BOOK ONE. Whoever you are who, eager for the rewards of eternal life, desire things to be made everlasting rather than to perish — things that may unbar heaven, put death to flight, avoid hardships, and run by a happy path — learn the way. For we, conquered both by the vices of the flesh and by the times, tread an earthly road not without sorrow; and these are now our only joys, mingled with our prayers: that what we do not do, others at least may do. For since we now pass this age — which forthwith flees away — captives caught by treacherous enticements, this wanton, wretched, deceitful, brief, fickle, empty span — alas, the evil origin of harms hurls us headlong — leaving behind all these things which are swiftly destined to die, may you hold fast by strong faith to the things that shall not die. Come, then: lend attentive ears and an unoccupied mind: life must be taught by me, life must be sought by you.
But, so that the teaching of my little book may be the better, and that the order of the poem may keep to straight paths, it pleases me to entreat you, Almighty God, both with heart and voice, and without you, O Christ, not even to loose my tongue — you who, restoring the light, drive away the darkness from the blind, who insert hearing into deaf ears, who repel the savage diseases of body and mind, who in your mercy are wont to loose the mouths of the dumb: with you rests the office both of our heart and of our mouth.
Grant me to feel, grant me to be able to speak, so that surely your gifts may quicken my tongue, and that through you the speech about you may be pleasing to you — even as, when by your command my bidding overcame all nature, the donkey, speaking with our human voice, and the four-footed beast terrified Balaam, who was driving its back with goads, with marvellous address; Balaam, who, trembling at the great and repeated request of the king, preparing dreadful words against the holy people, could not properly subdue to himself his own moved tongue, saying one thing with his mouth while desiring another with his heart. For, about to speak ill, he began excessively to bless, lending his lips, prepared for one thing, to another.
Therefore, unless you, O Christ, supply the eloquence, unless you, O Christ, supply the understanding, and unless you, O Christ, govern the endeavours of the soul, mute and brute things shall possess the mouths of all men, and even what they can do, this too they shall not be able to do. First of all, you ought to know of a twofold life, granted by the Lord to man along with reason: so that, since the brute body is of earthly weight, but the soul has been made alive by the breath of God, the soul might feel no end to its losses, and in this fragile body life might be brief. The one, the law of being born brings first to all; this one care, and proper merits, follow after. To be born is not in our power, nor to live long in our power: but the life that follows after, the present life can prepare.
And although by the Lord's appointment we receive both, and neither comes to pass unless God commands it, yet the first is borne along by a swift downward whirl, while the one that follows is given for all time. To the first we come, in ignorance, with no reward; the other comes purchased by the highest toil. We are born to seek the Lord of heaven and earth and sea with all our zeal, ever watchful. We seek, so that by true judgement we may be able to know who he is, how great or of what kind, and what he does. We come to know, so that, having learned, we may worship with worthy praise: we worship, that he may grant eternal life. And we worship not by giving incense, not by pouring blood, not drunk with wine, not heavy with feasts.
Gold, raiment, perfume, cattle, libations, gems, and the things which men think rare or precious — before God they lie unhonoured, like worthless masses of earthly weight, like mire, like filth. All things are his, whose we confess ourselves to be. Nothing is our own: he himself possesses, he himself gave. For behold, he proclaims by the holy mouth of the prophet: 'I want not your he-goats, I want not your calves; both the beauty of the field is with me and the glory of heaven: for the world is mine, and whatever is in the world is mine. Let vows be paid to me, the Holy One, with a holy heart: let a sacrifice of praise and a pure voice celebrate me.' Therefore, reader, you will be able to plead nothing of ours as difficult for you in these admonitions. It is not placed far off, it is not to be sought from elsewhere; there is no need of wealth, of expense, of price.
