THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS WRITINGS - VOLUME 77
Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Gildas and Gregory of Tours
c. AD 500 – 594

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INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME
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HOW THIS BOOK IS ARRANGED

This is the seventy-seventh volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early
Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth
century. This volume holds Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Gildas and Gregory of Tours, from
the period about AD 500 – 594.

Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any
passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section
numbers.

THE TRANSLATIONS

The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for
SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation.
In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been
altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the
back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the
works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.

IN THIS VOLUME

The writer of these treatises took the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian who
believed when Paul preached on the Areopagus. The works appear in the record for the first
time in AD 532 and were probably written in Syria about AD 500. They join Christian
teaching to the thought of the Neoplatonists, especially Proclus, and they shaped the
mystical theology of the Greek East and the Latin West for a thousand years.

Boethius was born about AD 477 into a great Roman family, was consul in AD 510, and served
the Ostrogothic king Theodoric as master of the offices. He translated and explained the
logic of Aristotle for Latin readers and wrote short treatises on the Trinity and the
person of Christ. Accused of treason, he was imprisoned at Pavia and put to death in AD
524. The Consolation of Philosophy, written in prison, was among the most widely read
books of the Middle Ages.

Gildas was a British monk who wrote about the middle of the sixth century, a few
generations after the Roman legions had left Britain. His book On the Ruin of Britain is a
sermon against the kings and clergy of his day, and it holds the only near-contemporary
account of the Saxon settlement and of the British victory at Mount Badon. Later tradition
also gave him a prayer for protection, the Lorica, and a short penitential.

Gregory was born about AD 538 at Clermont in Gaul into a family of senators and bishops,
and was bishop of Tours from AD 573 until his death in AD 594. His Ten Books of Histories,
often called the History of the Franks, tell the story from the creation to his own day,
and are the chief source for the Frankish kingdoms under the sons and grandsons of Clovis.
He also wrote several books on the miracles of the saints.

This volume gathers four very different writers of the late fifth and sixth centuries: the
Greek mystical theologian who wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Roman
statesman Boethius, the British monk Gildas, and the Frankish bishop Gregory of Tours. The
writings of Pseudo-Dionysius come first, followed by Boethius, Gildas and Gregory.

DATES AND AUTHORSHIP

Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short
introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is
uncertain.


THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY
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THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

The Celestial Hierarchy describes the nine orders of angels in three groups of three, from
the Seraphim and Cherubim down to the Angels, and shows how the light of God passes down
through each rank to reach the world. The writer holds that images drawn from the senses
can lead the mind upward, if they are read as signs and not as the thing itself.

THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY

Chapter I

To my Fellow Presbyter Timothy. Dionysius the Presbyter. That every divine illumination,
whilst going forth lovingly to the objects of its forethought under various forms, remains
simplex. Nor is this all. It also unifies the things illuminated. Section I. "Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights."
Further also, every procession of illuminating light, proceeding from the Father, whilst
visiting us as a gift of goodness, restores us again gradually as an unifying power, and
turns us to the oneness of our conducting Father, and to a deifying simplicity. For all
things are from Him, and to Him, as said the Sacred Word. Section II.

Chapter I

Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, "which lighteth every man
coming into the world," "through Whom we have access to the Father," Source of Light, let
us aspire, as far as is attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our fathers in the
most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze, as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly
Minds manifested by them symbolically for our instruction. And when we have received, with
immaterial and unflinching mental eyes, the gift of Light, primal and super-primal, of the
supremely Divine Father, which manifests to us the most blessed Hierarchies of the Angels
in types and symbols, let us then, from it, be elevated to its simple splendour . For it
never loses its own unique inwardness, but multiplied and going forth, as becomes its
goodness, for an elevating and unifying blending of the objects of its care, remains
firmly and solitarily centred within itself in its unmoved sameness; and raises, according
to their capacity, those who lawfully aspire to it, and makes them one, after the example
of its own unifying Oneness. For it is not possible that the supremely Divine Ray should
otherwise illuminate us, except so far as it is enveloped, for the purpose of instruction,
in variegated sacred veils, and arranged naturally and appropriately, for such as we are,
by paternal forethought.

Section III. Wherefore, the Divine Institution of sacred Rites, having deemed it worthy of
the supermundane imitation of the Heavenly Hierarchies, and having depicted the aforesaid
immaterial Hierarchies in material figures and bodily compositions, in order that we might
be borne, as far as our capacity permits, from the most sacred pictures to the
instructions and similitudes without symbol and without type, transmitted to us our most
Holy Hierarchy. For it is not possible for our mind to be raised to that immaterial
representation and contemplation of the Heavenly Hierarchies, without using the material
guidance suitable to itself, accounting the visible beauties as reflections of the
invisible comeliness; and the sweet odours of the senses as emblems of the spiritual
distribution; and the material lights as a likeness of the gift of the immaterial
enlightenment; and the detailed sacred instructions , of the feast of contemplation within
the mind; and the ranks of the orders here, of the harmonious and regulated habit, with
regard to Divine things; and the reception of the most Divine Eucharist, of the partaking
of Jesus, and whatever other things were transmitted to Heavenly Beings supermundanely,
but to us symbolically.

For the sake, then, of this our proportioned deification, the philanthropic Source of
sacred mysteries, by manifesting the Heavenly Hierarchies to us, and constituting our
Hierarchy as fellow-ministers with them, through our imitation of their Godlike
priestliness , so far as in us lies, described under sensible likeness the supercelestial
Minds, in the inspired compositions of the Oracles, in order that It might lead us through
the sensible to the intelligible , and from inspired symbols to the simple sublimities of
the Heavenly Hierarchies. CAPUT II. That Divine and Heavenly things are appropriately
revealed, even through dissimilar symbols. Section I. It is necessary then, as I think,
first to set forth what we think is the purpose of every Hierarchy, and what benefit each
one confers upon its followers; and next to celebrate the Heavenly Hierarchies according
to their revelation in the Oracles; then following these Oracles, to say in what sacred
forms the holy writings of the Oracles depict the celestial orders, and to what sort of
simplicity we must be carried through the representations; in order that we also may not,
like the vulgar, irreverently think that the heavenly and Godlike minds are certain many-
footed and many-faced creatures, or moulded to the brutishness of oxen , or the savage
form of lions , and fashioned like the hooked beaks of eagles , or the feathery down of
birds , and should imagine that there are certain wheels of fire above the heaven, or
material thrones upon which the Godhead may recline, or certain many-coloured horses, and
spear-bearing leaders of the host , and whatever else was transmitted by the Oracles to us
under multifarious symbols of sacred imagery.

And indeed, the Word of God artlessly makes use of poetic representations of sacred
things, respecting the shapeless minds, out of regard to our intelligence, so to speak,
consulting a mode of education proper and natural to it, and moulding the inspired
writings for it. Section II. But if any one think well to accept the sacred compositions
as of things simple and unknown in their own nature, and beyond our contemplation, but
thinks the imagery of the holy minds in the Oracles is incongruous, and that all this is,
so to speak, a rude scenic representation of the angelic names; and further says that the
theologians ought, when they have come to the bodily representation of creatures
altogether without body, to represent and display them by appropriate and, as far as
possible, cognate figures, taken, at any rate, from our most honoured and immaterial and
exalted beings, and ought not to clothe the heavenly and Godlike simple essences with the
many forms of the lowest creatures to be found on the earth (for the one would perhaps be
more adapted to our instruction, and would not degrade the celestial explanations to
incongruous dissimilitudes; but the other both does violence without authority to the
Divine powers, and likewise leads astray our minds, through dwelling upon these irreverent
descriptions); and perhaps he will also think that the super-heavenly places are filled
with certain herds of lions, and troops of horses, and bellowing songs of praise, and
flocks of birds, and other living creatures, and material and less honourable things, and
whatever else the similitudes of the Oracles, in every respect dissimilar, describe, for a
so-called explanation, but which verge towards the absurd, and pernicious, and
impassioned;

now, in my opinion, the investigation of the truth demonstrates the most sacred wisdom of
the Oracles, in the descriptions of the Heavenly Minds, taking forethought, as that wisdom
does, wholly for each, so as neither, as one may say, to do violence to the Divine Powers,
nor at the same time to enthral us in the grovelling passions of the debased imagery. For
any one might say that the cause why forms are naturally attributed to the formless, and
shapes to the shapeless, is not alone our capacity which is unable immediately to elevate
itself to the intelligible contemplations, and that it needs appropriate and cognate
instructions which present images, suitable to us, of the formless and supernatural
objects of contemplation; but further, that it is most agreeable to the revealing Oracles
to conceal, through mystical and sacred enigmas, and to keep the holy and secret truth
respecting the supermundane minds inaccessible to the multitude. For it is not every one
that is holy, nor, as the Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all .

Section III. But if any one should blame the descriptions as being incongruous, by saying
that it is shameful to attribute shapes so repugnant to the Godlike and most holy Orders,
it is enough to reply that the method of Divine revelation is twofold; one, indeed, as is
natural, proceeding through likenesses that are similar, and of a sacred character, but
the other, through dissimilar forms, fashioning them into entire unlikeness and
incongruity. No doubt, the mystical traditions of the revealing Oracles sometimes extol
the august Blessedness of the super-essential Godhead, as Word , and Mind , and Essence ,
manifesting its God-becoming expression and wisdom, both as really being Origin, and true
Cause of the origin of things being, and they describe It as light , and call it life.
While such sacred descriptions are more reverent, and seem in a certain way to be superior
to the material images, they yet, even thus, in reality fall short of the supremely Divine
similitude. For It is above every essence and life. No light, indeed, expresses its
character, and every description and mind incomparably fall short of Its similitude.

But at other times its praises are supermundanely sung, by the Oracles themselves, through
dissimilar revelations, when they affirm that it is invisible , and infinite , and
incomprehensible ; and when there is signified, not what it is, but what it is not. For
this, as I think, is more appropriate to It, since, as the secret and sacerdotal tradition
taught, we rightly describe its non-relationship to things created, but we do not know its
superessential, and inconceivable, and unutterable indefinability. If, then, the negations
respecting things Divine are true, but the affirmations are inharmonious, the revelation
as regards things invisible, through dissimilar representations, is more appropriate to
the hiddenness of things unutterable. Thus the sacred descriptions of the Oracles honour,
and do not expose to shame, the Heavenly Orders, when they make them known by dissimilar
pictorial forms, and demonstrate through these their supermundane superiority over all.
material things. And I do not suppose that any sensible man will gainsay that the
incongruous elevate our mind more than the similitudes; for there is a likelihood, with
regard to the more sublime representations of heavenly things, that we should be led
astray, so as to think that the Heavenly Beings are certain creatures with the appearance
of gold, and certain men with the appearance of light , and glittering like lightning ,
handsome , clothed in bright shining raiment, shedding forth innocuous flame, and so with
regard to all the other shapes and appropriate forms, with which the Word of God has
depicted the Heavenly Minds.

In order that men might not suffer from this, by thinking they are nothing more exalted
than their beau tiful appearance, the elevating wisdom of the pious theologians reverently
conducts to the incongruous dissimilarities, not permitting our earthly part to rest fixed
in the base images, but urging the upward tendency of the soul, and goading it by the
unseemliness of the phrases (to see) that it belongs neither to lawful nor seeming truth,
even for the most earthly conceptions, that the most heavenly and Divine visions are
actually like things so base. Further also this must particularly be borne in mind, that
not even one of the things existing is altogether deprived of participation in the
beautiful, since, as is evident and the truth of the Oracles affirms, all things are very
beautiful . Section IV. It is, then, possible to frame in one's mind good contemplations
from everything, and to depict, from things material, the aforesaid dissimilar
similitudes, both for the intelligible and the intelligent; since the intelligent hold in
a different fashion things which are attributed to things sensible differently. For
instance, appetite, in the irrational creatures, takes its rise in the passions, and their
movement, which takes the form of appetite, is full of all kinds of unreasonableness. But
with regard to the intelligent, we must think of the appetite in another fashion, as
denoting, according to my judgment, their manly style, and their determined persistence in
their Godlike and unchangeable steadfastness. In like manner we say, with regard to the
irrational creatures, that lust is a certain uncircumspect and earthly passionate
attachment, arising incontinently from an innate movement, or intimacy in things subject
to change, and the irrational supremacy of the bodily desire, which drives the whole
organism towards the object of sensual inclination. But when we attribute "lust" to
spiritual beings, by clothing them with dissimilar similitudes, we must think that it is a
Divine love of the immaterial, above expression and thought, and the inflexible and
determined longing for the supernally pure and passionless contemplation, and for the
really perpetual and intelligible fellowship in that pure and most exalted splendour, and
in the abiding and beautifying comeliness.

And 'incontinence' we may take for the persistent and inflexible, which nothing can
repulse, on account of the pure and changeless love for the Divine beauty, and the whole
tendency towards the really desired. But with regard to the irrational living beings, or
soulless matter, we appropriately call their irrationality and want of sensible perception
a deprivation of reason and sensible perception. And with regard to the immaterial and
intelligent beings, we reverently acknowledge their superiority, as supermundane beings,
over our discursive and bodily reason, and the material perception of the senses which is
alien to the incorporeal Minds. It is, then, permissible to depict forms, which are not
discordant, to the celestial beings, even from portions of matter which are the least
honourable, since even it, having had its beginning from the Essentially Beautiful, has
throughout the whole range of matter some echoes of the intellectual comeliness; and it is
possible through these to be led to the immaterial archetypes----things most similar being
taken, as has been said, dissimilarly, and the identities being denned, not in the same
way, but harmoniously, and appropriately, as regards the intellectual and sensible beings.

Section V. We shall find the Mystic Theologians enfolding these things not only around the
illustrations of the Heavenly Orders, but also, sometimes, around the supremely Divine
Revelations Themselves. At one time, indeed, they extol It under exalted imagery as Sun of
Righteousness, as Morning Star rising divinely in the mind, and as Light illuming without
veil and for contemplation; and at other times, through things in our midst, as Fire ,
shedding its innocuous light; as Water , furnishing a fulness of life, and, to speak
symbolically, flowing into a belly, and bubbling forth rivers flowing irresistibly; and at
other times, from things most remote, as sweet-smelling ointment , as Head Corner-stone .
But they also clothe It in forms of wild beasts, and attach to It identity with a Lion ,
and Panther , and say that it shall be a Leopard , and a rushing Bear . But, I will also
add, that which seems to be more dishonourable than all, and the most incongruous, viz.
that distinguished theologians have shewn it to us as representing Itself under the form
of a worm . Thus do all the godly-wise, and interpreters of the secret inspiration,
separate the holy of holies from the uninitiated and the unholy, to keep them undefined,
and prefer the dissimilar description of holy things, so that Divine things should neither
be easily reached by the profane, nor those who diligently contemplate the Divine imagery
rest in the types as though they were true;

and so Divine things should be honoured by the true negations, and by comparisons with the
lowest things, which are diverse from their proper resemblance. There is then nothing
absurd if they depict even the Heavenly Beings under incongruous dissimilar similitudes,
for causes aforesaid. For probably not even we should have come to an investigation, from
not seeing our way,----not to say to mystic meaning through an accurate enquiry into
Divine things,----unless the deformity of the descriptions representing the Angels had
shocked us, not permitting our mind to linger in the discordant representations, but
rousing us utterly to reject the earthly proclivities, and accustoming us to elevate
ourselves through things that are seen, to their supermundane mystical meanings. Let these
things suffice to have been said on account of the material and incongruous descriptions
of the holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is necessary to define what we think
the Hierarchy is in itself, and what benefit those who possess a Hierarchy derive; from
the same. But let Christ lead the discourse----if it be lawful to me to say----He Who is
mine,----the Inspiration of all Hierarchical revelation. And thou, my son, after the pious
rule of our Hierarchical tradition, do thou religiously listen to things religiously
uttered, becoming inspired through instruction in inspired things;

and when thou hast enfolded the Divine things in the secret recesses of thy mind, guard
them closely from the profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not lawful, as the
Oracles say, to cast to swine the unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of the
intelligible pearls.

Chapter III

What is Hierarchy? and what the use of Hierarchy? Section I. Hierarchy is, in my judgment,
a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the
likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to
capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation. Now the God-becoming Beauty, as simple, as
good, as source of initiation, is altogether free from any dissimilarity, and imparts its
own proper light to each according to their fitness, and perfects in most Divine
initiation, as becomes the undeviating moulding of those who are being initiated
harmoniously to itself. Section II. The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimilation
and union, as far as attainable, with God, having Him Leader of all religious science and
operation, by looking unflinchingly to His most Divine comeliness, and copying, as far as
possible, and by perfecting its own followers as Divine images, mirrors most luminous and
without flaw, receptive of the primal light and the supremely Divine ray, and devoutly
filled with the entrusted radiance, and again, spreading this radiance ungrudgingly to
those after it, in accordance with the supremely Divine regulations. For it is not lawful
for the Mystic Rites of sacred things, or for things religiously done, to practise
anything whatever beyond the sacred regulations of their own proper function. Nor even
must they attempt otherwise, if they desire to attain its deifying splendour, and look to
it religiously, and are moulded after the example of each of the holy minds. He, then, who
mentions Hierarchy, denotes a certain altogether Holy Order, an image of the supremely
Divine freshness, ministering the mysteries of its own illumination in hierarchical ranks,
and sciences, and assimilated to its own proper Head as far as lawful.

For each of those who have been called into the Hierarchy, find their perfection in being
carried to the Divine imitation in their own proper degree; and, what is more Divine than
all, in becoming a fellow-worker with God, as the Oracles say, and in shewing the Divine
energy in himself manifested as far as possible. For it is an Hierarchical regu-lation
that some are purified and that others purify ; that some are enlightened and others
enlighten ; that some are perfected and others perfect; the Divine imitation will fit each
one in this fashion. The Divine blessedness, to speak after the manner of men, is indeed
unstained by any dissimilarity , and is full of invisible light ----perfect , and needing
no perfection; cleansing, illuminating, and perfecting, yea, rather a holy purification,
and illumination, and perfection----above purification, above light, preeminently perfect,
self-perfect source and cause of every Hierarchy, and elevated pre-eminently above every
holy thing.

Section III. It is necessary then, as I think, that those who are being purified should be
entirely perfected, without stain, and be freed from all dissimilar confusion; that those
who are being illuminated should be filled with the Divine Light, conducted to the habit
and faculty of contemplation in all purity of mind; that those who are being initiated
should be separated from the imperfect, and become recipients of that perfecting science
of the sacred things contemplated. Further, that those who purify should impart, from
their own abundance of purity, their own proper holiness; that those who illuminate, as
being more luminous intelligences, whose function it is to- receive and to impart light,
and who are joyfully filled with holy gladness, that these should overflow, in proportion
to their own overflowing light, towards those who are worthy of enlightenment; and that
those who make perfect, as being skilled in the impartation of perfection, should perfect
those being perfected, through the holy instruction, in the science of the holy things
contemplated. Thus each rank of the Hierarchical Order is led, in its own degree, to the
Divine co-operation, by performing, through grace and God-given power, those things which
are naturally and supernaturally in the Godhead, and accomplished by It superessentially,
and manifested hierarchically, for the attainable imitation of the God-loving Minds .

Chapter IV

What is meant by the appellation "Angels?" Section I. Now that the Hierarchy itself has
been, in mv judgment, sufficiently defined, we must next extol the Angelic Hierarchy, and
we must contemplate, with supermundane eyes, its sacred formations, depicted in the
Oracles, in order that we may be borne aloft to their Divinely resplendent simplicity,
through the mystic representations, and may extol the source of all Hierarchical science
with God-becoming reverence and with thanksgivings. First of all, however, let this truth
be spoken ----that it was through goodness that the superessential Godhead, having fixed
all the essences of things being, brought them into being. For this is the peculiar
characteristic of the Cause of all things, and of goodness surpassing all, to call things
being to participation of Itself, as each order of things being was determined from its
own analogy. For all things being share in a Providence, which bubbles forth from the
superessential Deity, Cause of all things. For they would not be, unless they had
participated in the Essence and Origin of things being. All things then, without life,
participate in It by their being. For the being of all things is the Deity, above being;
things living participate in its life-giving power, above all life; things rational and
intellectual participate in its self-perfect and preeminently perfect wisdom, above all
reason and mind. It is evident, then, that all those Beings are around It, which have
participated in It, in many forms.

Section II. The holy orders, then, of the Heavenly Beings share in the supremely Divine
participation, in a higher degree than things which merely exist, or which lead an
irrational life, or which are rational like ourselves. For by moulding themselves
intelligibly to the Divine imitation, and looking supermundanely to the supremely Divine
likeness, and striving to mould their intellectual appearance, they naturally have more
ungrudging communications with It, being near and ever moving upwards, as far as lawful,
elevating themselves with the intensity of the Divine unswerving love, and receiving the
primal illuminations without earthly stain, and ranging themselves to these, and having
their whole life intellectual. These, then, are they who, at first hand, and under many
forms, participate in the Divine, and, at first hand, and under many forms, make known the
supremely Divine Hiddenness. Wherefore, beyond all, they are deemed pre-eminently worthy
of the appellation Angelic, on the ground that the supremely Divine illumination comes to
them at first hand, and, through them, there pass to us manifestations above us. Thus,
then, the Law, as the Word of God affirms, was given to us through the ministration of
Angels ; and Angels led our illustrious fathers before the Law, and after the Law, to the
Divine Being, either by leading them to what was to be done, and by converting them from
error, and an unholy life, to the straight way of truth , or by making known to them
sacred ordinances , or hidden visions, or supermundane mysteries , or certain Divine
predictions through the Prophets .

