of thunder, and was seized by speechlessness.

At last, late and with difficulty, coming to a sense of his own wretchedness (for the saving word had touched the darkened eyes of his heart, and great repentance for his former deeds came upon him), and having condemned the error of idols, he ran to the light of piety.

And from that time on he thus departed from his depraved way of life, and made himself as much an enemy of those dishonorable passions and sorceries as, indeed, before this he had pledged friendship with them.

For then, standing in the midst of the council, while the king presided, he cried out with a loud voice:

"Truly, O king, the Spirit of God dwells in your son;

truly we are defeated, and we no longer have any defense, nor are we able to look directly at what has been spoken by him.

Great indeed, in truth, is the God of the Christians; great is their faith; great are their mysteries."

And turning to the king's son, he said:

"Tell me, then, O you who are illumined in soul:

will Christ receive me, if, having turned away from my wicked deeds, I return to him?" "Yes," says the herald of the truth, "yes, he receives both you and all who turn to him.