It suffices that you, with a devout heart, believe — and as a believer entreat with your mouth — the Lord of the world and Father of all things, in whose will lie both good and evil, surpassing in greater meaning the words of one who speaks; one, incorporeal, and forever holy, embracing all things, or rather forever one in all things. But why do I use such bare words alone, as though there were no commands of God concerning this? For first remember that it was provided under the old law, which long ago was written on solid tablets — what now the grace given through the Lord Christ renews, and the venerable voice of the Gospel sounds forth: that what stone once held, our hearts should now hold, and that, twice repeated, faith might be the more abundant. 'With your whole affection and your whole inmost being and your whole heart love the Lord your God.' And rightly so:
for what could you ever more justly repay, bound as you are by such great gifts? — he who, when you lay an earthly thing in the dregs of the earth, took away from you the being mire of perpetual time; who, before any merit of yours, by his own loving-kindness bestows on you that you consist of members, that you are admonished by mind, that you speak with tongue, that you have wisdom by reason, that you touch with hands, walk with foot, perceive with eye, hear with ear, smell with nostrils, taste with mouth — thus a Father, as a Lord, both of body and of soul; and not content with this gift alone, by which he furnished you with members and adorned you with senses; who granted life, lavishes the goods of life, that all things may be provided for you with delights. Behold, for you the heaven hangs aloft, for you the earth recedes, the airs are poised, the ocean surges:
nights and days succeed one another, the years their months; the sun shines, the stars give light, the moon glows red. Spring pours forth charming flowers under varied buds; summer, now heavy with fruits, ripens the fields; autumn is wet with new wine, the olive grows rich; winter, with fires brought near, knows no cold. To ward off the rains you make firm your overhanging roofs; you ignore the winds with your dwellings set against them; combing the shaggy backs of the wool-bearing two-toothed ewe, you cover your chilled limbs with soft wrappings; nor are the smooth garments of snowy linen lacking; there are also cloaks of Eastern fleeces: yonder land, fertile, will yield them to you from the scattered seed; these the Chinese gather on lofty trees. In short, throughout the whole circling year, whatever you have, all of it the care of God gives you.
The field is green with harvest, the hill is clothed with vine-shoots; from various trees you reap mellow fruits; and giving your zeal, provident, to the fruitful garden, you take useful greens at whatever time you please. You set ablaze for lamps whatever resinous pine you find; on noble tables the waxen flame flickers. Nor is the earth, set under man, bidden to serve only earthly use through various employments: whatever is borne near the clouds, whatever is rolled, drawn up, in the deep sea — now with deceiving bait, now with linen woven into nets — by countless arts you seek it from this side or that. And now for you a fish is drawn from the lowest depth, now in the high air birds are ensnared; before the hunter the dense throngs of wild beasts fall, struck from afar by javelins or caught in toils.
Things facing you, you seek with the spear; fleeing things you halt with hounds; you crush with bridles the mouth of the fierce horse. To the curved yokes you compel the oxen, to the milk-pails the she-goats: sweet honey drips from the curly combs. From rocks you bring forth gems, gold from the sands, and pliant metals you smelt from the earth with fire. You distinguish the herbs that heal grievous diseases; diligently, by art, you drive away the deadly ill. Nay more, that you may take merchandise from a foreign shore, and give your own to others and seek what is another's, you will course over the rivers by oar, the seas by sail: you will go on far journeys without toil. Or if you dread the deep, you will set wagons in motion, and the land, to be marked, will spread itself beneath your wheels. Then, if your tossed body seeks soothing leisure, the moist baths will receive your dusty self;
And when in the hollow font you are stripped of all your garment, you will cherish your weary limbs in the subduing waters. For so many and so great good things, prepared for you by your Lord's gift, what worthy return do you make to His loving affection? Or with what riches, with what gifts can you repay these, or with how great a service can you discharge the debt? Yet the Lord, to whom all things belong, does not ask this: it is enough that you, a beloved servant, love your Master. This, too, is the form the second commandment takes: that your neighbour be to you even as you are to yourself. I recognize the law that brings salvation in its abiding gift, which provides for all by a single duty. For when the care of another is enjoined on me, it is needful that my care, too, be thus enjoined upon another. Behold, the cattle leads the cattle to fruitful pastures, and the glad heifer lows to her own herd.
With lowing they answer one another, they speak with what voice they can, and the willing tongue is wont in turn to lick. Nor is that creature without affection which the sea hides beneath its waves; bird is gentle to bird, and beast tender to beast. Then if ever a predator comes from any troop, stronger, crushing the weak with claw or jaw, whether the prey be of the birds or be of the beasts, help is summoned and stretched out from every side; with running, in a flock, with cry, with flight, they long to snatch back their captive companion, even though they cannot. And since they thus preserve themselves by nature's gift alone, having neither counsel nor reason in their strength, what wonder is it if mutual care, following the Lord's commands that must be revered, should bind man to man, so that one skilled by practice, by wit, in affairs, by reason, may, as a brother, manage as his own the things that are yours?