Section III. But if any one should say that Divine manifestations were made directly and
immediately to some holy men , let him learn, and that distinctly, from the most Holy
Oracles, that no one hath seen, nor ever shall see, the "hidden" τὸ κρύφιον of Almighty
God as it is in itself . Now Divine manifestations were made to the pious as befits
revelations of God, that is to say, through certain holy visions analogous to those who
see them. Now the all-wise Word of God (Theologia) naturally calls Theophany that
particular vision which manifests the Divine similitude depicted in itself as in a shaping
of the shapeless, from the elevation of the beholders to the Divine Being, since through
it a divine illumination comes to the beholders, and the divine persons themselves are
religiously initiated into some mystery. But our illustrious fathers were initiated into
these Divine visions, through the mediation of the Heavenly Powers. Does not the tradition
of the Oracles describe the holy legislation of the Law, given to Moses, as coming
straight from God, in order that it may teach us this truth, that it is an outline of a
Divine and holy legislation? But the Word of God, in its Wisdom, teaches this also----that
it came to us through Angels, as though the Divine regulation were laying down this rule,
that, through the first, the second are brought to the Divine Being. For not only with
regard to the superior and inferior minds, but even for those of the same rank, this Law
has been established by the superessential supreme ordinance, that, within each Hierarchy,
there are first, and middle, and last ranks and powers, and that the more divine are
instructors and conductors of the less, to the Divine access, and illumination, and
participation.

Section IV. But I observe that Angels first were initiated in the Divine mystery of the
love of Jesus towards man, then, through them, the gift of its knowledge passed to us.
Thus, for example, the most divine Gabriel instructed Zachariah, the Hierarch, that the
son who was to be born to him, beyond hope, by Divine grace, should be a prophet of the
God-incarnate work of the Lord Jesus, to be manifested to the world for its salvation, as
becomes the Divine goodness; and he revealed to Mary, how, in her, should be born the
supremely Divine mystery of the unutterable God-formation. Yet another Angel instructed
Joseph, how, in very truth, should be fulfilled the things Divinely promised to his
ancestor David. Another declared glad tidings to the shepherds, as being purified by their
separation from the multitude, and their quiet life, and, with him, a multitude of the
Heavenly Host announced to those on earth that often-sung doxology. Let us then ascend to
the highest manifestations of light contained in the Oracles, for I perceive that even
Jesus Himself, the superessential Cause of the super-heavenly Beings, when He had come to
our condition, without change, did not overstep the good order which becomes mankind,
which Himself arranged and took, but readily subjected Himself to the dispositions of the
Father and God, through Angels; and, through their mediation, was announced to Joseph the
departure of the Son to Egypt, which had been arranged by the Father, and again the return
to Judaea from Egypt.

And through Angels we see Him subjecting Himself to the Father's decrees. For I forbear to
speak, as addressing one who knows the teaching of our hierarchical tradition, both
concerning the Angel who strengthened the Lord Jesus, or that even Jesus Himself, when He
had come to manifest the good work of our beneficent salvation, was called Angel of Great
Counsel. For, as He Himself says, after the manner of an Angel, "Whatsoever He heard from
the Father, He announced to us."

Chapter V

For what reason all the Heavenly Beings are called, in common, Angels. This, then, in our
judgment, is the reason for the appellation Angelic in the Oracles. We must now, I
suppose, enquire for what reason the theologians call all the Heavenly Beings together
"Angels;" but when they come to a more accurate description of the supermundane orders,
they name exclusively, "angelic rank," that which completes the full tale of the Divine
and Heavenly Hosts. Before this, however, they range pre-eminently, the Orders of
Archangels, and the Principalities, the Authorities, and Powers, and as many Beings as the
revealing traditions of the Oracles recognize as superior to them. Now, we affirm that
throughout every sacred ordinance the superior ranks possess the illuminations and powers
of their subordinates, but the lowest have not the same powers as those who are above
them. The theologians also call the most holy ranks of the highest Beings "Angels," for
they "also make known the supremely Divine illumination. But there is no reason to call
the lowest rank of the celestial Minds, Principalities, or Thrones, or Seraphim. For it
does not possess the highest powers, but, as it conducts our inspired Hierarchs to the
splendours of the Godhead known to it; so also, the saintly powers of the Beings above it
are conductors, towards the Divine Being, of that Order which completes the Angelic
Hierarchies. Except perhaps some one might say this also, that all the angelic
appellations are common, as regards the subordinate and superior communication of all the
celestial powers towards the Divine likeness, and the gift of light from God. But, in
order that the question may be better investigated, let us reverently examine the saintly
characteristics set forth respecting each celestial Order in the Oracles.

Chapter VI

Which is the first Order of the Heavenly Beings? which the middle? and which the last? How
many, and of what sort, are the Orders of the supercelestial Beings, and how the
Hierarchies are classified amongst themselves, I affirm, the deifying Author of their
consecration alone distinctly knows; and further, that they know their own proper powers
and illuminations, and their sacred and supermundane regularity. For it is impossible that
we should know the mysteries of the supercelestial Minds and their most holy perfections,
except, some one might say, so far as the Godhead has revealed to us, through them, as
knowing perfectly their own condition. We, then, will utter nothing as from ourselves, but
whatever angelic visions have been gazed upon by the holy Prophets of God, we, as
initiated in these, will set forth as best we can. The Word of God has designated the
whole Heavenly Beings as nine, by appellations, which shew their functions. These our
Divine Initiator divides into three threefold Orders. He also says that that which is
always around God is first and is declared by tradition to be united closely and
immediately, to Him, before all the rest. For he says that the teaching of the Holy
Oracles declares, that the most Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged hosts,
named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim, are established immediately around God,
with a nearness superior to all. This threefold order, then, our illustrious Guide spoke
of as one, and of equal rank, and really first Hierarchy, than which there is not another
more Godlike or immediately nearer to the earliest illuminations of the Godhead. But he
says, that which is composed of the Authorities, and Lordships, and Powers is second; and,
as respects the lowest of the Heavenly Hierarchies, the Order of the Angels and Archangels
and Principalities is third.

Chapter VII

Concerning the Seraphim and Cherubim and Thrones, and concerning their first Hierarchy.
Section I. We, whilst admitting this as the arrangement of the holy Hierarchies, affirm,
that every appellation of the celestial Minds denotes the Godlike characteristic of each;
and those who know Hebrew affirm, that the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either
that they are kindling or burning; and that of Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream
of wisdom. Naturally, then, the first (order) of the Heavenly Hierarchies is ministered by
the most exalted Beings, holding, as it does, a rank which is higher than all, from the
fact, that it is established immediately around God, and that the first-wrought Divine
manifestations and perfections pass earlier to it, as being nearest. They are called,
then, "Burning," and Thrones, and Stream of Wisdom----by a name which sets forth their
Godlike conditions. The appellation of Seraphim plainly teaches their ever moving around
things Divine, and constancy, and warmth, and keenness, and the seething of that
persistent, indomitable, and inflexible perpetual motion, and the vigorous assimilation
and elevation of the subordinate, as giving new life and rekindling them to the same heat;
and purifying through fire and burnt-offering, and the light-like and light-shedding
characteristic which can never be concealed or consumed, and remains always the same,
which destroys and dispels every kind of obscure darkness.

But the appellation of the Cherubim denotes their knowledge and their vision of God, and
their readiness to receive the highest gift of light, and their power of contemplating the
super-Divine comeliness in its first revealed power, and their being filled anew with the
impartation which maketh wise, and their ungrudging communication to those next to them,
by the stream of the given wisdom. The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent
Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling inferiority, and their
supermundane tendency towards higher things; and their unswerving separation from all
remoteness; and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest,
with the whole force of their powers; and their receptivity of the supremely Divine
approach, in the absence of all passion and earthly tendency, and their bearing God; and
the ardent expansion of themselves for the Divine receptions. Section II. This, then, is
the revelation of their names, so far as we can give it; and we ought to say what we think
their Hierarchy is. For I suppose we have sufficiently shewn above, that the purpose of
every Hierarchy is an unswerving devotion to the divine imitation of the Divine Likeness,
and that every Hierarchical function is set apart for the sacred reception and
distribution of an undefiled purification, and Divine Light, and perfecting science. And
now I pray that I may speak worthily of the most exalted Minds----how the Hierarchy
amongst them is exhibited through the Oracles.

One must consider, then, that the Hierarchy is akin, and in every respect like, to the
first Beings, who are established after the Godhead, who gave them Being, and who are
marshalled, as it were, in Its very vestibule, who surpass every unseen and seen created
power. We must then regard them as pure, not as though they had been freed from unholy
stains and blemishes, nor yet as though they were unreceptive of earthly fancies, but as
far exalted above every stain of remissness and every inferior holiness, as befits the
highest degree of purity----established above the most Godlike powers, and clinging
unflinchingly to their own self-moved and same-moved rank in their invariable love of God,
conscious in no respect whatever of any declivity to a worse condition, but having the
unsullied fixity of their own Godlike identity----never liable to fall, and always
unmoved; and again, as "contemplative," not contemplators of intellectual symbols as
sensible, nor as being led to the Divine Being by the varied texture of holy
representations written for meditation, but as being filled with all kinds of immaterial
knowledge of higher light, and satiated, as permissible, with the beautifying and original
beauty of super-essential and thrice manifested contemplation, and thus, being deemed
worthy of the Communion with Jesus, they do not stamp pictorially the deifying similitude
in divinely-formed images, but, as being really near to Him, in first participation of the
knowledge of His deifying illuminations;

nay more, that the imitation of God is given to them in the highest possible degree, and
they participate, so far as is allowable to them, in His deifying and philanthropic
virtues, in the power of a first manifestation; and, likewise as "perfected," not as being
illuminated with an analytic science of sacred variety, but as being filled with a first
and pre-eminent deification, as beseems the most exalted science of the works of God,
possible in Angels. For, not through other holy Beings, but being ministered from the very
Godhead, by the immediate elevation to It, by their power, and rank, surpassing all, they
are both established near the All-Holy without any shadow of turning, and are conducted
for contemplation to the immaterial and intelligible comeliness, as far as permissible,
and are initiated into the scientific methods of the works of God, as being first and
around God, being ministered, in the highest degree, from the very source of consecration.

Section III. This, then, the theologians distinctly shew (viz.) that the subordinate
Orders of the Heavenly Beings are taught by the superior, in due order, the deifying
sciences; and that those who are higher than all are illuminated from Godhead itself, as
far as permissible, in revelations of the Divine mysteries. For they introduce some of
them as being religiously instructed, by those of a higher rank, that He, Who was raised
to Heaven as Man, is Lord of the Heavenly Powers and King of Glory; and others, as
questioning Jesus Himself, as desiring to be instructed in the science of His Divine work
on our behalf, and Jesus Himself teaching them immediately, and shewing to them, at first
hand, His beneficent work out of love to man. For "I," He says, "am speaking of
righteousness and judgment of Salvation." Now I am astonished that even the first of the
Beings in Heaven, and so far above all, should reverently strive after the supremely
Divine illuminations, as intermediate Beings. For they do not ask directly, "Wherefore are
Thy garments red? " but they first raise the question among themselves, shewing that they
desire to learn, and crave the deifying knowledge, and not anticipating the illumination
given after a Divine procedure.

The first Hierarchy, then, of the Heavenly Minds is purified, and enlightened, and
perfected, by being ministered from the very Author of initiation, through its elevation
to It immediately, being filled, according to its degree, with the altogether most holy
purification of the unproachable Light of the pre-perfect source of initiation, unstained
indeed by any remissness, and full of primal Light, and perfected by its participation in
first-given knowledge and science. But to sum up, I may say this, not inappropriately,
that the reception of the supremely Divine Science is, both purification, and
enlightenment, and perfecting,----purifying, as it were, from ignorance, by the knowledge
of the more perfect revelations imparted to it according to fitness, and enlightening by
the self-same Divine knowledge, through which it also purifies, that which did not before
contemplate the things which are now made manifest through the higher illumination; and
perfecting further, by the self-same Light, through the abiding science of the mysteries
made clearly manifest.

Section IV. This, then, according to my science, is the first rank of the Heavenly Beings
which encircle and stand immediately around God; and without symbol, and without
interruption, dances round His eternal knowledge in the most exalted ever-moving stability
as in Angels; viewing purely many and blessed contemplations, and illuminated with simple
and immediate splendours, and filled with Divine nourishment,----many indeed by the first-
given profusion, but one by the unvariegated and unifying oneness of the supremely Divine
banquet, deemed worthy indeed of much participation and co-operation with God, by their
assimilation to Him, as far as attainable, of their excellent habits and energies, and
knowing many Divine things pre-eminently, and participating in supremely Divine science
and knowledge, as is lawful. Wherefore the Word of God has transmitted its hymns to those
on earth, in which are Divinely shewn the excellency of its most exalted illumination. For
some of its members, to speak after sensible perception, proclaim as a "voice of many
waters," "Blessed is the glory of the Lord from His place" and others cry aloud that
frequent and most august hymn of God, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth, the whole earth
is full of His glory.

These most excellent hymnologies of the supercelestial Minds we have already unfolded to
the best of our ability in the "Treatise concerning the Divine Hymns," and have spoken
sufficiently concerning them in that Treatise, from which, by way of remembrance, it is
enough to produce so much as is necessary to the present occasion, namely, "That the first
Order, having been illuminated, from this the supremely Divine goodness, as permissible,
in theological science, as a Hierarchy reflecting that Goodness transmitted to those next
after it," teaching briefly this, "That it is just and right that the august Godhead ----
Itself both above praise, and all-praiseworthy----should be known and extolled by the God-
receptive minds, as is attainable; for they as images of God are, as the Oracles say, the
Divine places of the supremely Divine repose; and further, that It is Monad and Unit tri-
subsistent, sending forth His most kindly forethought to all things being, from the super-
heavenly Minds to the lowest of the earth; as super-original Origin and Cause of every
essence, and grasping all things super-essentially in a resistless embrace.

Chapter VIII

Concerning Lordships and Powers and Authorities, and concerning their middle Hierarchy.
Section I. Let us now pass to the middle Order of the Heavenly Minds, gazing, as far as we
may, with supermundane eyes upon those Lordships, and the truly terrible visions of the
Divine Authorities and Powers. For each appellation of the Beings above us manifests their
God-imitating characteristics of the Divine Likeness. I think, then, that the explanatory
name of the Holy Lordships denotes a certain unslavish elevation, free from all grovelling
subserviency, as becomes the free, not submitting itself in any way whatever to one of the
tyrannical dissimilarities, as a cruel Lordship; superior to every kind of cringing
slavery, indomitable to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimilarity, ever
aspiring to the true Lordship, and source of Lordship; and moulding, as an image of
goodness, itself, and those after it, to its Lordly bearing, as attainable, turning itself
wholly to none of the things that vainly seem, but to the Lordly Being, and ever sharing
in the Lordly Likeness of God, to its utmost ability;

and the appellation of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching
virility, for all those Godlike energies within them----not feebly weak for the reception
of any of the Divine illuminations vouchsafed to it----vigorously conducted to the Divine
imitation, not forsaking the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but
unflinchingly looking to the superessential and powerful-making power, and becoming a
powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable, and powerfully turned to this, as Source
of Power, and issuing forth to those next in degree, in gift of Power, and in likeness to
God; and that the appellation of the Holy Authorities, of the same rank as the Divine
Lordships and Powers, (denotes) the beautiful and unconfused good order, with regard to
the Divine receptions, and the discipline of the supermundane and intellectual authority,
not using the authoritative powers imperiously for base purposes, but conducted
indomitably, with good order, towards Divine things, and conducting those after it
benignly, and assimilated, as far as permissible, to the Authoritative Source of
authority, and making this visible, as is possible to Angels, in the well-ordered ranks of
the authoritative power within it. The middle Order of the Heavenly Minds having these
Godlike characteristics, is purified and illuminated and perfected in the manner
described, by the Divine illuminations vouchsafed to it at second hand, through the first
Hierarchical Order, and passing through this middle as a secondary manifestation.

Section II. No doubt, as regards that message, which is said to pass through one angel to
another, we may take it as a symbol of a perfecting completed from afar, and obscured by
reason of its passage to the second rank. For, as men skilled in our sacred initiations
say, the fulness of Divine things manifested directly to ourselves is more perfecting than
the Divine contemplations imparted through others. Thus, I think, the immediate
participation of the Angelic ranks elevated in first degree to God, is more clear than
those perfected through the instrumentality of others. Wherefore by our sacerdotal
tradition, the first Minds are named perfecting, and illuminating, and purifying Powers of
the subordinate, who are conducted, through them, to the superessential Origin of all
things, and participate, as far as is permissible to them, in the consecrating
purifications, and illuminations, and perfections. For, this is divinely fixed absolutely
by the Divine source of order that, through the first, the second partake of the supremely
Divine illuminations. This you will find declared by the theologians in many ways. For,
when the Divine and Paternal Love towards man whilst chastening, in a startling manner,
His people Israel, for their religious preservation, after delivering them to terrible and
savage nations for correction, by various leadings of His guided people to better things,
both liberated them from their misery, and mildly led them back, through His compassion,
to their former state of comfort;

one of the theologians, Zechariah, sees one of the first Angels, as I think, and near God,
(for the Angelic appellation is common, as I said, to them all), learning from God Himself
the comforting words, as they are called, concerning this matter; and another Angel, of
inferior rank, advancing to meet the first, as for reception and participation of
enlightenment: then, by him instructed in the Divine purpose as from a Hierarch, and
charged to reveal to the theologian that Jeru-salem should be abundantly occupied by a
multitude of people. And another theologian, Ezekiel, says that this was righteously
ordained by the glorious Deity Itself, seated above the Cherubim. For Paternal Love
towards man, conducting Israel as we have said through chastisement to better things, by a
righteousness worthy of God, deemed right to separate the guilty from the guiltless. This
is first revealed to one after the Cherubim; him who was bound about the loins with a
sapphire, and wore displayed the robe coming down to the feet, as a Hierarchical symbol.
But the Divine Government enjoins the other Angels, who bore the battle-axes, to be
instructed from the former, as to the Divine judgment in this matter. For, to one, He said
that he should go through the midst of Jerusalem, and place the sign upon the forehead of
the innocent men, but to the others; "Go into the city after him and strike, and draw not
back your eyes, but to every one upon whom is the sign draw not near."

What would any one say concerning the Angel, who said to Daniel, "The word has gone
forth?" or concerning him the first, who took the fire from the midst of the Cherubim, or
what is more remarkable than this for shewing the ' good order amongst the Angels, that
the Cherubim casts the fire into the hands of him who wears the sacred vestment; or
concerning Him Who called the most divine Gabriel, and said to him, "Make this man
understand the vision"," or whatever else is recorded by the holy theologians concerning
the Godlike order of the Heavenly Hierarchies; by being assimilated to which, as far as
possible, the discipline of our Hierarchy will have the Angelic comeliness, as it were, in
reflection, moulded through it, and conducted to the superessential Source of order in
every Hierarchy. CAPUT IX. Concerning the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, and
concerning their last Hierarchy.

Section I. There remains for our reverent contemplation a Division which completes the
Angelic Hierarchies, that divided into the Godlike Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.
And I think it necessary, to declare first the meaning of their sacred appellations to the
best of my ability. For that of the Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and
leading function, after the Divine example, with order religious and most befitting the
Princely, and their being wholly turned to the super-princely Prince, and leading others
in princely fashion, and being moulded, as far as possible, to that prince-making
Princedom Itself, and to manifest its superessential princely order, by the regularity of
the princely powers. Section II. The (Order) of the Holy Archangels is of the same rank
with the heavenly Principalities. For there is one Hierarchy and Division, as I said, of
them and the Angels. But since there is not a Hierarchy which does not possess first and
middle and last powers, the holy order of Archangels occupies the middle position in the
Hierarchy between the extremes, for it belongs alike to the most holy Principalities and
to the holy Angels; to the Principalities because it is turned in a princely fashion to
the superessential Princedom, and is moulded to It as far as attainable, and unites the
Angels after the fashion of its own well-regulated and marshalled and invisible leadings;
and it belongs to the Angels, because it is of the messenger Order, receiving
hierarchically the Divine illuminations from the first powers, and announcing the same to
the Angels in a godly manner, and, through Angels, manifesting to us, in proportion to the
religious aptitude of each of the godly persons illuminated. For the Angels, as we have
already said, complete the whole series of Heavenly Minds, as being the last Order of the
Heavenly Beings who possess the Angelic characteristic; yea, rather, they are more
properly named Angels by us than those of higher degree, because their Hierarchy is
occupied with the more manifest, and is more particularly concerned with the things of the
world. For the very highest Order, as being placed in the first rank near the Hidden One,
we must consider as directing in spiritual things the second, hiddenly;

and that the second, which is composed of the holy Lordships and Powers and Authorities,
leads the Hierarchy of the Principalities and Archangels and Angels, more clearly indeed
than the first Hierarchy, but more hiddenly than the Order after it, and the revealing
order of the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, presides, through each other, over
the Hierarchies amongst men, in order that the elevation, and conversion, and communion,
and union with God may be in due order; and, further, also that the procession from God
vouchsafed benignly to all the Hierarchies, and passing to all in common, may be also with
most sacred regularity. Hence, the Word of God has assigned our Hierarchy to Angels, by
naming Michael as Ruler of the Jewish people, and others over other nations. For the Most
High established borders of nations according to number of Angels of God. Section III. But
if any one should say, "How then were the people of the Hebrews alone conducted to the
supremely Divine illuminations? we must answer, that we ought not to throw the blame of
the other nations wandering after those which are no gods upon the direct guidance of the
Angels, but that they themselves, by their own declension, fell away from the direct
leading towards the Divine Being, through self-conceit and self-will, and through their
irrational veneration for things which appeared to them worthy of God. Even the Hebrew
people are said to have suffered the same thing; for He says, "Thou I hast cast away
knowledge of God, and hast gone after thine own heart. For neither have we a life governed
by necessity, nor on account of the free will of those who are objects of providential
care, are the Divine rays of the providential illumination blunted; but the inaptitude of
the mental visions makes the overflowing light-gift of the paternal goodness, either
altogether unparticipated or inpenetrable to their resistance, or makes the participations
of the one fontal ray, diverse, small, or great, obscure, or brilliant, although that ray
is one and simple, and always the same and ever overflowing; for even if, over the other
nations (from whom we also have emerged to that boundless and bounteous sea of Divine
Light, which is readily-expanded for the ready reception of all), certain not-alien gods
were wont to preside;

yet there is one Head of all, and to this, the Angels, who religiously direct each nation,
conduct those who follow them. Let us consider Melchizedek as being a Hierarch, most dear
to God; (not of gods which are not, but of the truly most high God); for the godly-wise
did not call Melchizedek simply dear to God, but also Priest, in order that they may
clearly shew to the wise, that not only was he himself turned to the true God, but further
that he was guide to others, as Hierarch of the elevation to the true and only Godhead.
Section IV. Let me also recall this to your Hierarchical judgment----that both to Pharaoh,
from the Angel who presided over the Egyptians, and to the BabylonianPrince, from his own
Angel, the watchful and ruling care of the Providence and Lordship over all, was
interpreted in visions; and for those nations, the worshippers of the true God were
appointed leaders, for the interpretation of things shaped by Angelic visions revealed
from God through Angels to holy men akin to the Angels, Daniel and Joseph. For there is
one Prince and Providence over all. And never must we think that the Godhead is leader of
Jews by lot, and that Angels, independently, or as of equal rank, or in opposition, or
that certain other gods, preside over the other nations. But that particular phrase of the
Divine Word must be accepted according to the following sacred intention; not as though
God had divided government amongst men, with other gods, or Angels, and had been elected
by lot to the government and leadership of Israel, but in this sense----whilst the one
Providence of Highest over all, assigned all mankind, savingly, to the directing conduct
of their own Angels, yet Israel, almost alone in comparison with all, turned himself to
the Light-gift, and recognition of the true Lord-Hence the Word of God, as shewing that
Israel elected himself for the worship of the true God, says this, "He became Lord's
portion;" and as indicating that he was assigned equally with the other nations, to one of
the holy Angels, for the recognition, through him, of the Head of all, said "That Michael
became leader of the (Jewish) people," demonstrating distinctly that there is one
Providence of the whole, superessentially established above all the powers, unseen and
seen, and that all the Angels who preside over each nation, elevate, as far as possible,
those who follow them with a willing mind, to It as their proper Head.

Chapter X

A Repetition and Summary of the Angelic discipline. Section I. We have concluded, then,
that the most reverend Order of the Minds around God, ministered by the perfecting
illumination through its immediate elevation to it, is purified, and illuminated, and
perfected by a gift of light from the Godhead, more hidden and more manifest----more
hidden, indeed, as being more intelligible, and more simplifying-, and more unifying; more
manifest, as being a first gift and a first manifestation, and more complete, and more
affused to it as transparent. And from this (Order) again, in due degree, the second, and
from the second, the third, and from the third, our Hierarchy, is reverently conducted to
the super-original Origin and End of all good order, according to the self-same law of
well-ordered regularity, in Divine harmony and proportion. Section II. Now all Angels are
interpreters of those above them, the most reverend, indeed, of God, Who moves them, and
the rest, in due degree, of those who have been moved by God. For, to such an extent has
the superessential harmony of all things provided for the religious order and the
regulated conduct of each of the rational and intellectual beings, that each rank of the
Hierarchies, has been placed in sacred order, and we observe every Hierarchy distributed
into first, and middle, and last Powers. But to speak accurately, He distinguished each
Division itself, by the same Divine harmonies; wherefore the theologians say that the most
Divine Seraphim cry one to another, indicating distinctly, as I think by this, that the
first impart their knowledge of divine things to the second.

Section III. I might add this not inappropriately, that each heavenly and human mind has
within itself its own special first, and middle, and last ranks, and powers, manifested
severally in due degree, for the aforesaid particular mystical meanings of the
Hierarchical illuminations, according to which, each one participates-, so far as is
lawful and attainable to him, in the most spotless purification, the most copious light,
the pre-eminent perfection. For there is nothing that is self-perfect, or absolutely
without need of perfecting, except the really Self-perfect and preeminently Perfect. CAPUT
XI. For what reason all the Heavenly Beings, in common, are called Heavenly Powers.
Section I. Now that we have defined these things, it is worthy of consideration for what
reason we are accustomed to call all the Angelic Beings together, Heavenly Powers. For it
is not possible to say, as we may of the Angels, that the Order of the holy Powers is last
of all. The Orders of the superior Beings share in the saintly illumination. of the last;
but the last in no wise of the first; and on this account all the Divine Minds are called
Heavenly Powers, but never Seraphim and Thrones and Lordships. For the last do not enjoy
the whole characteristics of the highest. For the Angels, and those above the Angels----
Archangels, and Principalities, and Authorities,----placed by the Word of God after the
Powers, are often in common called by us, in conjunction with the other holy Beings,
Heavenly Powers.

Section II. But we affirm that, whilst often using the appellation, Heavenly Powers, for
all in common, we do not introduce a sort of. confusion of the characteristics of each
Order. But, inasmuch as all the Divine Minds, by the supermundane description given of
them, are distributed into three,----into essence, and power, and energy,----when we speak
of them all, or some of them, indiscriminately, as Heavenly Beings or Heavenly Powers, we
must consider that we manifest those about whom we speak in a general way, from their
essence or power severally. For we must not apply the superior characteristic of those
holy Powers, whom we have already sufficiently distinguished, to the Beings which are
entirely inferior to them, so as to overthrow the unconfused order of the Angelic ranks.
For according to the correct account which we have already frequently given, the superior
Orders possess abundantly the sacred characteristics of the inferior, but the lowest do
not possess the superior completeness of the more reverend, since the first-manifested
illuminations are revealed to them, through the first Order, in proportion to their
capacity.

Chapter XII

Why the Hierarchs amongst men are called Angels. Section I. But this is sometimes also
asked by diligent contemplators of the intelligible Oracles; Inasmuch as the lowest Orders
do not possess the completeness of the superior, for what reason is our Hierarch named by
the Oracles, "Angel of the Sovereign Lord?" Section II. Now the statement, as I think, is
not contrary to what has been before defined; for we say that the last lack the complete
and pre-eminent Power of the more reverend Divisions; for they participate in the partial
and analogous, according to the one harmonious and binding fellowship of all things. For
example, the rank of the holy Cherubim participates in higher wisdom and knowledge, but
the Divisions of the Beings beneath them, participate, they also, in wisdom and knowledge,
but nevertheless partially, as compared with them, and in a lower degree. For the
participation of wisdom and knowledge throughout is common to all the minds which bear the
image of God; but the being near and first, or second and inferior, is not common, but, as
has been determined for each in its own degree. This also one might safely define
respecting all the Divine Minds; for, as the first possess abundantly the saintly
characteristics of the inferior, so the last possess those of the superior, not indeed in
the same degree, but subordinately. There is, then, as I think, nothing absurd, if the
Word of God calls our Hierarch, Angel, since he participates, according to his own
capacity, in the messenger characteristic of the Angels, and elevates himself, as far as
attainable to men, to the likeness of their revealing office.

Section III. But you will find that the Word of God calls gods, both the Heavenly Beings
above us, and the most beloved of God, and holy men amongst us, although the Divine
Hiddenness is transcendently elevated and established above all, and no created Being can.
properly and wholly be said to be like unto It, except those intellectual and rational
Beings who are entirely and wholly turned to Its Oneness as far as possible, and who
elevate themselves incessantly to Its Divine illuminations, as far as attainable, by their
imitation of God, if I may so speak, according to their power, and are deemed worthy of
the same divine name. CAPUT XIII. For what reason the Prophet Isaiah is said to have been
purified by the Seraphim. Section I. Come, then, let us examine this as best we can, why
the Seraphim is said to be sent to one of the Theologians; for some one may object, that
not one of the inferior Angels, but he, the enrolled amongst the most reverend Beings,
cleanses the Prophet.

Section II. Some, then, affirm that, according to the definition already given of the
mutual relation of all the Minds, the Logion does not name one of the highest around God,
as having come for the cleansing of the Theologian, but that some one of the Angels,
placed over us as a sacred Minister of the Prophet's cleansing, is called by the same
name. as the Seraphim, on the ground that the removal of the faults spoken of, and the
restoration of him who was cleansed for the Divine mission, was through fire; and they say
that the Logion speaks simply of one of the Seraphim, not one of those who are established
around God, but one of the Powers set over us for the purpose of cleansing. Section III.
Now another man brought forward to me a by no means foolish defence of the present
position. For he said that that great one, whoever he was,----the Angel who formed this
vision for the purpose of teaching the theologian Divine things,----referred his own
cleansing function to God, and after God, to the first working Hierarchy. And was not this
statement certainly true? For he who said this, affirmed that the supremely Divine Power
in visiting all, advances and penetrates all irresistibly, and yet is invisible to all,
not only as being superessentially elevated above all, but as secretly transmitting its
providential energies to all; yea, rather, it is manifested to all the intellectual Beings
in due degree, and by conducting Its own gift of Light to the most reverend Beings,
through them, as first, It distributes in due order to the subordinate, according to the
power of each Division to bear the vision of God; or to speak more strictly, and through
familiar illustrations (for if they fall short of the Glory of God, Who is exalted above
all, yet they are more illustrating for us), the distribution of the sun's ray passes with
easy distribution to first matter, as being more transparent than all, and, through it
with greater clearness, lights up its own splendours; but when it strikes more dense
materials, its distributed brilliancy becomes more obscure, from the inaptitude of the
materials illuminated for transmission of the gift of Light, and from this it is naturally
contracted, so as to almost entirely exclude the passage of Light.

Again, the heat of fire transmits itself chiefly to things that are more receptive, and
yielding, and conductive to assimilation to itself; but, as regards repellent opposing
substances, either it leaves none, or a very light, trace of its fiery energy; and
further, when through substances favourable to its proper action, it comes in contact with
things not congenial, ---- first, it perchance makes things easily changed to heating hot,
and through them heats proportionately either water or something else which is not easily
heated. After the same rule, then, of Nature's well-ordered method, the regulation of all
good order, both visible and invisible, manifests supernaturally the brightness of its own
gift of Light, in first manifestation to the most exalted Beings, in abundant streams, and
through these, the Beings after them partake of the Divine ray. For these, as knowing God
first, and striving preeminently after Divine virtue, and to become first-workers, are
deemed worthy of the power and energy for the imitation of God, as attainable, and these
benevolently elevate the beings after them to an equality, as far as possible, by
imparting ungrudgingly to them the splendour which rests upon themselves, and these again
to the subordinate, and throughout each Order, the first rank imparts its gift to that
after it, and the Divine Light thus rests upon all, in due proportion, with providential
forethought. There is, then, for all those who are illuminated, a Source of illumination,
viz., God, by nature, and really, and properly, as Essence of Light, and Cause of Being,
and Vision itself;

but, by ordinance, and for Divine imitation, the relatively superior (is source) for each
after it, by the fact, that the Divine rays are poured through it to that. All the
remaining Angelic Beings, then, naturally regard the highest Order of the Heavenly Minds
as source, after God, of every God-knowledge and God-imitation, since, through them, the
supremely Divine illumination is distributed to all, and to us. Wherefore, they refer
every holy energy of Divine imitation to God indeed as Cause, but to the first Godlike
Minds, as first agents and teachers of things Divine. The first Order, then, of the holy
Angels possesses, more than all, the characteristic of fire, and the streaming
distribution of supremely Divine wisdom, and the faculty of knowing the highest science of
the Divine illuminations, and the characteristic of Thrones, exhibiting their expansion
for the reception of God; and the ranks of the subordinate Beings possess indeed the
empyrean, the wise, the knowing, the God-receptive, faculty, but subordinately, and by
looking to the first, and through them, as being deemed worthy of the Divine imitation in
first operation, are conducted to the attainable likeness of God. The aforesaid holy
characteristics, then, which the Beings after them possess, through the first, they
attribute to those Beings themselves, after God, as Hierarchs. Section IV.

He who said this, used to affirm, that this vision was shewn to the Theologian, through
one of the holy and blessed Angels set over us, and that from his illuminating direction,
he was elevated to that intellectual contemplation in which he saw the most exalted Beings
seated (to speak symbolically) under God, and with God, and around God, and the super-
princely Eminence elevated unspeakably above them and all, seated on high in the midst of
the superior Powers. The Theologian then learned, from the things seen, that, as compared
with every super-essential pre-eminence, the Divine Being was seated incomparably above
every visible and invisible power, yea, even that It is exalted above all, as the Reality
of all things, as Absolute----not even like to the first of created Beings;----further
also, that It is source and essentiating Cause, and unalterable Fixity of the undissolved
continuance of all things, from, Which is both the being and the well-being of the most
exalted Powers themselves. Then he revealed that the Godlike powers of the most holy
Seraphim, themselves, whose sacred appellation signifies the Fiery, concerning which we
shall shortly speak as best we can, conducted the elevations of the empyrean power to the
Divine likeness.

And, the holy Theologian, by viewing the description of free and most exalted elevation of
the sixfold wings to the Divine Being in first, middle, and last conceptions, and further,
their endless feet and many faces, and their extended wings----one under their feet, and
the other over their faces, as seen in vision, and the perpetual movement of their middle
wings----was brought to the intelligible knowledge of the things seen, since there was
manifested to him the power of the most exalted minds for deep penetration and
contemplation, and the sacred reverence which they have, supermundanely, for the bold and
courageous and unattainable scrutiny into higher and deeper mysteries; and of the
incessant and high-flying perpetual movement of their Godlike energies in due proportion.
But he was also taught the hidden mysteries of that supremely Divine and much esteemed
Hymn of Praise----whilst the Angel who formed the vision imparts, as far as possible, his
own sacred knowledge to the Theologian. He also taught him this, that the participation,
as far as attainable, in the supremely Divine and radiant purity, is a purification to the
pure however pure; and it being accomplished from the very Godhead by most exalted causes,
for all the sacred Minds by a superessential hiddenness, is in a manner more clear, and
exhibits and distributes itself, in a higher degree, to the highest powers around It;

but with regard to the second, or us, the lowest mental powers, as each is distant from,
as regards the Divine likeness, so It contracts its brilliant illumination to the single
unknowable of its own hiddenness. And it illuminates the second, severally, through the
first; and, if one must speak briefly, it is firstly brought from hiddenness to
manifestation through the first powers. This, then, the Theologian was taught by the Angel
who was leading him to Light----that purification, and all the supremely Divine
operations, illuminating through the first Beings, are distributed to all the rest,
according to the relation of each for the deifying participations. Wherefore he reasonably
attributed to the Seraphim, after God, the characteristic of purification by fire. There
is nothing, then, absurd, if the Seraphim is said to purify the Prophet. For, as God
purifies all, by being cause of every purification, yea, rather (for I use a familiar
illustration) just as our Hierarch, when purifying or enlightening through his Leitourgoi
or Priests, is said himself to purify and enlighten, since the Orders consecrated through
him attribute to him their own proper sacred operations; so also the Angel who effected
the purification of the Theologian attributes his own purifying science and power to God,
indeed, as Cause, but to the Seraphim as first-operating Hierarch;

as any one might say with Angelic reverence, whilst teaching one who was being purified by
him, "There is a preeminent Source, and Essence, and Worker, and Cause of the cleansing
wrought upon you from me, He Who brings both the first Beings into Being, and holds them
together by their fixity around Himself, and keeps them without change and without fall,
moving them to the first participations of His own Providential energies (for this, He Who
taught me these things used to say, shews the mission of the Seraphim), but as Hierarch
and Leader after God, the Marshal of the most exalted Beings, from whom I was taught to
purify after the example of God ---- this is he, who cleanses thee through me, through
whom the Cause and Creator of all cleansing brought forth His own provident energies from
the Hidden even to us. These things, then, he taught me, and I impart them to thee. Let it
be a part of thy intellectual and discriminating skill, either, to acquit each of the
causes assigned from objection, and to honour this before the other as having likelihood
and good reason, and perhaps, the truth; or, to find out from yourself something more
allied to the real truth, or to learn from another; (God, of course, giving expression,
and Angels supplying it; and to reveal to us, the friends of Angels, a view more luminous
if it should be so, and to me specially welcome.

Chapter XIV

What the traditional number of the Angels signifies. This also is worthy, in my opinion,
of intellectual attention, that the tradition of the Oracles concerning the Angels affirms
that they are thousand thousands, and myriad myriads, accumulating and multiplying, to
themselves, the supreme limits of our numbers, and, through these, shewing clearly, that
the ranks of the Heavenly Beings cannot be numbered by us. For many are the blessed hosts
of the supermundane minds, surpassing the weak and contracted measurement of our material
number, and being definitely known by their own supermundane and heavenly intelligence and
science alone, which is given to them in profusion by the supremely Divine and Omniscient
Framer of Wisdom, and essentiating Cause and connecting Force, and encompassing Term of
all created things together. CAPUT XV. What are the morphic likenesses of the Angelic
Powers? what the fiery? what the anthromorphic? what are the eyes? what the nostrils? what
the ears? what the mouths? what the touch? what the eyelids? what the eyebrows? what the
prime? what the teeth? what the shoulders? what the elbows and the hands? what the heart?
what the breasts? what the back? what the feet? what the wings? what the nakedness? what
the robe? what the shining raiment? what the sacerdotal? what the girdles? what the rods?
what the spears? what the battle - axes? what the measuring lines? what the winds? what
the clouds? what the brass? what the electron? what the choirs? what the clapping of
hands? what the colours of different stones? what the appearance of the lion? what the
appearance of the ox? what the appearance of the eagle? what the horses? what the
varieties of coloured horses? what the rivers? what the chariots? what the wheels? what
the so-called joy of the Angels?

Section I. Come, then, let us at last, if you please, rest our mental vision from the
strain of lofty contemplation, befitting Angels, and descend to the divided and manifold
breadth of the many-shaped variety of the Angelic forms, and then return analytically from
the same, as from images, to the simplicity of the Heavenly Minds. But let this first be
made plain to you, that the explanations of the sacredly depicted likenesses represent the
same ranks of the Heavenly Beings as sometimes ruling, and, at other times, as being
ruled; and the last, ruling, and the first, being ruled; and the same, as has been said,
having first, and middle, and last powers ----without introducing anything absurd into the
description, according to the following method of explanation. For if indeed we were to
say that some are ruled by those above them, and then that they rule the same, and that
those above, whilst ruling those below, are ruled by those same who are being ruled, the
thing would manifestly be absurd, and mixed with all sorts of confusion. But if we say
that the same rule and are ruled, but no longer the self-same, or from the self-same, but
that each same is ruled by those before, and rules those below, one might say
appropriately that the Divinely pictured presentations in the Oracles may sometimes
attribute, properly and truly, the very same, both to first, and middle, and last powers.
Now the straining elevation to things above, and their being drawn unswervingly around
each other, as being guardians of their own proper powers, and that they participate in
the providential faculty to provide for those below them by mutual communication, befit
truly all the Heavenly Beings, although some, pre-eminently and wholly, as we have often
said, and others partially and subordinately.

Section II. But we must keep our discourse within bounds, and must search, in our first
explanation of the types, for what reason the Word of God prefers the sacred description
of fire, in preference to almost every other. You will find it, then, representing not
only wheels of fire, but also living creatures of fire, and men, flashing, as it were,
like lightning, and placing around the Heavenly Beings themselves heaps of coals of fire,
and rivers of flame flowing with irresistible force; and also it says that the thrones are
of fire; and that the most exalted Seraphim glow with fire, it shews from their
appellation, and it attributes the characteristic and energy of fire to them, and
throughout, above and below, it prefers pre-eminently the representation by the image of
fire. I think, then, the similitude of fire denotes the likeness of the Heavenly Minds to
God in the highest degree; for the holy theologians frequently describe the superessential
and formless essence by fire, as having many likenesses, if I may be permitted to say so,
of the supremely Divine property, as in things visible. For the sensible fire is, so to
speak, in everything, and passes through everything unmingled, and springs from all, and
whilst all-luminous, is, as it were, hidden, unknown, in its essential nature, when there
is no material lying near it upon which it may shew its proper energy. It is both
uncontrollable and invisible, self-subduing all things, and bringing under its own energy
anything in which it may happen to be;

varying, imparting itself to all things near it, whatever they may be; renewing by its
rousing heat, and giving light by its uncovered illuminations; invincible, unmingled,
separating, unchangeable, elevating, penetrating, lofty; subject to no grovelling
inferiority, ever moving, self-moving, moving other things, comprehending, incomprehended,
needing no other, imperceptibly increasing itself, displaying its own majesty to the
materials receiving it; energetic, powerful, present to all invisibly, unobserved, seeming
not to be, and manifesting itself suddenly according to its own proper nature by friction,
as it were by a sort of seeking, and again flying away im-palpably, undiminished in all
the joyful distributions of itself. And one might find many characteristics of fire,
appropriate to display the supremely Divine Energy, as in sensible images. The Godly-wise,
then, knowing this, depict the celestial Beings from fire, shewing their Godlikeness, and
imitation of God, as far as attainable. Section III. But they also depict them under the
likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of
looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and
guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of
irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their
dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and
indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many
parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers
of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the
tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception,
free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations. Now the discriminating
powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-
smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not
such, and to entirely reject.

The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely
Divine inspiration. The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible
nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams. The powers of touch
denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious. The eyelids and
eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God. The figures of manhood and
youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life. The teeth denote the dividing of the
nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by
a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the
proportionate elevation of the inferior. The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands,
denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing. The heart again is a symbol
of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its
forethought, as beseems the good.

The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving
distribution, as being placed above the heart. The back, the holding together the whole
productive powers of life. The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of
the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God
arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating
quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every
grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their
being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the
naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all
external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.
Section IV. But since again the simple and variegated wisdom both clothes the naked, and
distributes certain implements to them to carry, come, let us unfold, according to our
power, the sacred garments and implements of the celestial Minds. The shining and glowing
raiment, I think, signifies the Divine likeness after the image of fire, and their
enlightening, in consequence of their repose in Heaven, where is the Light, and their
complete illuminating intelligibly, and their being illuminated intellectually ; and the
sacerdotal robe denotes their conducting to Divine and mystical visions, and the
consecration of their whole life. And the girdles signify the guard over their productive
powers, and the collected habit of being turned uniformly to It, and being drawn around
Itself by an unbroken identity, in a well-ordered circle.