Hence comes that maxim, deservedly pleasing, binding the human race together in equal condition: do not do to others whatever you do not wish done to you, and do to others that which you wish done to you. What kind of men, what rite of worship, what sex, what age, who would deny this to be right, who would deny it to be easy? What does this commandment not embrace broadly within its compass? What could be handed down more fully than with such brevity? For those things which are evil, I would not wish them done to me in just this way, while on the other hand I would desire that good things be done. There is no need of an informer, nor is any teacher sought: of ourselves we know what is good and what is evil. You will surely rejoice if some kindly person, when you are travelling by night, should lead you, his neighbour, into his lodging.
You too, then, be solicitous and receive under a roof made ready that man who will be a traveller in the late night. Naked, you long to be clothed with a garment; thirsting, to be called to the cup; hungering, to be satisfied with food: let an equal care for another's hardship move you also; share with the wretched your cloaks, your cups, your food. Behold, having stumbled, you ask for a hand; in grief, for comfort; trembling, for help; in doubt, for counsel: offer the same to the grieving, the doubtful, the trembling, the stumbling. In a like case, act so as to be loved, by loving. Surely you do not wish to be accused on a false charge: then fear to accuse others on a false charge. You hate the thief: flee theft; you do not wish to lose by violence what is yours: do nothing violently. You do not wish the agreements made with you to waver through uncertain dealing: keep with steadfast heart the faith you have promised.
The tongue that has slandered you, you would wish to cut out: let it be your care that envious words mark no one. When you ask for a loan, you wish to take the money at once: let a ready hand help the one who asks a loan. You condemn those puffed up with pride: lay aside your own swelling; what you flee in the lofty, let the lowly not know in you. Surely if you have a sister, or mother, or dear wife, lest grievous rumour stain their life, you bear the care of their unbroken chastity with watchful devotion as son, or brother, or husband: if an adulterer should assail these names you revere, you think the sword not enough for vengeance. Are you not guilty of the same offence if you too stealthily set out to tempt chaste marriage-beds? Hence it came that the Lord, under the first law, commanded crimes to be requited with equal punishments:
loss for loss, wound for wound, a tooth atoned for by a tooth, eyes for eyes plucked out. And no less, so that the bold man who desired to have snatched away another's life should under the judge render his own, and lest the guilty could call the judgment unjust, retribution was decreed for wicked crimes. And although the grace of Christ has changed these for the better, teaching things gentle rather than violent, yet it is right, right indeed, whatever the one law or the other commands, whether you make swift restitution or act with patience. Yet he is the better man who rejoices in Christ as his avenger, if he keeps for the Lord what the Lord has given to him. Therefore complete with pious vows and holy deeds that which this present life, and that which the life to come, approves, so that you, whom fleeting honesty commends in passing, may after death be received by everlasting glory.
For, made sure by our admonitions, remember that all things will abide which now the foolish think shall perish; and believe that the souls themselves, the same limbs returning, shall receive again the covering of the body. The face, the colour, the blood, the veins, the skin, the bones, the hair, as now they slip away, so again they will come, not only those whose stone tombs well preserve them buried, or the dust and fragrance of the Arabians, hardening, covers: but quicker than a word, the portion will return to be shaped into limbs, a portion from the tombs, a portion from the rivers. What the wind has lessened with its blast, what the beast with its bite, what the flame has burned up, and what the ruin has crushed, all will be present, all will come together from its scattered parts, part borne off by bird or fish, part torn by wild beasts; and what now great age gradually dissolves, that the Lord's trumpet will suddenly restore.
so that, according to the deserts of their deeds, in the very same body in which they wrought either good or evil deeds—indeed, when the flesh has returned to the stirrings of the souls—punishment may receive the guilty, and glory the just. But why should you doubt, since the things that go before demonstrate, that the faith of things to come may be made plain to you? Behold the woods stripped bare by the winter's cold, already luxuriating in their once-despaired-of foliage. The vine that stood mourning with its branches lopped is clothed in leaves and adorned with fruit. The ear of grain, with its spiked stalk, grows golden with dense beards, the grain that just now lay rotting in the earth; and the fields that now were squalid in their dismal decay laugh, glad with fresh sprouts, and grow red with bloom.