Section V. The rods signify the kingly and directing faculty, making all things straight.
The spears and the battle-axes denote the dividing of things unlike, and the sharp and
energetic and drastic operation of the discriminating powers. The geometricaland technical
articles denote the founding, and building, and completing, and whatever else belongs to
the elevating and guiding forethought for the subordinate Orders. But sometimes the
implements assigned to the holy Angels are the symbols of God's judgments to ourselves;
some, representing His correcting instruction or avenging righteousness, others, freedom
from peril, or end of education, or resumption of former well-being, or addition of other
gifts, small or great, sensible or intelligible. Nor would a discriminating mind, in any
case whatever, have any difficulty in properly adapting things visible to things
invisible. Section VI. But the fact that they are named winds denotes their rapid action,
passing almost instantaneously to all things, and their transporting movement in passing
from above to below, and again from below to above, their elevating the second to the
height above, and moving the first to a common and provident advance of the inferior
Orders. But perhaps some one would say that the appellation of wind, to the aerial spirit,
also denotes the Divine likeness of the Heavenly Minds; for this also bears a likeness and
type of the supremely Divine energy (as we have demonstrated more fully in the symbolic
theology, in our explanation of the four elements) in accordance with the moving and life-
producing, and the rapid and resistless development of Nature, and the Hiddenness of the
moving sources and terminations to us unknown and invisible. For He says, "Thou knowest
not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth." But also the Word of God attributes to them
the appearance of a cloud, signifying, through this, that the holy minds are filled super-
mundanely with the hidden Light, receiving the first manifestation without boasting over
it as such, which they distribute ungrudgingly to the second, as a secondary
manifestation, and in proportion to capacity; yea, further, that the productive, and life-
producing, and increasing, and perfecting power is enshrined in them, after the fashion of
the intelligible production of showers, which summons the receptive womb of the earth, by
fruitful rains, to the life-giving pangs of birth.

Section VII. Also, the Word of God attributes to the Heavenly Beings a likeness to Brass,
Electron, and many-coloured stones. Electron, as being partly like gold, partly like
silver, denotes the incorruptible, as in gold, and unexpended, and undiminished, and
spotless brilliancy, and the brightness, as in silver, and a luminous and heavenly
radiance. But to the Brass, according to the reasons assigned, must be attributed either
the likeness of fire or that of gold. We must consider that the many-coloured appearances
of stones denote either as white, the luminous; or as red, the fiery; or as yellow, the
golden; or as green, the youthful and the full grown; and within each likeness you will
find an explanation which teaches the inner meaning of the typical images. But since, I
think, according to our power, this has been sufficiently said, let us pass to the sacred
explanation of the Divine representations of the Heavenly Minds through wild beasts . We
must consider that the shape of a Lion signifies the leading, and robust, and indomitable,
and the assimilation, as far as possible, to the unutterable Godhead, by the concealment
of the intellectual footprints , and by the mystically modest covering of the path,
leading to It, during Divine illumination.

Section VIII. The Image of the Ox denotes the strong and the mature, turning up the
intellectual furrows for the reception of the heavenly and productive showers; and the
Horns, the guarding and indomitable. The representation of the Eagle denotes the kingly,
and soaring, and swift in flight, and quickness in search of the nourishment which makes
strong, and wanness, and agility, and cleverness; and the unimpeded, straight, and
unflinching gaze towards the bounteous and brilliant splendour of the Divine rays of the
sun, with the robust extension of the visual powers. That of Horses represents obedience
and docility, and of those who are white, brilliancy, and as especially congenial to the
Divine Light; but of those who are dark blue, the Hidden; and of those red, the fiery and
vigorous; and of the piebald, the uniting of the extremes by the power passing through
them, and joining the first to the second, and the second to the first, reciprocally and
considerately.

Now if we did not consult the proportion of our discourse, we might, not inappropriately,
adapt the particular characteristics of the aforesaid living creatures, and all their
bodily representations to the Heavenly Powers, upon the principle of dissimilar
similitudes; for instance, their appearance of anger, to intellectual manliness, of which
anger is the remotest echo, and their desire, to the Divine love; and to speak summarily,
referring all the sensible perceptions, and many parts of irrational beings, to the
immaterial conceptions and unified Powers of the Heavenly Beings. Now not only is this
sufficient for the wise, but even an explanation of one of the dissimilar representations
would be sufficient for the accurate description of similar things, after the same
fashion. Section IX. But we must examine the fact that rivers are spoken of, and Wheels
and Chariots attached to the Heavenly Beings. The rivers of fire signify the supremely
Divine streams furnishing to them an ungrudging and incessant flow, and nourishing the
productive powers of life; the chariots, the conjoined communion of those of the same
rank; the wheels being winged, and advancing without turning and without deviation, the
power of their advancing energy within a straight and direct path, towards the same
unflinching and straight swoop of their every intellectual track, supermundanely straight
and direct way. Also it is possible to explain, after another mystical meaning, the sacred
description of the intellectual wheels; for the name Gel, Gel, is given to them, as the
theologian says. This shews, according to the Hebrew tongue, revolutions and revelations.
For the Empyrean and Godlike wheels have revolutions, indeed, by their perpetual movement
around the Good Itself; but revelations, by the manifestation of things hidden, and by the
elevation of things at our feet, and by the descending procession of the sublime
illuminations to things below. There remains for accurate explanation, the statement
respecting the rejoicing of the Heavenly Orders; for they are utterly incapable of our
impassioned pleasure. Now they are said to rejoice with God over the discovery of what was
lost, as befits their Divine good nature, and that Godlike and ungrudging rejoicing over
the care and salvation of those who are turned to God;

and that joy, beyond description, of which also holy men often partake, whilst the
deifying illuminations of the Deity rest upon them. Let it suffice, then, to have said
this much concerning the Divine representations, which, no doubt, falls short of their
accurate explanation, but which will prevent us, I think, from being servilely entangled
in the resemblance of the types. But if you should say that we have not mentioned in order
the whole Angelic Powers, or operations, or likenesses, depicted in the Oracles, we answer
in truth, that we do not possess the supermundane science of some; and further, in regard
to them, we have need of another to conduct to light and to reveal. Other things, however,
as being parallel to the things said, we have omitted, out of regard to the symmetry of
the discourse; and the hiddenness, beyond our capacity, we have honoured by silence.

St. Michael and All Angels, 1898. [Selected footnotes moved to the end and numbered. Most
are biblical references, which have been given for the first few pages only.]


THE DIVINE NAMES
================

THE DIVINE NAMES Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

On the Divine Names takes the names that Scripture gives to God, among them Good, Light,
Beauty, Love, Being, Life, Wisdom, Power and Peace, and explains what they mean and in
what way God is above every name. It is the longest and most Platonic of the writings that
go under the name of Dionysius.

THE DIVINE NAMES

Chapter I

TO MY FELLOW PRESBYTER, TIMOTHY, DIONYSIUS THE PRESBYTER. What is the purpose of the
discourse, and what the tradition concerning Divine Names. SECTION I. Now then, O Blessed
One, after the Theological Outlines , I will pass to the interpretation of the Divine
Names, as best I can. But, let the rule of the Oracles be here also prescribed for us,
viz., that we shall establish the truth of the things spoken concerning God, not in the
persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit-moved power of the
Theologians, by aid of which we are brought into contact with things unutterable and
unknown, in a manner unutterable and unknown, in proportion to the superior union of the
reasoning and intuitive faculty and operation within us. By no means then is it permitted
to speak, or even to think, anything, concerning the superessential and hidden Deity,
beyond those things divinely revealed to us in the sacred Oracles . For Agnosia, (supra-
knowledge) of its superessentiality above reason and mind and essence----to, it must we
attribute the super-essential science, so far aspiring to the Highest, as the ray of the
supremely Divine Oracles imparts itself, whilst we restrain ourselves in our approach to
the higher glories by prudence and piety as regards things Divine. For, if we must place
any confidence in the All Wise and most trustworthy Theology, things Divine are revealed
and contemplated in proportion to the capacity of each of the minds, since the supremely
Divine Goodness distributes Divinely its immeasurableness (as that which cannot be
contained) with a justice which preserves those whose capacity is limited. For, as things
intelligible cannot be comprehended and contemplated by things of sense, and things
uncompounded and unformed by things compounded and formed;

and the intangible and unshaped formlessness of things without body, by those formed
according to the shapes of bodies; in accordance with the self-same analogy of the truth,
the superessential Illimitability is placed above things essential, and the Unity above
mind above the Minds; and the One above conception is inconceivable to all conceptions;
and the Good above word is unutterable by word----Unit making one every unit, and
superessential essence and mind inconceivable, and Word unutterable, speechlessness and
inconception, and namelessness----being after the manner of no existing being, and Cause
of being to all, but Itself not being, as beyond every essence, and as It may manifest
Itself properly and scientifically concerning Itself. SECTION II. Concerning this then, as
has been said, the super-essential and hidden Deity, it is not permitted to speak or even
to think beyond the things divinely revealed to us in the sacred Oracles. For even as
Itself has taught (as becomes Its goodness) in the Oracles, the science and contemplation
of Itself in Its essential Nature is beyond the reach of all created things, as towering
superessentially above all. And you will find many of the Theologians, who have celebrated
It, not only as invisible and incomprehensible, but also as inscrutable and un-traceable,
since there is no trace of those who have penetrated to Its hidden infinitude. The Good
indeed is not entirely uncommunicated to any single created being, but benignly sheds
forth its super-essential ray, persistently fixed in Itself, by illuminations analagous to
each several being, and elevates to Its permitted contemplation and communion and
likeness, those holy minds, who, as far as is lawful and reverent, strive after It, and
who are neither impotently boastful towards that which is higher than the harmoniously
imparted Divine manifestation, nor, in regard to a lower level, lapse downward through
their inclining to the worse, but who elevate themselves determinately and unwaveringly to
the ray shining upon them; and, by their proportioned love of permitted illuminations, are
elevated with a holy reverence, prudently and piously, as on new wings.

SECTION III. Following then, these, the supremely Divine standards, which also govern the
whole holy ranks of the supercelestial orders,----whilst honouring the unre-vealed of the
Godhead which is beyond mind and matter, with inscrutable and holy reverence of mind, and
things unutterable, with a prudent silence, we elevate ourselves to the glories which
illuminate us in the sacred Oracles, and are led by their light to the supremely Divine
Hymns, by which we are supermundanely enlightened and moulded to the sacred Songs of
Praise, so as both to see the supremely Divine illuminations given to us by them,
according to our capacities, and to praise the good-giving Source of every holy
manifestation of light, as Itself has taught concerning Itself in the sacred Oracles. For
instance, that It is cause and origin and essence and life of all things; and even of
those who fall away from It, both recalling and resurrection; and of those who have lapsed
to the perversion of the Divine likeness, renewal and reformation; of those who are tossed
about in a sort of irreligious unsteadiness, a religious stability; of those who have
continued to stand, steadfastness; of those who are being conducted to It, a protecting
Conductor; of those being illuminated, illumination; of those being perfected, source of
perfection; of those being deified, source of deification; of those being simplified,
simplification; of those being unified, unity; of every origin superessentially super-
original origin; and of the Hidden, as far as is right, beneficent communication; and, in
one word, the life of the living, and essence of things that be; of all life and essence,
origin and cause; because Its goodness produces and sustains things that be, in their
being.

SECTION IV. These things we have learned from the Divine Oracles, and you will find all
the sacred Hymnology, so to speak, of the Theologians arranging the Names, of God with a
view to make known and praise the beneficent progressions of the Godhead. Hence, we see in
almost every theological treatise the Godhead religiously celebrated, both as Monad and
unity, on account of the simplicity and oneness of Its supernatural indivisibility from
which, as an unifying power, we are unified, and when our divided diversities have been
folded together, in a manner supermundane, we are collected into a godlike unit and
divinely-imitated union; but, also as Triad, on account of the tri-personal manifestation
of the superessential productiveness, from which all paternity in heaven and on earth is,
and is named; also, as cause of things existing, since all things were brought into being
on account of Its creative goodness, both wise and good, because all things, whilst
preserving the properties of their own nature unimpaired, are filled with every inspired
harmony and holy comeliness, but pre-eminently, as loving towards man, because It truly
and wholly shared, in one of Its Persons (subsistencies), in things belonging to us,
recalling to Itself and replacing the human extremity, out of which, in a manner
unutterable, the simplex Jesus was composed, and the Everlasting took a temporal duration,
and He, Who is superessentially exalted above every rank throughout all nature, became
within our nature, whilst retaining the unchangeable and unconfused steadfastness of His
own properties.

And whatever other divinely-wrought illuminations, conformable to the Oracles, the secret
tradition of our inspired leaders bequeathed to us for our enlightenment, in these also we
have been initiated; now indeed, according to our capacity, through the sacred veils of
the loving-kindness towards man, made known in the Oracles and hierarchical traditions,
which envelop things intellectual in things sensible, and things superessential in things
that are; and place forms and shapes around the formless and shapeless, and multiply and
fashion the supernatural and formless simplicity in the variedness of the divided symbols;
but, then, when we have become incorruptible and immortal, and have reached the Christlike
and most blessed repose, according to the Divine saying, we shall be "ever with the Lord,"
fulfilled, through all-pure contemplations, with the visible manifestation of God covering
us with glory, in most brilliant splendours, as the disciples in the most Divine
Transfiguration, and participating in His gift of spiritual light, with unimpassioned and
immaterial mind; and, even in the union beyond conception, through the agnostic and most
blessed efforts after rays of surpassing brilliancy, in a more Divine imitation of the
supereelestial minds. For we shall be equal to the angels, as the truth of the Oracles
affirms, and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But now, to the best of our
ability, we use symbols appropriate to things Divine, and from these again we elevate
ourselves, according to our degree, to the simple and unified truth of the spiritual
visions;

and after our every conception of things godlike, laying aside our mental energies, we
cast ourselves, to the best of our ability, towards the superessential ray, in which all
the terms of every kind of knowledge pre-existed in a manner beyond expression, which it
is neither possible to conceive nor express, nor entirely in any way to contemplate, on
account of Its being pre-eminently above all things, and super-unknown, and Its having
previously contained within Itself, superessentially, the whole perfections of all kinds
of essential knowledge and power, and Its being firmly fixed by Its absolute power, above
all, even the supereelestial minds. For, if all kinds of knowledge are of things existing,
and are limited to things existing, that, beyond all essence, is also elevated above all
knowledge. SECTION V. And yet, if It is superior to every expression and every knowledge,
and is altogether placed above mind and essence,----being such as embraces and unites and
comprehends and anticipates all things, but Itself is altogether incomprehensible to all,
and of It, there is neither perception nor imagination, nor surmise, nor name, nor
expression, nor contact, nor science;----in what way can our treatise thoroughly
investigate the meaning of the Divine Names, when the superessential Deity is shewn to be
without Name, and above Name?

But, as we said when we put forth the Theological Outlines, it is not possible either to
express or to conceive what the One, the Unknown, the Super-essential self-existing Good
is,----I mean the threefold Unity, the alike God, and the alike Good. But even the unions,
such as befit angels, of the holy Powers, whether we must call them efforts after, or
receptions from, the super-Unknown and surpassing Goodness, are both unutterable and
unknown, and exist in those angels alone who, above angelic knowledge, are deemed worthy
of them. The godlike minds (men) made one by these unions, through imitation of angels as
far as attainable (since it is during cessation of every mental energy that such an union
as this of the deified minds towards the super-divine light takes place) celebrate It most
appropriately through the abstraction of all created things----enlightened in this matter,
truly and super-naturally from the most blessed union towards It----that It is Cause
Indeed of all things existing, but Itself none of them, as being superessentially elevated
above all. To none, indeed, who are lovers of the Truth above all Truth, is it permitted
to celebrate the supremely-Divine Essentiality----that which is the super-subsistence of
the super-goodness,----neither as word or power, neither as mind or life or essence, but
as pre-eminently separated from every condition, movement, life, imagination, surmise,
name, word, thought, conception, essence, position, stability, union, boundary,
infinitude, all things whatever.

But since, as sustaining source of goodness, by the very fact of Its being, It is cause of
all things that be, from all created things must we celebrate the benevolent Providence of
the Godhead; for all things are both around It and for It, and It is before all things,
and all things in It consist, and by Its being is the production and sustenance of the
whole, and all things aspire to It----the intellectual and rational, by means of knowledge
----things inferior to these, through the senses, and other things by living movement, or
substantial and habitual aptitude. SECTION VI. The theologians, having knowledge of this,
celebrate It, both without Name and from every Name. Without name, as when they say that
the Godhead Itself, in one of those mystical apparitions of the symbolical Divine
manifestation, rebuked him who said, "What is thy name?" and as leading him away from all
knowledge of the Divine Name, said this, "and why dost thou ask my Name? "and this (Name)
"is wonderful," And is not this in reality the wonderful Name, that which is above every
Name----the Nameless----that fixed above every name which is named, whether in this age or
in that which is to come? Also, as "many named," as when they again introduce It as
saying, "I am He, Who is----the Life----the Light----the God----the Truth." And when the
wise of God themselves celebrate Him, as Author of all things, under many Names, from all
created things----as Good----as Beautiful----as Wise----as Beloved----as God of gods----as
Lord of lords----as Holy of Holies----as Eternal----as Being----as Author of Ages----as
Provider of Life----as Wisdom----as Mind----as Word----as Knowing----as preeminently
possessing all the treasures of all knowledge----as Power----as Powerful----as King of
kings----as Ancient of days----as never growing old----and Unchangeable----as Preservation
-----as Righteousness----as Sanctification ---- as Redemption----as surpassing all things
in greatness----and as in a gentle breeze.----Yea, they also say that He is in minds, and
in souls, and in bodies, and in heaven and in earth, and at once, the same in the same----
in the world----around the world----above the world----supercelestial, superessential,
sun, star----fire----water----spirit----dew----cloud----self-hewn stone and rock----all
things existing----and not one of things existing.

SECTION VII. Thus, then, the "Nameless "befits the cause of all, which is also above all,
as do all the names of things existing, in order that there may be strictly a kingly rule
over the whole; and that all things may be around It and dependent upon It, as cause, as
beginning, as end. And Itself, according to the Divine saying, may be the "all in all,"
and truly sung as of all, producing, directing and perfecting and sustaining guard, and
shrine, and turning towards Itself, and that uniformly, irresistibly and pre-eminently.
For It is not only cause of sustenance, or life, or perfection,----so that from this or
that forethought alone the Goodness above Name should be named, but It previously embraced
in Itself all things existing, absolutely and without limit, by the complete benefactions
of His one and all-creating forethought, and by all created things in joint accord It is
celebrated and named.

SECTION VIII. Further also, the Theologians do not honour alone the Names of God which are
given from universal or particular Providences, or objects of His forethought; but also
from certain occasional Divine Visions, in the sacred temples or elsewhere, which
enlightened the initiated or the Prophets, they name the surpassing bright Goodness which
is above Name, after one or other causes and powers, and clothe It in forms and shapes of
man, or fire, or electron, and celebrate Its eyes and ears, and locks of hair, and
countenance, and hands, and back, and wings, and arms, and hinder parts and feet. Also
they assign to It crowns and seats, and drinking vessels and bowls, and certain other
things mystical, concerning which, in our Symbolic Theology, we will speak as best we can.
But now, collecting from the Oracles so much as serves the purpose of our present
treatise, and using the things aforesaid, as a kind of Canon, and keeping our eyes upon
them, let us advance to the unfolding of the Names of God, which fall within the range of
our understanding, and, what the hierarchical rule always teaches us throughout every
phase of theology, let us become initiated (to speak authoritatively) in the godlike
contemplations with a god-enlightened conception. And let us bring religious ears to the
unfoldings of the Holy Names of God, implanting the Holy in the Holy, according to the
Divine tradition, and removing it from the laughter and jeers of the uninitiated;

yea, rather, if certain men really are such, purifying them from their fighting against
God in this matter. Be it thine, then, to guard these things, O excellent Timothy,
according to the most holy leading, and to make the things Divine neither spoken nor known
to the uninitiated. For myself, may Almighty God give me to celebrate, in a manner worthy
of God, the numerous beneficent Names of the uncalled and unnamed Deity; and may He not
take away a word of truth from my mouth.

Chapter II

SECTION I. Concerning common and distinctive theology, and what is the Divine Union and
distinction. LET then the self-existent Goodness be sung from the Oracles as defining and
manifesting the whole supremely-Divine-Subsistence in its essential nature. For, what else
is there to learn from the sacred theology, when it affirms that the Godhead Itself,
leading the way, says, "Why dost thou ask me concerning the Good?----None is Good except
God alone." Now, this, we have thoroughly demonstrated elsewhere, that always, all the
God-becoming Names of God, are celebrated by the Oracles, not partitively, but as applied
to the whole and entire and complete and full Godhead, and that all of them are referred
impartitively, absolutely, unreservedly, entirely, to all the Entirety of the entirely
complete and every Deity. And verily as we have mentioned in the Theological Outlines, if
any one should say that this is not spoken concerning the whole Deity, he blasphemes, and
dares, without right, to cleave asunder the super-unified Unity.

We must affirm, then, that this is to be received respecting the whole Deity. For even the
essentially Good Word Himself said, "I am Good . And a certain one of the God-rapt
Prophets celebrates the Spirit as "the Good . And again this, "I am He, Who is . If they
shall say that this is said, not of the whole Deity, but should violently limit it to one
part, how will they understand this? "These things, saith He, Who is, Who was, Who is to
come, the Almighty ," and "Thou art the same ," and this, "Spirit of truth, which is,
which proceedeth from the Father . And if they say that the supremely Divine Life is not
coextensive with the whole, how is the sacred Word true which said, "As the Father raiseth
the dead and maketh alive, so also the Son maketh alive whom He will ," and that "the
Spirit is He, Who maketh alive ? But, that the whole Deity holds the Lordship over the
whole, one can scarcely say, as I think how many times, in reference to the Paternal
Deity, or the Filial, the word "Lord "is repeated in the Word of God, as applied to Father
and Son . But the Spirit also is Lord . And "the beautiful and the wise" are also sung
respecting the whole Deity.

And the light, and the deifying, and the cause, and whatever pertains to the whole
Godhead, the Oracles introduce into all the supremely Divine hymnody----collectively, when
they say "all things are from Almighty God; "but, specifically, as when they say, "all
things were made through Him and to Him," and "all things in Him consist," and "Thou shalt
send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be made. And, that one may speak summarily, the
supremely Divine Word Himself said, "I and the Father are One," and "all that the Father
hath are Mine," and, "All Mine are Thine, and Thine, Mine. And again, whatever pertains to
the Father and Himself, He attributes. to the supremely Divine Spirit, collectively and in
common----the works of God----the homage, the fontal and ceaseless cause and the
distribution of the goodly gifts. And I think, none of those, who have been nourished in
the Divine Oracles with unprejudiced conceptions, will oppose this, that all things
befitting God belong to the whole Godhead, according to the divinely perfect Word. Since,
then, we have demonstrated and defined these things from the Oracles,----here indeed
partially, but elsewhere sufficiently----we will undertake to unfold every Divine Name
whatsoever, which is to be received as referring to the whole Deity.

SECTION II. But if any one should say that we introduce in so doing a confusion, in
disparagement of the distinction which befits God, we do not think that such a statement
as this is itself sufficient to convince that it is true. For, if there is any one who has
placed himself entirely in opposition to the Oracles, he will be also entirely apart from
our. philosophy; and, if he has no care for the divine Wisdom of the Oracles, how shall we
care for his guidance to the theological science? But, if he regards the truth of the
Oracles, we also, using this canon and illumination, will advance unwaveringly to the
answer, as best we can, by affirming that theology transmits some things as common, but
others as distinctive; and neither is it meet to divide the common, nor to confuse the
distinctive; but that following It according to our ability, we ought to rise to the
Divine splendours; for, by taking thence the Divine revelations, as a most excellent canon
of truth, we strive to guard the things lying there, in their native simplicity and
integrity and identity----being ourselves guarded in our guard of the Oracles, and from
these receiving strength to guard those who guard them.

SECTION III. The (Names) then, common to the whole Deity, as we have demonstrated from the
Oracles, by many instances in the Theological Outlines, are the Super-Good, the Super-God,
the Superessential, the Super-Living, the Super-Wise, and whatever else belongs to the
superlative abstraction; with which also, all those denoting Cause, the Good, the
Beautiful, the Being, the Life-producing, the Wise, and whatever Names are given to the
Cause of all Good, from His goodly gifts. But the distinctive Names are the superessential
name and property of Father, and Son and Spirit, since no interchange or community in
these is in any way introduced. But there is a further distinction, viz., the complete and
unaltered existence of Jesus amongst us, and all the mysteries of love towards man
actually existing within it. SECTION IV. But it is rather necessary, I suppose, to resume
and to set forth the complete fashion of the Divine union and distinction, in order that
the whole discourse may be seen at a glance to reject everything ambiguous and indistinct,
and to define critically and distinctly the proper Names, as far as possible. For, as I
said elsewhere, the sacred instructors of our theological tradition call the "Divine
Unions" the hidden and unrevealed sublimities of the super-unutterable and super-unknown
Isolation; but the "distinctions," the goodly progressions and manifestations of the
Godhead; and, following the sacred Oracles, they mention also properties of the aforesaid
"Union; "and again of the distinction, that there are certain specific unions and
distinctions. For example, with regard to the Divine Union, that is, the
Superessentiality, there is kindred and common to the One-springing Triad, the
superessential sustaining Source, the super-Divine Deity, the super-good Goodness, the
supreme identity of the whole supreme Idiosyncrasy, the Oneness above source of one; the
Unspeakable; the Much-speaking, the Agnosia, the Comprehended by all, the Placing of all,
the Abstraction of all, that which is above all affirmation and abstraction, the abiding
and steadfastness in each other, if I may so speak, wholly super-united and in no part
commingled of the One-springing Persons, just as lights of lamps (to use sensible
illustrations familiar to our capacity), when in one house, are both wholly distinct in
each other throughout, and keep the distinction from each other specifically and perfectly
maintained, being one in distinction and distinct in union;

and then, indeed, we may see in a house, in which are many lamps, the lights of all united
to form one certain light and lighting up one combined radiance; and, as I suppose, no one
would be able to distinguish in the air containing all the lights the light of one or
other lamp from the rest, and to see one without the other, since whole in whole are mixed
together without being mingled. But, if any one were to take out from the chamber one
particular burner, the whole light belonging to it will depart with it; no particle of the
other lights being drawn along with it, nor any of its own light left with the other. For
there was, as I said, the complete union of all with all, unmingled throughout, and in no
part confused, and this actually in a body, the air, the light even itself being dependent
on the material fire. Whence we affirm that the superessential Union is fixed above not
only the unions in bodies, but also above those in souls themselves, and in minds
themselves, which, in a manner unmingled and supermundane, the Godlike and super-celestial
Illuminations, whole through whole, possess, as beseems a participation analagous to those
who participate in the Union elevated above all.

SECTION V. But there is a distinction in the superessential nomenclature of God, not only
that which I have mentioned, namely, that each of the One-springing Persons is fixed in
the union itself, unmingled and unconfused; but also that the properties of the
superessential Divine Production are not convertible in regard to one another. The Father
is sole Fountain of the superessential Deity, since the Father is not Son, nor the Son,
Father; since the hymns reverently guard their own characteristics for each of the
supremely Divine Persons. These then are the unions and distinctions within the
unutterable Union and sustaining Source. But, if the goodly progression of the Divine
Union, multiplying itself super-uniquely through Goodness, and taking to itself many
forms, is also a Divine distinction, yet, common within the Divine distinction, are the
resistless distributions, the substance-giving, the life-giving, the wise-making, and the
other gifts of the Goodness, Cause of all, after which from the participations and those
participating are celebrated the things imparticipatively participated. And this is
kindred and common, and one, to the whole Divinity, that it is all entire, participated by
each of the Participants, and by none partially. Just as a point in a circle's centre
participates in all the circumjacent straight lines in the circle, and as many impressions
of a seal participate in the archetypal seal, and in each of the impressions the seal is
whole and the same, and in none partial in any respect. But superior to these is the im-
partibility of the Deity----Cause of all----from the fact that there is no contact with
it. Nor has it any commingled communion with the things participating.

SECTION VI. And yet some one might say the seal is not whole and the same in the images
throughout. But of this the seal is not the cause, for it imparts itself all and the same
to each; but the difference of the recipients makes the figures dissimilar, since the
archetype is one and complete and the same. For instance, if the wax were soft and
impressionable, and smooth and unstamped, and neither unimpressionable and hard, nor
running and dissolving, it will have the figure clear and sharp and fixed. But if it
should lack any of the aforesaid aptitudes, this will be the cause of the non-
participative and un-figured and indistinct, and whatever else arises from inaptitude for
reception. Further, there is a distinction from the goodly work of God towards us, in that
the superessential Word was invested with being amongst us----from us----wholly and truly,
and did and suffered whatever things are choice and pre-eminent in His human work of God.
For in these, the Father and the Spirit in no respect communicated, except perhaps, one
might say, as regards the benign and philanthropic purpose, and as regards all the pre-
eminent and unutterable work of God which the unchangeable, qua God and Word of God, did
when He had been born amongst us. Thus we, too, strive to unite and distinguish in the
Word the things Divine, as the things Divine themselves, are united and distinguished.

SECTION VII. Now we have set forth in the Theological Outlines whatever Divine Causes we
have found in the Oracles, of these unions, and distinctions, by treating each separately,
according to our ability; by explaining some things, by the infallible Word, and unfolding
them; and by conducting the religious and unpolluted mind to the bright visions of the
Oracles; but others, as being full of mystery, by approaching them according to the Divine
tradition, which is superior to mental energy. For all the Divine properties, even those
revealed to us, are known by the participations alone; and themselves, such as they are in
their own source and abode, are above mind and all essence and knowledge. For instance, if
we have named the superessential Hid-denness, God, or Life, or Essence, or Light, or Word
(λόγος), we have no other thought than that the powers brought to us from It are deifying,
or essentiating, or life-bearing, or wisdom-imparting; but to Itself we approach during
the cessation of all the intellectual energies, seeing no deification, or life, or essence
whatever, such as is strictly like the Cause pre-eminently elevated above all. Again, that
the Father is fontal Deity, but the Lord Jesus and the Spirit are, if one may so speak,
God-planted shoots, and as it were Flowers and superessential Lights of the God-bearing
Deity, we have received from the holy Oracles; but how these things are, it is neither
possible to say, nor to conceive.

SECTION VIII. But. up to this point, our utmost power of mental energy carries us, namely,
that all divine paternity and sonship have been bequeathed from the Source of paternity
and Source of sonship----pre-eminent above all----both to us and to the supercelestial
powers, from which the godlike become both gods, and sons of gods, and fathers of gods,
and are named Minds, such a paternity and sonship being of course accomplished
spiritually, i.e. incorporeally, immaterially, intellectually,---- since the supremely
Divine Spirit is seated above all intellectual immateriality, and déification, and the
Father and the Son are pre-eminently elevated above all divine paternity and sonship. For
there is no strict likeness, between the caused and the causes. The caused indeed possess
the accepted likenesses of the causes, but the causes themselves are elevated and
established above the caused, according to the ratio of their proper origin. And, to use
illustrations suitable to ourselves, pleasures and pains are said to be productive of
pleasure and pain, but these themselves feel neither pleasure nor pain. And fire, whilst
heating and burning, is not said to be burnt and heated. And, if any one should say that
the self-existent Life lives, or that the self-existent Light is enlightened, in my view
he will not speak correctly, unless, perhaps, he should say this after another fashion,
that the properties of the caused are abundantly and essentially pre-existent in the
causes.

SECTION IX. Further also, the most conspicuous fact of all theology----the God-formation
of Jesus amongst us----is both unutterable by every expression and unknown to every mind,
even to the very foremost of the most reverend angels. The fact indeed that. He took
substance as man, we have received as a mystery, but we do not know in what manner, from
virginal bloods, by a different law, beyond nature, He was formed, and how, with dry feet,
having a bodily bulk and weight of matter, He marched upon the liquid and unstable
substance ; and so, with regard to all the other features of the super-physical physiology
of Jesus. Now, we have elsewhere sufficiently spoken of these things, and they have been
celebrated by our illustrious leader, in his Theological Elements, in a manner far beyond
natural ability----things which that illustrious man acquired, either from the sacred
theologians, or comprehended from the scientific, search of the Oracles, from manifold
struggles and investigations respecting the same, or was instructed from a sort of more
Divine Inspiration, not only having learnt, but having felt the pangs of things Divine,
and from his sympathy with them, if I may so speak, having been perfected to their
untaught and mystic union and acceptance. And that we may display, in fewest words, the
many and blessed visions of his most excellent intelligence, the following are the things
he says, concerning the Lord Jesus, in the Theological Elements compiled by him.

SECTION X. From the Theological Elements of the most holy Hierotheus. Deity of the Lord
Jesus,---- the Cause and Completing of all, which preserves the parts concordant with the
whole, and is neither part nor whole, and whole and part, as embracing in Itself
everything both part and whole, and being above and before----is perfect indeed in the
imperfect, as source of perfection, but imperfect in the perfect, as superperfect, and
pre-perfect----Form producing form, in things without form, as Source of form----formless
in the forms, as above form,----Essence, penetrating without stain the essences
throughout, and superessential, exalted above every essence----setting bounds to the whole
principalities and orders, and established above every principality and order. It is
measure also of things existing, and age, and above age, and before age----full, in things
that need, superfull in things full, unutterable, unspeakable, above mind, above life,
above essence. It has the supernatural, supernaturally,----the superessential,
superessentially. Hence, since through love towards man, He has come even to nature, and
really became substantial, and the Super-God lived as Man (may He be merciful with regard
to the things we are celebrating, which are beyond mind and expression), and in these He
has the supernatural and super-substantial, not only in so far as He communicated with us
without alteration and without confusion, suffering no loss as regards His superfulness,
from His unutterable emptying of Himself----but also, because the newest of all new
things, He was in our physical condition super-physical----in things substantial, super-
substantial, excelling all the things----of us----from us----above us.

SECTION XI. This then is sufficient on these matters, let us now advance to the purpose of
the discourse by unfolding, to the best of our ability, the kindred and common Names of
the Divine distinction. And, in order that we may first distinctly define everything, in
order, we call Divine distinction, as we have said, the goodly progressions of the
Godhead. For, by being given to all things existing, and pouring forth the whole imparted
goods in abundance, It is distinguished uniformly, and multiplied uniquely, and is moulded
into many from the One, whilst being self-centred. For example, since Almighty God is
superessentially Being, but the Being is bequeathed to things being, and produces the
whole Essences; that One Being is said to be fashioned in many forms, by the production
from Itself of the many beings, whilst It remains undiminished, and One in the
multiplicity, and Unified during the progression, and complete in the distinction, both by
being superessentially exalted above all beings, and by the unique production of the
whole; and by the un-lessened stream of His undiminished distributions. Further, being
One, and having distributed the One, both to every part and whole, both to one and to
multitude, He is One, as it were, superessentially, being neither a part of the multitude,
nor whole from parts; and thus is neither one, nor partakes of one, nor has the one. But,
beyond these, He is One, above the one, to things existing----One, and multitude
indivisible, unfilled superfulness, producing and perfecting and sustaining every one
thing and multitude.

Again, by the Deification from Itself, by the Divine likeness of many who become gods,
according to their several capacity, there seems, and is said to be, a distinction and
multiplication of the One God, but. He is none the less the Supreme God, and super-God,
superessentially One God,----undivided in things divided, unified in Himself, both
unmingled and unmultiplied in the many. And when the common conductor of ourselves, and of
our leader to the Divine gift of light,----he, who is great in Divine mysteries----the
light of the world----had thought out this in a manner above natural ability,----he speaks
as follows, from the inspiration of God, in his sacred writings----"For, even if there are
who are called gods, whether in heaven or upon earth, as there are gods many and lords
many; but to us there is One God, the Father, from Whom are all things, and we unto Him,
----and One Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we, through Him . For,
with regard to things Divine, the unions overrule the distinctions, and precede them, and
are none the less unified, even after the self-centred and unified distinction.

These, the mutual and common distinctions, or rather the goodly progressions of the whole
Deity, we will endeavour to the best of our ability to celebrate from the Names of God,
which make them known in the Oracles;----first, having laid down, as we have said, that
every beneficent Name of God, to whichever of the supremely Divine Persons it may be
applied, is to be understood with reference to the whole Supremely Divine wholeness
unreservedly.

Chapter III

What is the power of prayer, and concerning the blessed Hierotheus, and concerning
reverence and covenant in the Word of God. SECTION I. FIRST, with your permission, let us
examine the all-perfect Name of Goodness, which is indicative of the whole progressions of
Almighty God, having invoked the supremely good, and super-good Triad----the Name which
indicates Its whole best Providences. For, we must first be raised up to It, as Source of
good, by our prayers; and by a nearer approach to It, be initiated as to the all good
gifts which are established around It. For It is indeed present to all, but all are not
present to It. But then, when we have invoked It, by all pure prayers and unpolluted mind,
and by our aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to It. For, It is not in a
place, so that It should be absent from a particular place, or should pass from one to
another. But even the statement that It is in all existing beings, falls short of Its
infinitude (which is) above all, and embracing all. Let us then elevate our very selves by
our prayers to the higher ascent of the Divine and good rays,----as if a luminous chain
being suspended from the celestial heights, and reaching down hither, we, by ever
clutching this upwards, first with one hand, and then with the other, seem indeed to draw
it down, but in reality we do not draw it down, it being both above and below, but
ourselves are carried upwards to the higher splendours of the luminous rays.

Or, as if, after we have embarked on a ship, and are holding on to the cables reaching
from some rock, such as are given out, as it were, for us to seize, we do not draw the
rock to us, but ourselves, in fact, and the ship, to the rock. Or to take another example,
if any one standing on the ship pushes away the rock by the sea shore, he will do nothing
to the stationary and unmoved rock, but he separates himself from it, and in proportion as
he pushes that away, he is so far hurled from it. Wherefore, before everything, and
especially theology, we must begin with prayer, not as though we ourselves were drawing
the power, which is everywhere and nowhere present, but as, by our godly reminiscences and
invocations, conducting ourselves to, and making ourselves one with, it. SECTION II.
Perhaps also, this is worthy of apology, that whilst our illustrious leader, Hierotheus,
is compiling his Theological Elements, in a manner above natural capacity, we, as if those
were not sufficient, have composed others, and this present theological treatise. And yet,
if that man had deigned to treat systematically all the theological treatises, and had
gone through the sum of all theology, by detailed expositions, we should not have gone to
such a height of folly, or stupidity, as to have attempted alone theological questions,
either more lucidly or divinely than he, or to indulge in vain talk by saying
superfluously the same things twice over, and in addition to do injustice to one, both
teacher and friend, and that we, who have been instructed from his discourses, after Paul
the Divine, should filch for our own glorification his most illustrious contemplation and
elucidation. But, since in fact, he, whilst teaching things divine, in a manner suitable
to presbyters, set forth comprehensive definitions, and such as embraced many things in
one, as were suitable to us, and to as many as with us were teachers of the newly-
initiated souls, commanding us to unfold and disentangle, by language commensurate with
our ability, the comprehensive and uniform compositions of the most intellectual capacity
of that illustrious man; and you, yourself, have oftentimes urged us to this, and sent
back the very book, as being of transcendent value;

for this reason, then, we too distinguish him as a teacher of perfect and presbyterial
conceptions for those who are above the common people, even as certain second Oracles, and
next to the Anointed of God. But for people, such as we are, we will transmit things
Divine, according to our capacity. For, if strong meat belongs to the perfect, how great
perfection is required that the same should feed others. Correctly, then, we have affirmed
this, that the self-perceptive vision of the intelligible Oracles, and their comprehensive
teaching, needs presbyterial power; but the science and the thorough teaching of the
reasons which lead to this, fittingly belong to those purified and hallowed persons placed
in a subordinate position. And yet, we have insisted upon this with the utmost care, that,
as regards the things that have been thoroughly investigated by him, our divine leader,
with an accurate elucidation, we should not, in any way, handle the same tautologically,
for the same elucidation of the Divine text expounded by him.

For, amongst our inspired hierarchs (when both we, as you know, and yourself, and many of
our holy brethren, were gathered together to the depositing of the Life-springing and God-
receptive body, and when there were present also James, the brother of God, and Peter, the
foremost and most honoured pinnacle of the Theologians, when it was determined after the
depositing, that every one of the hierarchs should celebrate, as each was capable, the
Omnipotent Goodness of the supremely Divine Weakness), he, after the Theologians,
surpassed, as you know, all the other divine instructors, being wholly entranced, wholly
raised from himself, and experiencing the pain of his fellowship with the things
celebrated, and was regarded as an inspired and divine Psalmist by all, by whom he was
heard and seen and known, and not known. And why should I say anything to thee concerning
the things there divinely spoken? For, if I do not forget myself, many a time do I
remember to have heard from thee certain portions of those inspired songs of praise; such
was thy zeal, not cursorily, to pursue things Divine.

SECTION III. But to pass over the mystical things there, both as forbidden to the
multitude and as known to thee, when it was necessary to communicate to the multitude, and
to bring as many as possible to the sacred knowledge amongst ourselves, he so excelled the
majority of sacred teachers, both by use of time and purity of mind, and accuracy of
demonstrations, and by his other sacred discourses, that we should scarcely have dared to
look so great a sun straight in the face. For we are thus far conscious in ourselves, and
know, that we may neither advance to understand sufficiently the intelligible of Divine
things, nor to express and declare the things spoken of the divine knowledge. For, being
far removed from the skill of those divine men, as regards theological truth, we are so
inferior that we should have, through excessive reverence, entirely come to this----
neither to hear nor to speak anything respecting divine philosophy, unless we had grasped
in our mind, that we must not neglect the knowledge of things divine received by us. And
to this we were persuaded, not only by the innate aspirations of the minds which always
lovingly cling to the permitted contemplation of the supernatural, but also by the most
excellent order itself of the Divine institutions, which prohibits us, on the one hand,
from much inquisition into things above us, as above our degree, and as unattainable; yet,
on the other hand, persistently urges us to graciously impart to others also whatever is
permitted and given to us to learn. Yielding then to these considerations, and neither
shirking nor flinching from the attainable discovery of things Divine, but also not
bearing to leave unassisted those who are unable to contemplate things too high for us, we
have brought ourselves to composition, not daring indeed to introduce anything new, but by
more easy and more detailed expositions to disentangle and elucidate the things spoken by
the Hierotheus indeed.

Chapter IV

Concerning Good, Light, Beauty, Love, Ecstasy, Jealousy, and that the Evil is neither
existent, nor from existent, nor in things being. SECTION I. BE it so then. Let us come to
the appellation "Good," already mentioned in our discourse, which the Theologians ascribe
pre-eminently and exclusively to the super-Divine Deity, as I conjecture, by calling the
supremely Divine Subsistence, Goodness; and because the Good, as essential Good, by Its
being, extends Its Goodness to all things that be. For, even as our sun----not as
calculating or choosing, but by its very being, enlightens all things able to partake of
its light in their own degree----so too the Good----as superior to a sun, as the archetype
par excellence, is above an obscure image----by Its very existence sends to all things
that be, the rays of Its whole goodness, according to their capacity. By reason of these
(rays) subsisted all the intelligible and intelligent essences and powers and energies. By
reason of these they are, and have their life, continuous and undiminished, purified from
all corruption and death and matter, and generation; and separated from the unstable and
fluctuating and vacillating mutability, and are conceived of as incorporeal and
immaterial, and as minds they think in a manner supermundane, and are illuminated as to
the reasons of things, in a manner peculiar to themselves; and they again convey to their
kindred spirits things appropriate to them; and they have their abiding from Goodness; and
thence comes to them stability and consistence and protection, and sanctuary of good
things; and whilst aspiring to It, they have both being and good being; and being
conformed to It, as is attainable, they are both patterns of good, and impart to those
after them, as the Divine Law directs, the gifts which have passed through to themselves
from the Good.

SECTION II. Thence come to them the supermundane orders, the unions amongst themselves,
the mutual penetrations, the unconfused distinctions, the powers elevating the inferior to
the superior, the providences of the more exalted for those below them; the guard-ings of
things pertaining to each power; and unbroken convolutions around themselves; the
identities and sublimities around the aspiration after the Good; and whatever is said in
our Treatise concerning the angelic properties and orders. Further also, whatever things
belong to the heavenly Hierarchy, the purifications befitting angels, the supermundane
illuminations, and the things perfecting the whole angelic perfection, are from the all-
creative and fontal Goodness; from which was given to them the form of Goodness, and the
revealing in themselves the hidden Goodness, and that angels are, as it were, heralds of
the Divine silence, and project, as it were, luminous lights revealing Him Who is in
secret. Further, after these----the sacred and holy minds----the souls, and whatever is
good in souls is by reason of the super-good Goodness----the fact that they are
intellectual----that they have essential life----indestructible----the very being itself
----and that they are able, whilst elevated themselves to the angelic lives, to be
conducted by them as good guides to the good Origin of all good things, and to become
partakers of the illuminations, thence bubbling forth, according to the capacity of each,
and to participate in the goodlike gift, as they are able, and whatever else we have
enumerated in our Treatise concerning the soul.