The very year itself, shut up in its varied months, with the changing of season bears the likeness of death, when spring is driven out by autumn, cold by heat, and—as is the way with human affairs—this comes, that departs. Yet by this eternal use, until God assents, it is rolled round in turn by alternating duty; and while the moving wheel of the long year follows itself, it is born and dies, sinks down and returns. For our end does not receive an end, and the death by which we first die, dies forever. While the conquering motion and the sense remain ever, every man shall live for perpetual time. Man shall live: but here weeping follows my words;
for I think the lot of man would have been better thus: that with the perception of life he should lay down the perception of punishment, and that one once born should become like to the unborn, than that now, with sins ruling throughout all the age, he should be quenched as to life, yet live unto torments. For I beg you, do not believe, to gain a shortening of the dreadful punishment, that the devouring flame swiftly consumes the guilty. Look at the hills plunged in eternal fires, scorched without ceasing, yet not diminished; and behold the icy springs and the dark-blue rivers ever pouring forth their waters, yet ever keeping them still. So the avenging fire shall ever ravage the wretched, that it may ever keep glad fuel for itself. If you think these things false, you will deservedly afterwards prove them true: but you will escape the false things, if only you fear the true.
Wherefore, if after death there follows eternal life, gladdening the just and torturing the guilty, strive with all your strength and all your vows to keep continually upon the ways that lead to the right. Tread underfoot the world together with the prince of death, and flee to trust in wanton delights. Above all, ever despise alluring faces, and snatch away their judgment from your eyes. No one carries glowing fires with garments untouched; no one amid the trumpets fails to draw the sound into his ear; no one walking amid flowers, encircled by their flattering scents, fails to pluck with his nail the ever-present rose for his nostrils; no one long thirsting and parched by the strong sun will lean over cold waters and not take possession of them; no one travelling the roads on foot in the winter season, sprinkled by the rain, will remain undrenched.
No one, though in the midst of walls, in time of war, lives either truly secure or truly safe. The encounter offers the sight, then the eyes conceive flames from the sight, and bring forth wickedness. While, as it were, by the fraud of the fisherman's cast hook the mind is first caught, afterwards it dies as well. The first plague of evil—alas, woman! The serpent's guile, and through you, drove man back from his Lord. You are the cause of the good torn away, you the gate of death, you swiftly deceived, you swiftly deceiving. Therefore come, you who strive to have your heart stained by no blemish and to be pure in soul, pure as you are: as snares, fire, swords, and sharp poisons, so will you flee to behold a praised face. I will not now recount, through so many ages already, how great peoples women's faces have destroyed.
I pass over the Spartan disasters, the Trojan wars, and how near, O Rome, was your destruction by an abduction, when the nations, subdued by no law of the Lord nor mastered by any admonitions of the saints unto life, were led by their wanton author wherever frenzy had driven them, and this was permitted which had been desired. From the sacred books, I say, from the sacred books learn with how great disgrace base love has been stained. The form of Dinah, O Shechem, destroyed you as you rushed upon her in excessive love, together with your father, together with your country. For when the sister had been ill-violated, the brothers' loving care promises her to the marriage-chamber, yet avenges her with the sword. This man too, David, praised in the song of the Psalms, a pleasing form cast down from his lofty throne, when, the crime being discovered, he covered his wretchedly wanton body with sackcloth and ground it with ashes.
Tamar's beauty drove two brothers at one and the same time into the crime of incest and the sword. The one corrupts her, the other avenges the corrupted: the vengeance that is just ceases to be pious. Solomon himself, too, whose wisdom in ancient time was renowned throughout the whole world, is led into crime, ensnared by forbidden love, bowing his shameful neck to a woman's yoke; and the praises of fitting renown which had adorned the young man deservedly abandoned the old man, forgetful of his Lord. A pleasing form delivered you, Haman, to death before the king; a form snatched away your head, O captain Holofernes. A comely form delivered to the cruel Philistines that Samson, famed for marvellous strength.