But also, if one may be permitted to speak of the irrational souls, or living creatures,
such as cleave the air, and such as walk on earth, and such as creep along earth, and
those whose life is in waters, or amphibious, and such as live concealed under earth, and
burrow within it, and in one word, such as have the sensible soul or life, even all these
have their soul and life, by reason of the Good. Moreover, all plants have their growing
and moving life from the Good; and even soulless and lifeless substance is by reason of
the Good, and by reason of It, has inherited its substantial condition. SECTION III. But,
if the Good is above all things being, as indeed it is, and formulates the formless, even
in Itself alone, both the non-essential is a pre-eminence of essence, and the non-living
is a superior life, and the mindless a superior wisdom, and whatever is in the Good is of
a superlative formation of the formless, and if one may venture to say so, even the
nonexistent itself aspires to the Good above all things existing, and struggles somehow to
be even itself in the Good,----the really Superessential----to the exclusion of all
things. SECTION IV.

But what slipped from our view in the midst of our discourse, the Good is Cause of the
celestial movements in their commencements and terminations, of their not increasing, not
diminishing, and completely changeless, course , and of the noiseless movements, if one
may so speak, of the vast celestial transit, and of the astral orders, and the beauties
and lights, and stabilities, and the progressive swift motion of certain stars, and of the
periodical return of the two luminaries, which the Oracles call "great," from the same to
the same quarter, after which our days and nights being marked, and months and years being
measured, mark and number and arrange and comprehend the circular movements of time and
things temporal. But, what would any one say of the very ray of the sun? For the light is
from the Good, and an image of the Goodness, wherefore also the Good is celebrated under
the name of Light; as in a portrait the original is manifested. For, as the goodness of
the Deity, beyond all, permeates from the highest and most honoured substances even to the
lowest, and yet is above all, neither the foremost outstripping its superiority, nor the
things below eluding its grasp, but it both enlightens all that are capable, and forms and
enlivens, and grasps, and perfects, and is measure of things existing, and age, and
number, and order, and grasp, and cause, and end;

so, too, the brilliant likeness of the Divine Goodness, this our great sun, wholly bright
and ever luminous, as a most distant echo of the Good, both enlightens whatever is capable
of participating in it, and possesses the light in the highest degree of purity, unfolding
to the visible universe, above and beneath, the splendours of its own rays, and if
anything does not participate in them, this is not owing to the inertness or deficiency of
its distribution of light, but is owing to the inaptitude for light-reception of the
things which do not unfold themselves for the participation of light. No doubt the ray
passing over many things in such condition, enlightens the things after them, and there is
no visible thing which it does not reach, with the surpassing greatness of its own
splendour. Further also, it contributes to the generation of sensible bodies, and moves
them to life, and nourishes, and increases, and perfects, and purifies and renews; and the
light is both measure and number of hours, days, and all our time. For it is the light
itself, even though it was then without form, which the divine Moses declared to have
fixed that first Triad of our days.

And, just as Goodness turns all things to Itself, and is chief collector of things
scattered, as One-springing and One-making Deity, and all things aspire to It, as Source
and Bond and End, and it is the Good, as the Oracles say, from Which all things subsisted,
and are being brought into being by an all-perfect Cause; and in Which all things
consisted, as guarded and governed in an all-controlling route; and to Which all things
are turned, as to their own proper end; and to Which all aspire ----the intellectual and
rational indeed, through knowledge, and the sensible through the senses, and those bereft
of sensible perception by the innate movement of the aspiration after life, and those
without life, and merely being, by their aptitude for mere substantial participation;
after the same method of its illustrious original, the light also collects and turns to
itself all things existing----things with sight ----things with motion----things
enlightened----things heated----things wholly held together by its brilliant splendours
----whence also, Helios, because it makes all things altogether (ἀολλῆ), and collects
things scattered. And all creatures, endowed with sensible perceptions, aspire to it, as
aspiring either to see, or to be moved and enlightened, and heated, and to be wholly held
together by the light.

By no means do I affirm, after the statement of antiquity, that as being God and Creator
of the universe, the sun, by itself, governs the luminous world, but that the invisible
things of God are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood by the
things that are made, even His eternal power and Deity. SECTION V. But we have spoken of
these things in our Symbolical Theology. Let us now then celebrate the spiritual Name of
Light, under Which we contemplate the Good, and declare that He, the Good, is called
spiritual Light, on the ground that He fills every supercelestial mind with spiritual
light, and expels all ignorance a.nd error from all souls in which they may be, and
imparts to them all sacred light, and cleanses their mental vision from the mist which
envelops them, from ignorance, and stirs up and unfolds those enclosed by the great weight
of darkness, and imparts, at first, a measured radiance; then, whilst they taste, as it
were, the light, and desire it more, more fully gives Itself, and more abundantly
enlightens them, because "they have loved much," and ever elevates them to things in
advance, as befits the analogy of each for aspiration. SECTION VI.

The Good then above every light is called spiritual Light, as fontal ray, and stream of
light welling over, shining upon every mind, above, around , and in the world, from its
fulness, and renewing their whole mental powers, and embracing them all by its over-
shadowing; and being above all by its exaltation; and in one word, by embracing and having
previously and pre-eminently the whole sovereignty of the light-dispensing faculty, as
being source of light and above all light, and by comprehending in itself all things
intellectual, and all things rational, and making them one altogether. For as ignorance
puts asunder those who have gone astray, so the presence of the spiritual light is
collective and unifying of those being enlightened, both perfecting and further turning
them towards the true Being, by turning them from the many notions and collecting the
various views, or, to speak more correctly, fancies, into one true, pure and uniform
knowledge, and by filling them with light, one and unifying.

SECTION VII. This Good is celebrated by the sacred theologians, both as beautiful and as
Beauty, and as Love, and as Beloved; and all the other Divine Names which beseem the
beautifying and highly-favoured comeliness. But the beautiful and Beauty are not to be
divided, as regards the Cause which has embraced the whole in one. For, with regard to all
created things, by dividing them into participations and participants, we call beautiful
that which participates in Beauty; but beauty, the participation of the beautifying Cause
of all the beautiful things. But, the superessential Beautiful is called Beauty, on
account of the beauty communicated from Itself to all beautiful things, in a manner
appropriate to each, and as Cause of the good harmony and brightness of all things which
flashes like light to all the beautifying distributions of its fontal ray, and as calling
(kalou~n) all things to Itself (whence also it is called Beauty) (ka&lloj), and as
collecting all in all to Itself. (And it is called) Beautiful, as (being) at once
beautiful and super-beautiful, and always being under the same conditions and in the same
manner beautiful, and neither coming into being nor perishing, neither waxing nor waning;
neither in this beautiful, nor in that ugly, nor at one time beautiful, and at another
not; nor in relation to one thing beautiful, and in relation to another ugly, nor here,
and not there, as being beautiful to some, and not beautiful to others;

but as Itself, in Itself, with Itself, uniform, always being beautiful, and as having
beforehand in Itself pre-eminently the fontal beauty of everything beautiful. For, by the
simplex and supernatural nature of all beautiful things, all beauty, and everything
beautiful, pre-existed uniquely as to Cause. From this Beautiful (comes) being to all
existing things,----that each is beautiful in its own proper order; and by reason of the
Beautiful are the adaptations of all things, and friendships, and inter-communions, and by
the Beautiful all things are made one, and the Beautiful is origin of all things, as a
creating Cause, both by moving the whole and holding it together by the love of its own
peculiar Beauty; and end of all things, and beloved, as final Cause (for all things exist
for the sake of the Beautiful) and exemplary (Cause), because all things are determined
according to It. Wherefore, also, the Beautiful is identical with the Good, because all
things aspire to the Beautiful and Good, on every account, and there is no existing thing
which does not participate in the Beautiful and the Good. Yea, reason will dare to say
even this, that even the non-existing participates in the Beautiful and Good. For then
even it is beautiful and good, when in God it is celebrated superessentially to the
exclusion of all. This, the one Good and Beautiful, is uniquely Cause of all the many
things beautiful and good.

From this are all the substantial beginnings of things existing, the unions, the
distinctions, the identities, the diversities, the similarities, the dissimilarities, the
communions of the contraries, the commingling of things unified, the providences of the
superior, the mutual cohesions of those of the same rank; the attentions of the more
needy, the protecting and immoveable abidings and stabilities of their whole selves and,
on the other hand, the communions of all things among all, in a manner peculiar to each,
and adaptations and unmingled friendships and harmonies of the whole, the blendings in the
whole, and the undissolved connections of existing things, the never-failing successions
of the generations, all rests and movements, of the minds, of the souls, of the bodies.
For, that which is established above every rest, and every movement, and moves each thing
in the law of its own being to its proper movement, is a rest and movement to all.

SECTION VIII. Now, the divine minds are said to be moved circularly indeed, by being
united to the illuminations of the Beautiful and Good, without beginning and without end;
but in a direct line, whenever they advance to the succour of a subordinate, by
accomplishing all things directly; but spirally, because even in providing for the more
indigent, they remain fixedly, in identity, around the good and beautiful Cause of their
identity, ceaselessly dancing around. SECTION IX. Further, there is a movement of soul,
circular indeed,----the entrance into itself from things without, and the unified
convolution of its intellectual powers, bequeathing to it inerrancy, as it were, in a sort
of circle, and turning and collecting itself, from the many things without, first to
itself, then, as having become single, uniting with the uniquely unified powers, and thus
conducting to the Beautiful and Good, which is above all things being, and One and the
Same, and without beginning and without end. But a soul is moved spirally, in so far as it
is illuminated, as to the divine kinds of knowledge, in a manner proper to itself, not
intuitively and at once, but logically and discursively; and, as it were, by mingled and
relative operations; but in a straight line, when, not entering into itself, and being
moved by unique intuition (for this, as I said, is the circular), but advancing to things
around itself, and from things without, it is, as it were, conducted from certain symbols,
varied and multiplied, to the simple and unified contemplations.

SECTION X. Of these three motions then in everything perceptible here below, and much more
of the abidings and repose and fixity of each, the Beautiful and Good, which is above all
repose and movement, is Cause and Bond and End; by reason of which, and from which, and in
which, and towards which, and for sake of which, is every repose and movement. For, both
from It and through It is both Essence and every life, and both of mind and soul and every
nature, the minutiae, the equalities, the magnitudes, all the standards and the analogies
of beings, and harmonies and compositions; the entireties, the parts, every one thing, and
multitude, the connections of parts, the unions of every multitude, the perfections of the
entireties, the quality, the weight, the size, the infinitude, the compounds, the
distinctions, every infinitude, every term, all the bounds, the orders, the pre-eminences,
the elements, the forms, every essence, every power, every energy, every condition, every
sensible perception, every reason, every conception, every contact, every science, every
union, and in one word, all things existing are from the Beautiful and Good, and in the
Beautiful and Good, and turn themselves to the Beautiful and Good.

Moreover, all things whatever, which are and come to being, are and come to being by
reason of the Beautiful and Good; and to It all things look, and by It are moved and held
together, and for the sake of It, and by reason of It, and in It, is every source
exemplary, final, creative, formative, elemental, and in one word, every beginning, every
bond, every term, or to speak summarily, all things existing are from the Beautiful and
Good; and all things non-existing are superessentially in the Beautiful and Good; and it
is of all, beginning and term, above beginning and above term, because from It, and
through It, and in It, and to It, are all things, as says the Sacred Word. By all things,
then, the Beautiful and Good is desired and beloved and cherished; and, by reason of It,
and for the sake of It, the less love the greater suppliantly; and those of the same rank,
their fellows brotherly; and the greater, the less considerately; and these severally love
the things of themselves continuously; and all things by aspiring to the Beautiful and
Good, do and wish all things whatever they do and wish. Further, it may be boldly said
with truth, that even the very Author of all things, by reason of overflowing Goodness,
loves all, makes all, perfects all, sustains all, attracts all; and even the Divine Love
is Good of Good, by reason of the Good. For Love itself, the benefactor of things that be,
pre-existing overflowingly in the Good, did not permit itself to remain unproductive in
itself, but moved itself to creation , as befits the overflow which is generative of all.

SECTION XI. And let no one fancy that we honour the Name of Love beyond the Oracles, for
it is, in my opinion, irrational and stupid not to cling to the force of the meaning, but
to the mere words; and this is not the characteristic of those who have wished to
comprehend things Divine, but of those who receive empty sounds and keep the same just at
the ears from passing through from outside, and are not willing to know what such a word
signifies, and in what way one ought to distinctly represent it, through other words of
the same force and more explanatory, but who specially affect sounds and signs without
meaning, and syllables, and words unknown, which do not pass through to the mental part of
their soul, but buzz without, around their lips and ears, as though it were not permitted
to signify the number four, by twice two, or straight lines by direct lines, or motherland
by fatherland, or any other, which signify the self-same thing, by many parts of speech.

We ought to know, according to the correct account, that we use sounds, and syllables, and
phrases, and descriptions, and words, on account of the sensible perceptions; since when
our soul is moved by the intellectual energies to the things contemplated, the sensible
perceptions by aid of sensible objects are superfluous; just as also the intellectual
powers, when the soul, having become godlike, throws itself, through a union beyond
knowledge, against the rays of the unapproachable light, by sightless efforts. But, when
the mind strives to be moved upwards, through objects of sense, to contemplative
conceptions, the clearer interpretations are altogether preferable to the sensible
perceptions, and the more definite descriptions are things more distinct than things seen;
since when objects near are not made clear to the sensible perceptions, neither will these
perceptions be well able to present the things perceived to the mind. But that we may not
seem, in speaking thus, to be pushing aside the Divine Oracles, let those who libel the
Name of Love (1Erwtoj) hear them. "Be in love with It," they say, "and It will keep thee
----Rejoice over It, and It will exalt thee----Honour It, in order that It may encompass
thee,"----and whatever else is sung respecting Love, in the Word of God.

SECTION XII. And yet it seemed to some of our sacred expounders that the Name of Love is
more Divine than that of loving-kindness (ἀγάπης). But even the Divine Ignatius writes,
"my own Love (ἔρως) is crucified; and in the introductions to the Oracles you will find a
certain One saying of the Divine Wisdom, "1 became enamoured of her Beauty. So that we,
certainly, need not be afraid of this Name of Love, nor let any alarming statement about
it terrify us. For the theologians seem to me to treat as equivalent the name of Loving-
kindness, and that of Love; and on this ground, to attribute, by preference, the veritable
Love, to things Divine, because of the misplaced prejudice of such men as these. For,
since the veritable Love is sung of in a sense befitting God, not by us only, but also by
the Oracles themselves, the multitude, not having comprehended the Oneness of the Divine
Name of Love, fell away, as might be expected of them, to the divided and corporeal and
sundered, seeing it is not a real love, but a shadow, or rather a falling from the
veritable Love. For the Oneness of the Divine and one Love is incomprehensible to the
multitude, wherefore also, as seeming a very hard name to the multitude, it is assigned to
the Divine Wisdom, for the purpose of leading back and restoring them to the knowledge of
the veritable Love; and for their liberation from the difficulty respecting it.

And again, as regards ourselves, where it happened often that men of an earthly character
imagined something out of place, (there is used) what appears more euphonius. A certain
one says, "Thy affection fell upon me, as the affection of the women. For those who have
rightly listened to things Divine, the name of Loving-kindness and of Love is placed by
the holy theologians in the same category throughout the Divine revelations, and this is
of a power unifying, and binding together, and mingling pre-eminently in the Beautiful and
Good; pre-existing by reason of the beautiful and good, and imparted from the beautiful
and good, by reason of the Beautiful and Good; and sustaining things of the same rank,
within their mutual coherence, but moving the first to forethought for the inferior, and
attaching the inferior to the superior by respect. SECTION XIII. But Divine Love is
extatic, not permitting (any) to be lovers of themselves, but of those beloved. They shew
this too, the superior by becoming mindful of the inferior; and the equals by their mutual
coherence; and the inferior, by a more divine respect towards things superior. Wherefore
also, Paul the Great, when possessed by the Divine Love, and participating in its extatic
power, says with inspired lips, "I live no longer, but Christ lives in me." As a true
lover, and beside himself, as he says, to Almighty God, and not living the life of
himself, but the life of the Beloved, as a life excessively esteemed. One might make bold
to say even this, on behalf of truth, that the very Author of all things, by the beautiful
and good love of everything, through an overflow of His loving goodness, becomes out of
Himself, by His providences for all existing things, and is, as it were, cozened by
goodness and affection and love, and is led down from the Eminence above all, and
surpassing all, to being in all, as befits an extatic superessential power centred in
Himself. Wherefore, those skilled in Divine things call Him even Jealous, as (being) that
vast good Love towards all beings, and as rousing His loving inclination to jealousy,----
and as proclaiming Himself Jealous----to Whom the things desired are objects of jealousy,
and as though the objects of His providential care were objects of jealousy for Him. And,
in short, the lovable is of the Beautiful and Good, and Love preexisted both in the
Beautiful and Good, and on account of the Beautiful and Good, is and takes Being.

SECTION XIV. But what do the theologians mean when at one time they call Him Love, and
Loving-kindness, and at another, Loved and Esteemed? For, of the one, He is Author and, as
it were, Producer and Father; but the other, He Himself is; and by one He is moved, but by
the other He moves; or (when they say), that He Himself is Procurer and Mover of Himself
and by Himself. In this sense, they call Him esteemed and loved, as Beautiful and Good:
but again Love and Loving-kindness, as being at once moving and conducting Power to
Himself;----the alone----self Beautiful and Good, by reason of Itself, and, being, as it
were, a manifestation of Itself through Itself, and a good Progression of the surpassing
union, and a loving Movement, simplex, self-moved, self-operating, pre-existing in the
Good, and from the Good bubbling forth to things existing, and again returning to the
Good, in which also the Divine Love indicates distinctly Its own unending and unbeginning,
as it were a sort of everlasting circle whirling round in unerring combination, by reason
of the Good, from the Good, and in the Good, and to the Good, and ever advancing and
remaining and returning in the same and throughout the same. And these things our
illustrious initiator divinely set forth throughout His Hymns of Love, of which we may
appropriately make mention, and, as it were, place as a certain sacred chapter to our
treatise concerning Love.

SECTION XV. Extract from the "Hymns of Love" by the most holy Hierotheus:---- Love,
whether we speak of Divine, or Angelic, or intelligent, or psychical, or physical, let us
regard as a certain unifying and combining power, moving the superior to forethought for
the inferior, and the equals to a mutual fellowship, and lastly, the inferior to respect
towards the higher and superior. SECTION XVI. Of the same, from the same Erotic Hymns.
Since we have arranged the many loves from the one, by telling, in due order, what are the
kinds of knowledge and powers of the mundane and super-mundane loves; over which,
according to the defined purpose of the discourse, the orders and ranks of the mental and
intelligible loves preside; next after which are placed the self-existent intelligible and
divine, over the really beautiful loves there which have been appropriately celebrated by
us; now, on the other hand, by restoring all back to the One and enfolded Love, and Father
of them all, let us collect and gather them together from the many, by contracting It into
two Powers entirely lovable, over which rules and precedes altogether the Cause,
resistless from Its universal Love beyond all, and to which is elevated, according to the
nature of each severally, the whole love from all existing things.

SECTION XVII. Of the same, from the same Hymns of Love. Come then, whilst collecting these
again into one, let us say, that it is a certain simplex power, which of itself moves to a
sort of unifying combination from the Good, to the lowest of things existing, and from
that again in due order, circling round again, through all to the Good from Itself, and
through Itself and by Itself, and rolling back to Itself always in the same way. SECTION
XVIII. And yet, any one might say, "if the Beautiful and Good is beloved and desired, and
esteemed by all (for even that which is non-existing desires It, as we have said, and
struggles how to be in It; and Itself is the form-giving, even of things without form, and
by It alone, even the non-existing is said to be, and is superessentially)----"How is it
that the host of demons do not desire the Beautiful and Good, but, through their earthly
proclivities, having fallen away from the angelic identity, as regards the desire of the
Good, have become cause of all evils both to themselves and to all the others who are said
to be corrupted? and why, in short, when the tribes of demons have been brought into being
from the Good, are they not like the Good? or how, after being a good production from the
Good, were they changed? and what is that which depraved them, and in short, what is evil?
and from what source did it spring? and in which of things existing is it? and how did He,
Who is Good, will to bring it into being? and how, when He willed it, was He able? And if
evil is from another cause, what other cause is there for things existing, beside the
Good? Further, how, when there is a Providence, is there evil, either coming into
existence at all, or not destroyed? And how does any existing thing desire it, in
comparison with the Good?

SECTION XIX. Such a statement as this might be alleged by way of objection. We, however,
on our part, will pray the objector to look to the truth of the facts, and will make bold
to say this first. The Evil is not from the Good, and if it is from the Good, it is not
the Evil. For, it is not the nature of fire to make cold, nor of good to bring into being
things not good; and if all things that be are from the Good (for to produce and to
preserve is natural to the Good, but to destroy and to dissolve, to the Evil), there is no
existing thing from the Evil, nor will the Evil itself be, if it should be evil even to
itself. And, if it be not so, the Evil is not altogether evil, but has some portion of the
Good, in consequence of which it wholly is. Now, if the things existing desire the
Beautiful and Good, and whatever they do, they do for the sake of that which seems good,
and every purpose of things existing has the Good for its beginning and end (for nothing
looking to the Evil qua evil, does what it does), how shall the Evil be in things
existing; or, wholly being, how has it been seduced from such a good yearning? Also if all
the things existing are from the Good, and the Good is above all things existing, then
there is existing in the Good even the non-existing; but the Evil is not existing;

and, if this be not the case, it is not altogether evil, nor non-existing, for the
absolutely non-existing will be nothing, unless it should be spoken of as in the Good
superessentially. The Good, then, will be fixed far above both the absolutely existing and
the non-existing; but the Evil is neither in things existing, nor in things non-existing,
but, being further distant from the Good than the non-existing itself, it is alien and
more unsubstantial. Where then is the Evil? some one may perchance say. For if the Evil is
not,----virtue and vice are the same, both universally and particularly. Or, not even that
which opposes itself to virtue will be evil, and yet sobriety and license, and
righteousness and unrighteousness, are contraries. And I, by no means, speak in reference
to the just and unjust man, and the temperate and intemperate man; but also, long before
the difference between the just man and his opposite is made manifest externally, in the
very soul itself the vices stand altogether apart from the virtues, and the passions rebel
against the reason; and from this we must grant some evil contrary to the Good. For the
Good is not contrary to Itself, but as the product from one Source and one Cause, It
rejoices in fellowship and unity and friendship. Nor yet is the lesser good opposed to the
greater, for neither is the less heat or cold opposed to the greater.

The Evil then is in things existing, and is existing, and is opposed, and is in opposition
to, the Good; and if it is the destruction of things existing, this does not expel the
Evil from existence; but it will be, both itself existing, and generator of things
existing. Does not frequently the destruction of one become birth of another? and the Evil
will be contributing to the completion of the whole, and supplying through itself non-
imperfection to the whole. SECTION XX. Now to all this true reason will answer, that the
Evil qua evil makes no single essence or birth, but only, as far as it can, pollutes and
destroys the subsistence of things existing. But, if any one says, that it is productive
of being, and that by destruction of one it gives birth to another, we must truly answer,
that not qua destruction it gives birth, but qua destruction and evil, it destroys and
pollutes only, but it becomes birth and essence, by reason of the Good; and the Evil will
be destruction indeed, by reason of itself; but producer of birth by reason of the Good;
and qua evil, it is neither existing, nor productive of things existing; but, by reason of
the Good, it is both existing and good-existing, and productive of things good. Yea,
rather (for neither will the same by itself be both good and evil, nor the self-same power
be of itself destruction and birth----neither as self-acting power, nor as self-acting
destruction), the absolutely Evil is neither existing nor good, nor generative, nor
productive of things being and good; but the Good in whatever things it may be perfectly
engendered, makes them perfect and pure, and thoroughly good,----but the things which
partake of it in a less degree are both imperfectly good, and impure, by reason of the
lack of the Good. And (thus) the Evil altogether, is not, nor is good, nor good producing;
but that which approaches more or less near the Good will be proportionately good;

since the All-perfect Goodness, in passing through all, not only passes to the All-good
beings around Itself, but extends Itself to the most remote, by being present to some
thoroughly, to others subordinately, but to the rest, in the most remote degree, as each
existing thing is able to participate in It. And some things, indeed, participate in the
Good entirely, whilst others are deprived of It, in a more or less degree, but others
possess a more obscure participation in the Good; and to the rest, the Good is present as
a most distant echo. For if the Good were not present according to the capacity of each,
the most Divine and honoured would occupy the rank of the lowest. And how were it possible
that all should participate in the Good uniformly, when not all are in the same way
adapted to its whole participation? Now, this is the exceeding greatness of the power of
the Good, that It empowers, both things deprived, and the deprivation of Itself, with a
view to the entire participation of itself. And, if one must make bold to speak the truth,
even the things fighting against It, both are, and are able to fight, by Its power. Yea
rather, in order that I may speak summarily, all things which are, in so far as they are,
both are good, and from the Good; but, in so far as they are deprived of the Good, are
neither good, nor do they exist. For, even with regard to the other conditions, such as
heat or cold, there are things which have been heated, and when the heat has departed from
them, many of them are deprived both of life and intelligence (now Almighty God is outside
essence, and is, superessentially), and, in one word, with regard to the rest, even when
the condition has departed, or has not become completely developed, things exist, and are
able to subsist; but that which is every way deprived of the Good, in no way or manner
ever was, or is, or will be, nor is able to be. For example, the licentious man, even if
he have been deprived of the Good, as regards his irrational lust, in this respect he
neither is, nor desires realities, but nevertheless he participates in the Good, in his
very obscure echo of union and friendship.

And, even Anger participates in the Good, by the very movement and desire to direct and
turn the seeming evils to the seeming good. And the very man, who desires the very worst
life, as wholly desirous of life and that which seems best to him, by the very fact of
desiring, and desiring life, and looking to a best life, participates in the Good. And, if
you should entirely take away the Good, there will be neither essence, nor life, nor
yearning, nor movement, nor anything else. So that the fact, that birth is born from
destruction, is not a power of evil, but a presence of a lesser good, even as disease is a
defect of order, not total----for, if this should be, not even the disease itself will
continue to exist, but the disease remains and is, by having the lowest possible order of
essence, and in this continues to exist as a parasite. For that which is altogether
deprived of the Good, is neither existing, nor in things existing; but the compound, by
reason of the Good in things existing, and in consequence of this in things existing, is
also existing in so far as it participates in the Good. Yea rather, all things existing
will so far be, more or less, as they participate in the Good; for, even as respects the
self-existing Being, that which in no ways is at all, will not be at all;

but that which partially is, but partially is not, in so far as it has fallen from the
ever Being, is not; but so far as it has participated in the Being, so far it is, and its
whole being, and its non-being, is sustained and preserved. And the Evil,----that which
has altogether fallen from the Good----will be good, neither in the more nor in the less;
but the partially good, and partially not good, fight no doubt against a certain good, but
not against the whole Good, and, even it is sustained by the participation of the Good,
and the Good gives essence even to the privation of Itself, wholly by the participation of
Itself; for, when the Good has entirely departed, there will be neither anything
altogether good, nor compound, nor absolute evil. For, if the Evil is an imperfect good,
(then) by the entire absence of the Good, both the imperfect and the perfect Good will be
absent; and then only will be, and be seen, the Evil, when on the one hand, it is an evil
to those things to which it was opposed, and, on the other, is expelled from other things
on account of their goodness. For, it is impossible that the same things, under the same
conditions in every respect, should fight against each other. The Evil then is not an
actual thing.

SECTION XXI. But neither is the Evil in things existing. For, if all things existing are
from the Good, and the Good is in all things existing, and embraces all, either the Evil
will not be in things existing, or it will be in the Good; and certainly it will not be in
the Good, for neither is cold in fire, nor to do evil in Him, Who turns even the evil to
good. But, if it shall be, how will the Evil be in the Good? If forsooth, from Itself, it
is absurd and impossible. For it is not possible, as the infallibility of the Oracles
affirms, that a "good tree should bring forth evil fruits," nor certainly, vice versa.
But, if not from Itself, it is evident that it will be from another source and cause. For,
either the Evil will be from the Good, or the Good from the Evil; or, if this be not
possible, both the Good and the Evil will be from another source and cause, for no dual is
source, but a Unit will be source of every dual. Further, it is absurd that two entirely
contraries should proceed and be from one and the same, and that the self-same source
should be, not simplex and unique, but divided and double, and contrary to itself, and be
changed; and certainly it is not possible that there should be two contrary sources of
things existing, and that these should be contending in each other, and in the whole.

For, if this were granted, even Almighty God will not be in repose, nor free from
disquietude, if there were indeed something bringing disturbance even to Him. Then,
everything will be in disorder, and always fighting; and yet the Good distributes
friendship to all existing things, and is celebrated by the holy theologians, both as very
Peace, and Giver of Peace. Wherefore, things good are both friendly and harmonious, every
one, and products of one life, and marshalled to one good; and kind, and similar, and
affable to each other. So that the Evil is not in God, and the Evil is not inspired by
God. But neither is the Evil from God, for, either He is not good, or He does good, and
produces good things; and, not once in a way, and some; and at another time not, and not
all; for this would argue transition and change, even as regards the very Divinest thing
of all, the Cause. But, if in God, the Good is sustaining essence, God, when changing from
the Good, will be sometimes Being, and sometimes not Being. But, if He has the Good by
participation, He will then have it from another; and sometimes He will have it, and
sometimes not. The Evil, then, is not from God, nor in God, neither absolutely nor
occasionally.

SECTION XXII. But neither is the Evil in Angels; for if the good-like angel proclaims the
goodness of God, being by participation in a secondary degree that which the Announced is
in the first degree as Cause, the Angel is a likeness of Almighty God----a manifestation
of the unmanifested light----a mirror untarnished----most transparent----without flaw----
pure----without spot---- receiving, if I may so speak, the full beauty of the Good-stamped
likeness of God----and without stain, shedding forth undefiledly in itself, so far as is
possible, the goodness of the Silence, which dwells in innermost shrines. The Evil, then,
is not even in Angels. But by punishing sinners are they evil? By this rule, then, the
punishers of transgressors are evil, and those of the priests who shut out the profane
from the Divine Mysteries. And yet, the being punished is not an evil, but the becoming
worthy of punishment; nor the being deservedly expelled from Holy things, but the becoming
accursed of God, and unholy and unfit for things un-defiled.

SECTION XXIII. But, neither are the demons evil by nature; for, if they are evil by
nature, neither are they from the Good, nor amongst things existing; nor, in fact, did
they change from good, being by nature, and always, evil. Then, are they evil to
themselves or to others? If to themselves, they also destroy themselves; but if to others,
how destroying, or what destroying?----Essence, or power, or energy? If indeed Essence, in
the first place, it is not contrary to nature; for they do not destroy things
indestructible by nature, but things receptive of destruction. Then, neither is this an
evil for every one, and in every case; but, not even any existing thing is destroyed, in
so far as it is essence and nature, but by the defect of nature's order, the principle of
harmony and proportion lacks the power to remain as it was. But the lack of strength is
not complete, for the complete lack of power takes away even the disease and the subject;
and such a disease will be even a destruction of itself; so that, such a thing is not an
evil, but a defective good, for that which has no part of the Good will not be amongst
things which exist. And with regard to the destruction of power and energy the principle
is the same. Then, how are the demons, seeing they come into being from God, evil? For the
Good brings forth and sustains good things. Yet they are called evil, some one may say.

But not as they are (for they are from the Good, and obtained a good being), but, as they
are not, by not having had strength, as the Oracles affirm, "to keep their first estate.
For in what, tell me, do we affirm that the demons become evil, except in the ceasing in
the habit and energy for good things Divine? Otherwise, if the demons are evil by nature,
they are always evil; yet evil is unstable. Therefore, if they are always in the same
condition, they are not evil; for to be ever the same is a characteristic of the Good.
But, if they are not always evil, they are not evil by nature, but by wavering from the
angelic good qualities. And they are not altogether without part in the good, in so far as
they both are, and live and think, and in one word----as there is a sort of movement of
aspiration in them. But they are said to be 'evil, by reason of their weakness as regards
their action according to nature. The evil then, in them, is a turning aside and a
stepping out of things befitting themselves, and a missing of aim, and imperfection and
impotence, and a weakness and departure, and falling away from the power which preserves
their integrity in them. Otherwise, what is evil in demons? An irrational anger----a
senseless desire----a headlong fancy.----But these, even if they are in demons, are not
altogether, nor in every respect, nor in themselves alone, evils.

For even with regard to other living creatures, not the possession of these, but the loss,
is both destruction to the creature, and an evil. But the possession saves, and makes to
be, the nature of the living creature which possesses them. The tribe of demons then is
not evil, so far as it is according to nature, but so far as it is not; and the whole good
which was given to them was not changed, but themselves fell from the whole good given.
And the angelic gifts which were given to them, we by no means affirm that they were
changed, but they exist, and are complete, and all luminous, although the demons
themselves do not see, through having blunted their powers of seeing good. So far as they
are, they are both from the Good, and are good, and aspire to the Beautiful and the Good,
by aspiring to the realities, Being, and Life, and Thought; and by the privation and
departure and declension from the good things befitting them, they are called evil, and
are evil as regards what they are not: and by aspiring to the non-existent, they aspire to
the Evil.

SECTION XXIV. But does some one say that souls are evil? If it be that they meet with evil
things providentially, and with a view to their preservation, this is not an evil, but a
good, and from the Good, Who makes even the evil good. But, if we say that souls become
evil, in what respect do they become evil, except in the failure of their good habits and
energies; and, by reason of their own lack of strength, missing their aim and tripping?
For we also say, that the air around us becomes dark by failure and absence of light, and
yet the light itself is always light, that which enlightens even the darkness. The Evil,
then, is neither in demons nor in us, as an existent evil, but as a failure and dearth of
the perfection of our own proper goods. SECTION XXV. But neither is the Evil in irrational
creatures, for if you should take away anger and lust, and the other things which we speak
of, and which are not absolutely evil in their own nature, the lion having lost his
boldness and fierceness will not be a lion; and the dog, when he has become gentle to
every body, will not be a dog, since to keep guard is a dog's duty, and to admit those of
the household, but to drive away the stranger. So the fact that nature is not destroyed is
not an evil, but a destruction of nature, weakness, and failure of the natural habitudes
and energies and powers. And, if all things through generation in time have their
perfection, the imperfect is not altogether contrary to universal nature.

SECTION XXVI. But neither is the Evil in nature throughout, for if all the methods of
nature are from universal nature, there is nothing contrary to it. But in each individual
(nature) one thing will be according to nature, and another not according to nature. For
one thing is contrary to nature in one, and another in another, and that which is
according to nature to one, is to the other, contrary to nature. But malady of nature,
that which is the contrary to nature, is the deprivation of things of nature. So that
there is not an evil nature; but this is evil to nature, the inability to accomplish the
things of one's proper nature. SECTION XXVII. But, neither is the Evil in bodies. For
deformity and disease are a defect of form, and a deprivation of order. And this is not
altogether an evil, but a less good; for if a dissolution of beauty and form and order
become complete, the body itself will be gone. But that the body is not cause of baseness
to the soul is evident, from the fact that baseness continues to coexist even without a
body, as in demons. For this is evil to minds and souls and bodies, (viz.) the weakness
and declension from the habitude of their own proper goods.

SECTION XXVIII. But neither (a thing which they say over and over again) is the evil in
matter, so far as it is matter. For even it participates in ornament and beauty and form.
But if matter, being without these, by itself is without quality and without form, how
does matter produce anything----matter, which, by itself, is impassive? Besides how is
matter an evil? for, if it does not exist in any way whatever, it is neither good nor evil
but if it is any how existing, and all things existing are from the Good, even it would be
from the Good; and either the Good is productive of the Evil, or the Evil, as being from
the Good, is good; or the Evil is capable of producing the Good; or even the Good, as from
the Evil, is evil; or further, there are two first principles, and these suspended from
another one head. And, if they say that matter is necessary, for a completion of the whole
Cosmos, how is matter an evil? For the Evil is one thing, and the necessary is another.
But, how does He, Who is Good, bring anything to birth from the Evil? or, how is that,
which needs the Good, evil? For the Evil shuns the nature of the Good. And how does
matter, being evil, generate and nourish nature? For the Evil, quâ evil, neither
generates, nor nourishes, nor solely produces, nor preserves anything.

But, if they should say, that it does not make baseness in souls, but that they are
dragged to it, how will this be true? for many of them look towards the good; and yet how
did this take place, when matter was dragging them entirely to the Evil? So that the Evil
in souls is not from matter, but from a disordered and discordant movement. But, if they
say this further, that they invariably follow matter, and unstable matter is necessary for
those who are unable to stand firmly by themselves, how is the Evil necessary, or the
necessary an evil? SECTION XXIX. But neither is it this which we affirm----the "privation
fights against the Good by its own power "; for the complete privation is altogether
powerless, and the partial has the power, not in respect of privation, but in so far as it
is not a complete privation. For, whilst privation of good is partial, it is not, as yet,
an evil, and when, it has become an accomplished fact, the nature of the evil has departed
also.

SECTION XXX. But, to speak briefly, the Good is from the one and the whole Cause, but the
Evil is from many and partial defects. Almighty God knows the Evil qua good; and, with
Him, the causes of the evils are powers producing good . But, if the Evil is eternal, and
creates, and has power, and is, and does, whence do these come to it? Is it either from
the Good, or by the Good from the Evil, or by both from another cause? Everything that is
according to nature comes into being from a defined cause. And if the Evil is without
cause, and undefined, it is not according to nature. For there is not in nature what is
contrary to nature; nor is there any raison d'etre for want of art in art. Is then the
soul cause of things evil, as fire of burning, and does it fill everything that it happens
to touch with baseness? Or, is the nature of the soul then good, but, by its energies,
exists sometimes in one condition, and sometimes in another? If indeed by nature, even its
existence is an evil, and whence then does it derive its existence? Or, is it from the
good Cause creative of the whole universe? But, if from this, how is it essentially evil?
For good are all things born of this. But if by energies, neither is this invariable, and
if not, whence are the virtues? Since it (the soul) comes into being without even seeming
good. It remains then that the Evil is a weakness and a falling short of the Good.

SECTION XXXI. The Cause of things good is One. If the Evil is contrary to the Good, the
many causes of the Evil, certainly those productive of things evil, are not principles and
powers, but want of power, and want of strength, and a mixing of things dissimilar without
proportion. Neither are things evil unmoved, and always in the same condition, but endless
and undefined, and borne along in different things, and those endless. The Good will be
beginning and end of all, even things evil, for, for the sake of the Good, are all things,
both those that are good, and those that are contrary. For we do even these as desiring
the Good (for no one does what he does with a view to the Evil), wherefore the Evil has
not a subsistence, but a parasitical subsistence, coming into being for the sake of the
Good, and not of itself.

SECTION XXXII. It is to be laid down that being belongs to the Evil as an accident and by
reason of something else, and not from its own origin, and thus that that which comes into
being appears to be right, because it comes into being for the sake of the Good, but that
in reality it is not right for the reason that we think that which is not good to be good.
The desired is shewn to be one thing, and that which comes to pass is another. The Evil,
then, is beside the path, and beside the mark, and beside nature, and beside cause, and
beside beginning, and beside end, and beside limit, and beside intention, and beside
purpose. The Evil then is privation and failure, and want of strength, and want of
proportion, and want of attainment, and want of purpose; and without beauty, and without
life, and without mind, and without reason, and without completeness, and without
stability, and without cause, and without limit, and without production; and inactive, and
without result, and disordered, and dissimilar, and limitless, and dark, and unessential,
and being itself nothing in any manner of way whatever. How, in short, can evil do
anything by its mixture with the Good? For that which is altogether without participation
in the Good, neither is anything, nor is capable of anything. For, if the Good is both an
actual thing and an object of desire, and powerful and effective, how will the contrary to
the Good,----that which has been deprived of essence, and intention, and power, and
energy,----be capable of anything? Not all things are evil to all, nor the same things
evil in every respect. To a demon, evil is to be contrary to the good-like mind----to a
soul, to be contrary to reason----to a body, to be contrary to nature.

SECTION XXXIII. How, in short, are there evils when there is a Providence? The Evil, qua
evil, is not, neither as an actual thing nor as in things existing. And no single thing is
without a Providence. For neither is the Evil an actual thing existing unmixed with the
Good. And, if no single thing is without participation in the Good, but the lack of the
Good is an evil, and no existing thing is deprived absolutely of the Good, the Divine
Providence is in all existing things, and no single thing is without Providence. But
Providence, as befits Its goodness, uses even evils which happen for the benefit, either
individual or general, of themselves or others, and suitably provides for each being.
Wherefore we will not admit the vain statement of the multitude, who say that Providence
ought to lead us to virtue, even against our will. For to destroy nature is not a function
of Providence. Hence, as Providence is conservative of the nature of each, it provides for
the free, as free; and for the whole, and individuals, according to the wants of all and
each, as far as the nature of those provided for admits the providential benefits of its
universal and manifold Providence, distributed 'proportionably to each.

SECTION XXXIV. The Evil, then, is not an actual thing, nor is the Evil in things existing.
For the Evil, qua evil, is nowhere, and the fact that evil comes into being is not in
consequence of power, but by reason of weakness. And, as for the demons, what they are is
both from the Good, and good. But their evil is from the declension from their own proper
goods, and a change----the weakness, as regards their identity and condition, of the
angelic perfection befitting them. And they aspire to the Good, in so far as they aspire
to be and to live and to think. And in so far as they do not aspire to the Good, they
aspire to the non-existent; and this is not aspiration, but a missing of the true
aspiration. SECTION XXXV. Now the Oracles call conscious transgressors those who are
thoroughly weak as regards the ever memorable knowledge or the practise of the Good, and
who, knowing the will, do not perform it,----those who are hearers indeed, but are weak
concerning the faith, or the energy of the Good. And for some, it is against their will to
understand to do good, by reason of the deviation or weakness of the will. And in short,
the Evil (as we have often said) is want of strength and want of power, and defect, either
of the knowledge, or the never to be forgotten knowledge, or of the faith, or of the
aspiration, or of the energy of the Good. Yet, some one may say, the weakness is not
punishable, but on the contrary is pardonable. Now, if the power were not granted, the
statement might hold good; but, if power comes from the Good, Who giveth, according to the
Oracles, the things suitable to all absolutely, the failure and deviation, and departure
and declension of the possession from the Good of our own proper goods is not
praiseworthy. But let these things suffice to have been sufficiently said according to our
ability in our writings "Concerning just and Divine chastisement" throughout which sacred
treatise the infallibility of the Oracles has cast aside those sophistical statements as
senseless words, speaking injustice and falsehood against Almighty God. But now, according
to our ability, the Good has been sufficiently praised, as really lovable,----as beginning
and end of all----as embracing things existing----as giving form to things not existing
----as Cause of all good things----as guiltless of things evil----as Providence and
Goodness complete----and soaring above things that are and things that are not----and
turning to good things evil, and the privation of Itself----as by all desired, and loved,
and esteemed, and whatever else, the true statement, as I deem, has demonstrated in the
preceding.

Chapter V

Concerning Being----in which also concerning Exemplars. SECTION I. LET us now then pass to
the name "Being"----given in the Oracles as veritably that of Him, Who veritably is. But
we will recall to your remembrance this much, that the purpose of our treatise is not to
make known the superessential Essence----qua superessential----(for this is inexpressible,
and unknowable, and altogether unrevealed, and surpassing the union itself), but to
celebrate the progression of the supremely Divine Source of Essence, which gives essence
to all things being. For the Divine Name of the Good, as making known the whole
progressions of the Cause of all, is extended, both to things being, and things not being,
and is above things being, and things not being. But the Name of Being is extended to all
things being, and is above things being;----and the Name of Life is extended to all things
living, and is above things living; and the Name of Wisdom is extended to all the
intellectual and rational and sensible, and is above all these.