The holy man, victor and soldier through so many battles, alas, is wickedly subjected by craft to womanish dances, so that, now defiled—since crimes bring forth punishment—he gave kisses to maidens and his back to the swords. You too, only beloved and not a wife to the Levite, subjected on a mad night to the bed of young men, in your zeal for vengeance you gave whole tribes over to war, content either to destroy or to perish, so that, with limbs scattered in a mangled death, Gibeah, burned with dreadful fires, made itself a funeral pyre. Not if I had a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths could I set forth how greatly a pleasing form does harm. The blessed Apostle cries aloud to the wanton world, giving strict laws even to lawful beds; the man possessed by a wife, and the man free with his wife despised, do not have a like case in religion.
The care of a wife holds the husband entangled; the celibate wishes to have earned God alone. But because sometimes the eyes give way, and all rectitude slips upon a doubtful crossroad, if the impious enemy prepares to stain the pure soul, ever exulting to assail chaste faith, take up the weapons by which you may guard the holy ramparts of your heart: let the cross be your shield, let the cross be your sword. With suppliant tears, with groaning, with prayer, with breast beaten, seek night and day the God who brings salvation. And lest hope little by little caress an easy love, hasten to draw back your foot from the headlong slip. For I am not ignorant, as I try to succour the wretched, having endured all those things which I bid you flee. Do you look toward beauty?
But look rather at the cruel punishments; look at what you should praise, look at what you should fear; and with inner eyes and true light discern from earth to heaven, and from man to the Lord. Here the pleasure is brief, to be shut off at a scanty end: there is the devouring flame in perpetual brimstone. Hear the prophet crying with lofty voice, whether you read the ancient commands or the new: 'What praise is there in the face? Believe that all flesh is grass, since the glory of the flesh shall be as the flower of grass.' For just as the wind-struck flowers, the heat wears them away, the rains confound them, the stronger breeze snatches them off, so whoever's face is pleasing, time can consume it, and swelling and bruise can despoil it. And to say nothing of death itself, which wears away all things, how much do diseases, fevers, ulcers permit?
These men who now grow grey with white, squalid hair once did not fear the pitch-blacknesses combined with it. The drooping faces that mourn with disfiguring wrinkles had once worn a vain comeliness, fit to be gazed upon. The trembling foot that now wavers in loose skin had scarcely left a mark imprinted on the soft soil. The neck, the throat, the hands, and what now shudders in all of them, were once, alas, to the wretched a cause of frenzy. The eyes, which now a watery humour bathes, deformed, once gleamed like the red torches of the stars. Look at what blooms but a few years and does not remain, and yet the guilt remains with eternal tears. Therefore you will despise girlish faces and comely forms, either with face turned away or sunk down.
And that you may be inwardly pure in heart as in body, so that you make no one guilty by suspicion, give your effort with care, and ever foreseeing, choose that no woman be joined too closely to you. The wind will lose its force if there be nothing in its way; if fuel be lacking, the fire will be powerless. And lest only one part be thought to be roused by the commandments to the right ways of life, if any things men learn, let the woman believe them spoken to herself: this sex too has both its merit and its punishments. Let her hate to be bold to gaze on unknown faces, and yet to hide herself from familiar eyes. For the eyes playing with mischievously mingled laughter are often wont to speak alluringly with the mouth silent. And love, like the tears which injury compels to be shed, rises from the eyes and seeks the depths of the heart.
Therefore, by the same law of precept by which young men are admonished, let the chaste woman flee all men. Now if you have trodden down the body's enticements with a chaste body, shake off the remaining burden of the heart. For envy, the mother of manifold crime, is wont to creep up from the gall of black venom. Unhappy envy prepared death, itself doomed to die: by this the angel fell from the lofty citadel of heaven, and while he hastens to drive man from the heavenly kingdom, he himself first deserved to be thrust down into the darkness. Hence came the Lord's avenging sentence upon all; this one is guilty among all other deaths: this is the madness of war, this the discord of peace, harming itself more than the one it cruelly wishes to harm. This was the cause, under the excessive crime of the brothers, first of Joseph's slavery, soon of his rule.
This stained Cain with the blood of his righteous brother; this was nearly the cause of David's death, when, the war being now finished by the strength of one man alone, the father-in-law would not have the son-in-law exalted with praise. By this constraint the labourer of the first hour, groaning, strives to outdo the digger of the eleventh. This last of all gave Christ over to the mockeries of the cross, while malice carries out the work of credulity, and the headlong people see with their gaze the signs and miracles of things, yet receive them not in the heart. To such a degree had wicked envy, with its furious zeal, turned all men from the truth into crime, that they did not fail to know, but were unwilling to believe, that then man was to be glorified through the Lord. Nor with lighter care be mindful henceforth to shun the countless crime of avarice alone.
In all lands which the sun beholds, which the seas enclose, which day approaches, which darkness covers, whatever is spread abroad in a world unknown to us, in all kingdoms, in all peoples, with the minds of many infected by disease, this is the root, the cause, the head, the fount, and origin of evil. Whatever the Lord had fashioned for harmless uses, this has ruined by wickedly changing their functions. Why do you complain of dreadful harbours and raging winds, and seas grim with famous shipwrecks? You, the oak cut down in the forests with its aged timber, if it be not useful for beams, add to the hearth-fires. And content with your own, if anything is born removed across the world, believe with patience that it is denied to you. The motions of the deep and the savage storms blowing you will look upon, secure on the safe shore.
You, O avaricious men, have made of nature's use a vice, so that good things born become evil through wicked uses. The iron, begotten from earth into earthly services, curved into sickles, rigid into ploughshares, we arm for slaughter and dreadful deaths, the crimes of wars, with pikes, missiles, and swords. The fire we received to drive away violent cold, to drive away darkness and cook our feasts: we have begun, in our madness, to hurl flames at houses and to set them beneath bodies to be burned, as though it were a small crime within the crime of plundering, unless the robber should carry off riches sprinkled with blood, and the final force should compel wretched men with varied torments—when they lose what they have—to tell if anything lies hidden. Brothers hateful to brothers, and the life of parents hateful to their children, has avarice made.
To feign the false from the true, the true from the false, this cruel thing teaches through countless snares. By its doing, the guilty man, while he withdrew a portion of the gold, passed wholly into death—Ananias—and not he alone; for an equal punishment joined to the wretched man his partner in the foul crime of falsehood. This made wretched men, at the time of death, ill to trust in their final judgments. Documents are forged, a witness is sought out from every side, bearing falsehood on his lips, pressing truth down in his heart. Like gems are carved, the wicked hand learns, alas, to counterfeit hands wickedly forged, so that one is believed made the father and heir of another, and the son cannot be the heir of his own father. With this for guide, the adulterer, secure among the guards, comes by bribes to the chaste marriage-chamber.
Men go into every wickedness with minds and hands prepared, if you set gold as the price of crime. Tell me, I beg, why does so great a frenzy loose its reins upon the wretched, that what is now enough for you is not enough for you? You hasten to join lands to immeasurable lands, you who must be shut up in the marble of a little sarcophagus. Do you aim to grow richer by another's loss? What you snatch from others will soon be another's. And on swift course you will so grieve after the things lost, as those grieved who held them before. As though about to build immeasurable citadels that shall not fall, you yourself nonetheless who must swiftly die? A polished chamber, slippery with varied marbles, is adorned for your slumbers, bright with thinned glass: as though a quiet repose in a well-secure breast does not approach the dwellings framed of wood.
Surely it is no otherwise that the liquor which palm-cups offer, or which a hollow gem offers, washes the thirsting mouth; and so they take up the fastings of the raging belly to whom crystal vessels and the plate will give their food. Or does not the shaggy sheep furnish you better cloaks for driving off the icy colds of frost-bound winter, than that garment which, with metal drawn into slippery threads, weighed down, breaks the alternating steps? What good to you is a translucent dress, which with thin covering offers limbs to be covered to unknown eyes? Silver and the mass of gold and the gleaming gem are from the world and of the world: hence it comes, here it remains. You came into life naked, and naked you will go back: you had brought nothing with you, you will be able to carry nothing. Yet you will be able to carry these gifts of the world despised here: send on ahead, as one about to follow, the riches that will be doubled.