SECTION II. The treatise, then, seeks to celebrate these, the Names of God, which set
forth His Providence. For it does not profess to express the very super-essential
Goodness, and Essence, and Life, and Wisdom, of the very superessential Deity, Which is
seated above all Goodness, and Deity, and Essence, and Wisdom, and Life,----in secret
places, as the Oracles affirm. But it celebrates the beneficial Providence, which has been
set forth as preeminently Goodness and Cause of all good things, and as Being, and Life,
and Wisdom,----the Cause essentiating and vivifying, and wise-making, of those who partake
of essence, and life, and mind, and reason, and sense. But it does not affirm that the
Good is one thing, and the Being another; and that Life is other than Wisdom; nor that the
Causes are many, and that some deities produce one thing and others another, as superior
and inferior; but that the whole good progressions and the Names of God, celebrated by us,
are of one God; and that the one epithet makes known the complete Providence of the one
God, but that the others are indicative of His more general and more particular
providences.

SECTION III. Yet, some one might say, for what reason do we affirm that Life is superior
to Being, and Wisdom to Life? Things with life no doubt are above things that merely exist
----things sensible above those which merely live,----and things rational above these,----
and the Minds above the rational, and are around God, and are more near to Him. Yet,
things which partake of greater gifts from God, must needs be better and superior to the
rest. But if any one assumed the intellectual to be without being, and without life, the
statement might hold good. But if the Divine Minds are both above all the rest of beings,
and live above the other living beings, and think and know, above sensible perception and
reason, and, beyond all the other existing beings, aspire to, and participate in, the
Beautiful and Good, they are more around the Good, participating in It more abundantly,
and having received larger and greater gifts from It. As also, the rational creatures
excel those of sensible perception, by their superiority in the abundance of reason, and
these, by their sensible perception, and others, by their life. And this, as I think, is
true, that the things which participate more in the One and boundless-giving God, are more
near to Him, and more divine, than those who come behind them (in gifts).

SECTION IV. Now, since we are speaking of these things, come then, and let us praise the
Good, as veritably Being, and giving essence to all things that be. He, Who is, is
superessential, sustaining Cause of the whole potential Being, and Creator of being,
existence, subsistence, essence, nature; Source and Measure of ages, and Framer of times,
and Age of things that be, Time of things coming into being, Being of things howsoever
being, Birth of things howsoever born. From Him, Who is, is age, and essence, and being,
and time, and birth, and thing born; the realities in things that be, and things howsoever
existing and subsisting. For Almighty God is not relatively a Being, but absolutely and
unboundedly, having comprehended and anticipated the whole Being in Himself. Wherefore, He
is also called King of the ages, since the whole being both is, and is sustained, in Him
and around Him. And He neither was, nor will be, nor became, nor becomes, nor will become
----yea rather, neither is. But He is the Being to things that be, and not things that be
only, but the very being of things that be, absolutely from before the ages. For He is the
Age of ages----the Existing before the ages.

SECTION V. Summing up, then, let us say, that the being to all beings and to the ages, is
from the Preexisting. And every age and time is from Him. And of every age and time, and
of everything, howsoever existing, the Pre-existing is Source and Cause. And all things
participate in Him, and from no single existing thing does He stand aloof. And He is
before all things, and all things in Him consist. And absolutely, if anything is, in any
way whatsoever, it both is, and is contemplated, and is preserved in the Pre-existing.
And, before all the other participations in Him, the being is pre-supposed. And self-
existent Being has precedence of the being self-existent Life; and the being self-existent
Wisdom; and the being self-existent Divine Likeness; and the other beings, in whatever
gifts participating, before all these participate in being; yea, rather, all self-existent
things, of which existing things participate, participate in the self-existent Being. And
there is nothing existent, of which the self-existent Being is not essence and age.
Naturally, then, more chiefly than all the rest, Almighty God is celebrated as Being, from
the prior of His other gifts; for pre-possessing even pre-existence, and super-existence,
and super-possessing being, He pre-established all being, I mean self-existent being; and
subjected everything, howsoever existing, to Being Itself. And then, all the sources of
beings, as participating in being, both are, and are sources, and first are, and then are
sources. And, if you wish to say, that the self-existent Life is source of living things,
as living;

and the self-existent Similitude, of things similar as similar; and the self-existent
Union, of things united, as united; and the self-existent Order, of things ordered, as
ordered and of the rest, as many as, by participating in this or that, or both, or many,
are this or that, or both, or many, you will find the self-existent participations
themselves, first participating in being, and by their being, first remaining;----then
being sources of this or that, and by their participating in being, both being, and being
participated. But, if these are by their participation of being, much more the things
participating in them. SECTION VI. The self-existent Super-goodness then, as projecting
the first gift of self-existent being, is celebrated by the elder and first of the
participations; and being itself is from It, and in It; as also the sources of things
being, and all the things that be, and the things howsoever sustained by being, and that
irresistibly, and comprehensively and uniformly. For even in a monad, every number
preexists in the form of a unit, and the monad holds every number in itself singly. And
every number is united in the monad, but so far as it advances from the monad, so far it
is distributed and multiplied. And in a centre, all the lines of the circle coexist within
one union, and the point holds all the straight lines in itself, uniformly united, both to
each other, and to the one source from which they proceeded, and in the centre itself they
are completely united; but standing slightly distant from it, they are slightly separated;
but when more apart, more so. And in one word, the nearer they are to the centre, the more
they are united to it and to each other? and the more they stand apart from it, the more
they stand apart from each other.

SECTION VII. But all the proportions of nature individually are comprehended in the whole
nature of the whole, within one unconfused union; and in the soul, the powers of each
several part are provident of the whole body in a uniform fashion. There is nothing out of
place then, that, by ascending from obscure images to the Cause of all, we should
contemplate, with supermundane eyes, all things in the Cause of all, even those contrary
to each other, after a single fashion and unitedly. For It is Source of things existing,
from which are both being itself, and all things however being; every source, every term,
every life, every immortality, every wisdom, every order, every harmony, every power,
every protection, every stability, every endurance, every conception, every word, every
sensible perception, every habit, every standing, every movement, every union, every
mingling, every friendship, every agreement, every difference, every limit, and whatever
other things existing by being, characterize all things being.

SECTION VIII. And from the same Cause of all, are the higher and lower intellectual
essences of the godlike angels; and those of the souls; and the natures of the whole
Cosmos; all things whatsoever said to be either in others, or by reflection. Yea, even the
all holy and most honoured Powers veritably being, and established, as it were, in the
vestibule of the superessential Triad, are from It, and in It; and have the being and the
godlike being; and after them, as regards Angels, the subordinate, sub-ordinately, and the
remotest, most remotely, but as regards ourselves, supermundanely. And the souls, and all
the other beings, according to the same rule, have their being, and their well-being; and
are, and are well; by having from the Pre-existing their being and their well-being. And
in It are both being and well-being; and from It, beginning; and in It, guarded; and to
It, terminated. And the prerogatives of being he distributes to the superior beings, which
the Oracles call even eternal. But being itself never at any time fails all existing
beings. And even self-existent being is from the Pre-existent, and of Him is being, and He
is not of being;----and in Him is being, and He is not in being; and being possesses Him,
and not He possesses being; and He is both age and beginning, and measure of being; being
essentiating Source, and Middle and End, of pre-essence, and being and age and all things.

And for this reason, by the Oracles, the veritably Pre-existing is represented under many
forms, according to every conception of beings, and the "Was" and the "Is," and the "Will
be," and the "Became," and the "Becomes," and the "Will become," are properly sung
respecting Him. For all these, to those who think worthily of God, signify by every
conception His being superessenlially, and Cause in every way of things existing. For He
is not this, but not that; nor is He in some way, but not in some other; but He is all
things, as Cause of all, and containing and pre-holding in Himself all governments, all
controls, of all existing things. And He is above all, as superessentially super-being
before all. Wherefore, also, all things are predicated of Him and together, and He is none
of them all; of every shape, of every kind, without form, without beauty, anticipating in
Himself, beginnings and middles, and ends of things existing, irresistibly and
preeminently; and shedding forth without flaw, (the light of) being to all, as beseems a
One and super-united Cause. For, if our sun, at the same time that he is one and sheds a
uniform light, renews the essences and qualities of sensible creatures, although they are
many and various, and nourishes and guards, and perfects and distinguishes, and unites,
and fosters, and makes to be productive, and increases, and transforms, and establishes,
and makes to grow, and awakens, and gives life to all;

and each of the whole, in a manner appropriate to itself, participates in the same and one
sun; and the one sun anticipated in himself, uniformly, the causes of the many
participants; much more with regard to the Cause of it and of all things, ought we to
concede that It first presides over, as beseems One superessential Oneness, all the
exemplars, of things existing; since He produces even essences, as beseems the egression
from essence. But, we affirm that the exemplars are the methods in God, giving essence to
things that be, and pre-existing uniformly, which theology calls predeterminations, and
Divine and good wills, which define and produce things existing; according to which
(predeterminations) the Superessential both predetermined and brought into existence
everything that exists. SECTION IX. But, if the Philosopher Clemens thinks good, that the
higher amongst beings should be called exemplars in relation to something, his statement
advances, not through correct and perfect and simple names. But, when we have conceded
even this, to be correctly said, we must call to mind the Word of God, which says, "I have
not shewn thee these things for the purpose of going after them, but that through the
proportionate knowledge of these we may be led up to the Cause of all, as we are capable."
We must attribute, then, all existing things to It, as beseems One Union pre-eminent above
all, since by starting from Being, the essentiating Progression and Goodness, both
penetrating all, and filling all things with Its own being, and rejoicing over all things
being, pre-holds all things in Itself, rejecting all duplicity by an one superfluity of
simplicity. But It grasps all things in the same way, as beseems its super-simplified
Infinity, and is participated in by all uniquely, even as a voice, whilst being one and
the same, is participated in by many ears as one.

SECTION X. The Pre-existing then is beginning and end of existing things; beginning indeed
as Cause, and end as for whom; and term of all, and infinitude of all infinitude; and
term, especially, of things that are, as it were, opposed. For in One, as we have often
said, He both pre-holds and sustains all existing things, being present to all, and
everywhere, both as regards the one, and the same, and as the every same, and issuing
forth to all, and abiding in Himself; and standing and moving, and neither standing nor
moving; neither having beginning, or middle, or end; neither in any of the existing
things, nor being any of the existing things. And neither does any of the things eternally
existing, or those temporarily subsisting, entirely come up to Him, but He towers above
time and eternity, and all things eternal and temporal. Wherefore also, He is Eternity
itself, and things existing, and the measures of things existing, and things measured
through Him and from Him. But let us speak of these things more opportunely on another
occasion.

Chapter VI

Concerning Life. SECTION I. Now let us sing the Eternal Life, from which comes the self-
existing Life, and every life; and from which, to all things however partaking of life, is
distributed the power to live appropriately to each. Certainly the life and the
immortality of the immortal Angels, and the very indestructibility of the angelic
perpetual motion, both is, and is sustained from It, and by reason of It. Wherefore, they
are also called living always and immortal; and again, not immortal, because not from
themselves have they their immortality and eternal life; but from the vivifying Cause
forming and sustaining all life; and as we said of Him, Who is, that He is Age even of the
self-existing Being, so also here again (we say) that the Divine Life, which is above
life, is life-giving and sustaining even of the self-existing Life; and every life and
life-giving movement is from the Life which is above every life, and all source of all
life. From It, even the souls have their indestructibility, and all living creatures, and
plants in their most remote echo of life, have their power to live. And when It is "taken
away," according to the Divine saying, all life fails, and to It even things that have
failed, through their inability to participate in It, when again returning, again become
living creatures.

SECTION II. And It gives chiefly to the self-existing Life to be a life, and to every
life, and to the individual life, that each should be conformable to that which nature
intended it to be. And to the supercelestial lives It gives the immaterial and godlike,
and unchangeable immortality; and the unswerving and undeviating perpetual movement;
whilst extending Itself through excess of goodness, even to the life of demons . For,
neither has this its being from another cause, but from It life has both its being and its
continuance. Further, It bequeaths even to men the angelic life, so far as is possible to
compound being, and through an overflowing love towards man turns, and calls us back to
Itself, even when we are departing from It; and, what is still more Divine, promises to
transfer even our whole selves (I mean souls, and bodies their yoke-fellows), to a perfect
life and immortality;----a fact which perhaps seems to Antiquity contrary to nature, but
to me, and to thee, and to the truth, both Divine and above nature. But, by "above
nature," I understand our visible nature, not the all-powerful nature of the Divine Life.
For, to this, as being nature of all the living creatures, and especially the more Divine,
no life is against nature, or above nature. So that the con- tradictory statements of
Simon's folly on this matter, let them be far repelled from a Divine assembly, and from
thy reverent soul. For this escaped him, as I imagine, whilst thinking to be wise, that
the right-thinking man ought not to use the visible reason of the sensible perception, as
an ally against the invisible Cause of all; and this must be our reply to him, that his
statement is against nature, for to It nothing is contrary.

SECTION III. From It, both all living creatures and plants draw their life and
nourishment; and whether you speak of intellectual, or rational, or sensible, or
nourishing, or growing, or whatever, life, or source of life, or essence of life, from It,
which is above every life, it both lives and thrives; and in It, as Cause, uniformly pre-
existed. For the super-living, and life-springing Life is Cause both of all life, and is
generative, and completive, and dividing of life, and is to be celebrated from every life,
in consequence of its numerous generation of all lives, as Manifold, and contemplated, and
sung by every life; and as without need, yea, rather, superfull of life, the Self-living,
and above every life, causing to live and super-living, or in whatever way one might extol
the life which is unutterable by human speech. CAPUT VII. Concerning Wisdom, Mind, Reason,
Truth, faith. SECTION I.

COME then, if you please, let us sing the good and eternal Life, both as wise, and as
wisdom's self; yea, rather, as sustaining all wisdom, and being superior to all wisdom and
understanding. For, not only is Almighty God superfull of wisdom, and of His understanding
there is no number, but He is fixed above all reason and mind and wisdom. And, when the
truly divine man, the common sun of us, and of our leader, had thought this out, in a
sense above nature, he says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," (meaning) not
only that all human intelligence is a sort of error, when tried by the stability and
durability of the Divine and most perfect conceptions, but that it is even usual with the
theologians to deny, with respect to God, things of privation, in an opposite sense. Thus,
the Oracles declare, the All-luminous Light, invisible, and Him, Who is often sung, and of
many names, to be unutterable and without name, and Him, Who is present to all, and is
found of all, to be incomprehensible and past finding out. In this very way, even now, the
Divine Apostle is said to have celebrated as "foolishness of God," that which appears
unexpected and absurd in it, (but) which leads to the truth which is unutterable and
before all reason.

But, as I elsewhere said, by taking the things above us, in a sense familiar to ourselves,
and by being entangled by what is congenial to sensible perceptions, and by comparing
things Divine with our own conditions, we are led astray through following the Divine and
mystical reason after a mere appearance. We ought to know that our mind has the power for
thought, through which it views things intellectual, but that the union through which it
is brought into contact with things beyond itself surpasses the nature of the mind. We
must then contemplate things Divine, after this Union, not after ourselves, but by our
whole selves, standing out of our whole selves, and becoming wholly of God. For it is
better to be of God, and not of ourselves. For thus things Divine will, be given to those
who become dear to God. Celebrating then, in a superlative sense, this, the irrational and
mindless and foolish Wisdom, we affirm that It is Cause of all mind and reason, and all
wisdom and understanding; and of It is every counsel, and from It every knowledge and
understanding; and in It all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. For,
agreeably to the things already spoken, the super-wise, and all-wise Cause is a mainstay
even of the self-existing Wisdom, both the universal and the individual.

SECTION II. From It the contemplated and contemplating powers of the angelic Minds have
their simple and blessed conceptions; collecting their divine knowledge, not in portions,
or from portions, or sensible perceptions, or detailed reasonings, or arguing from
something common to these things, but purified from everything material and multitudinous,
they contemplate the conceptions of Divine things intuitively, immaterially and uniformly,
and they have their intellectual power and energy re-splendent with the unmixed and
undefiled purity, and see at a glance the Divine conceptions indi-visibly and
immaterially, and are by the GodlikeOne moulded, as attainable by reason of the Divine
Wisdom, to the Divine and Super-wise Mind and Reason. And souls have their reasoning
power, investigating the truth of things by detailed steps and rotation, and through their
divided and manifold variety falling short of the single minds, but, by the collection of
many towards the One, deemed worthy, even of conceptions equal to the angels, so far as is
proper and attainable to souls. But, even as regards the sensible perceptions themselves,
one would not miss the mark, if one called them an echo of wisdom. Yet, even the mind of
demons, qua mind, is from It; but so far as a mind is irrational, not knowing, and not
wishing to attain what it aspires to, we must call it more properly a declension from
wisdom.

But, since the Divine Wisdom is called source, and cause, and mainstay, and completion and
guard, and term of wisdom itself, and of every kind, and of every mind and reason, and
every sensible perception, how then is Almighty God Himself, the super-wise, celebrated as
Mind and Reason and Knowledge? For, how will He conceive any of the objects of
intelligence, seeing He has not intellectual operations? or how will He know the objects
of sense, seeing He is fixed above all sensible perception? Yet the Oracles affirm that He
knoweth all things, and that nothing escapes the Divine Knowledge. But, as I have been
accustomed to say many times before, we must contemplate things Divine, in a manner
becoming God. For the mindless, and the insensible, we must attribute to God, by excess
----not by defect, just as we attribute the irrational to Him Who is above reason; and
imperfection, to the Super-perfect, and Pre-perfect; and the impalpable, and invisible
gloom, to the light which is inaccessible on account of excess of the visible light. So
the Divine Mind comprehends all things, by His knowledge surpassing all, having
anticipated within Himself the knowledge of all, as beseems the Cause of all; before
angels came to being, knowing and producing angels; and knowing all the rest from within;
and, so to speak, from the Source Itself, and by bringing into being. And, this, I think,
the sacred text teaches, when it says, "He, knowing all things, before their birth.

For, not as learning existing things from existing things, does the Divine Mind know, but
from Itself, and in Itself, as Cause, it pre-holds and pre-comprehends the notion and
knowledge, and essence of all things; not approaching each several thing according to its
kind, but knowing and containing all things, within one grasp of the Cause; just as the
light, as cause, presupposes in itself the notion of darkness, not knowing the darkness
otherwise than from the light. The Divine Wisdom then, by knowing Itself, will know all
things; things material, immaterially, and things divisible, indivisibly, and things many,
uniformly; both knowing and producing all. things by Itself, the One. For even, if as
becomes one Cause, Almighty God distributes being to all things that be, as beseems the
self-same, unique Cause, He will know all things, as being from Himself, and pre-
established in Himself, and not from things that be will He receive the knowledge of them;
but even to each of them, He will be provider of the knowledge of themselves, and of the
mutual knowledge of each other. Almighty God, then, has not one knowledge, that of
Himself, peculiar to Himself, and another, which embraces in common all things existing;
for the very Cause of all things, by knowing Itself, will hardly, I presume, be ignorant
of the things from Itself, and of which It is Cause. In this way then, Almighty God knows
existing things, not by a knowledge of things existing, but by that of Himself.

For the Oracles affirm, that the angels also know things on the earth, not as knowing them
by sensible perceptions, although objects of sensible perception, but by a proper power
and nature of the Godlike Mind. SECTION III. In addition to these things, we must examine
how we know God, Who is neither an object of intellectual nor of sensible perception, nor
is absolutely anything of things existing. Never, then, is it true to say, that we know
God; not from His own nature (for that is unknown, and surpasses all reason and mind),
but, from the ordering of all existing things, as projected from Himself, and containing a
sort of images and similitudes of His Divine exemplars, we ascend, as far as we have
power, to that which is beyond all, by method and order in the abstraction and pre-
eminence of all, and in the Cause of all. Wherefore, Almighty God is known even in all,
and apart from all. And through knowledge, Almighty God is known, and through agnosia. And
there is, of Him, both conception, and expression, and science, and contact, and sensible
perception, and opinion, and imagination, and name, and all the rest. And He is neither
conceived, nor expressed, nor named. And He is not any of existing things, nor is He known
in any one of existing things. And He is all in all, and nothing in none. And He is known
to all, from all, and to none from none. For, we both say these things correctly
concerning God, and He is celebrated from all existing things, according to the analogy of
all things, of which He is Cause.

And there is, further, the most Divine Knowledge of Almighty God, which is known, through
not knowing (agnosia) during the union above mind; when the mind, having stood apart from
all existing things, then having dismissed also itself, has been made one with the super-
luminous rays, thence and there being illuminated by the unsearchable depth of wisdom.
Yet, even from all things, as I said, we may know It, for It is, according to the sacred
text, the Cause formative of all, and ever harmonizing all, and (Cause) of the
indissoluble adaptation and order of all, and ever uniting the ends of the former to the
beginnings of those that follow, and beautifying the one symphony and harmony of the
whole. SECTION IV. But Almighty God is celebrated in the holy Oracles as "Logos"; not only
because He is provider of reason and mind and wisdom, but because He anticipated the
causes of all, solitarily in Himself, and because He passes through all, as the Oracles
say, even to the end of all things; and even more than these, because the Divine Word
surpasses every simplicity, and is set free from all, as the Superessential. This "Logos
"is the simple and really existing truth, around which, as a pure and unerring knowledge
of the whole, the Divine Faith is----the enduring foundation of the believers----which
establishes them in the truth, and the truth in them, by an unchangeable identity, they
having the pure knowledge of the truth of the things believed. For, if knowledge unites
the knowing and the known, but ignorance is ever a cause to the ignorant person of change,
and of separation from himself, nothing will move one who has believed in the truth,
according to the sacred Logos, from true Faith's Sanctuary upon which he will have the
steadfastness of his unmoved, unchangeable identity. For, well does he know, who has been
united to the Truth, that it is well with him although the multitude may admonish him as
"wandering." For it probably escapes them, that he is wandering from error to the truth,
through the veritable faith. But, he truly knows himself, not, as they say, mad, but as
liberated from the unstable and variable course around the manifold variety of error,
through the simple, and ever the same, and similar truth. Thus then the early leaders of
our Divine Theosophy are dying every day, on behalf of truth, testifying as is natural,
both by every word and deed, to the one knowledge of the truth of the Christians, that it
is of all, both more simple and more Divine, yea rather, that it is the sole true and one
and simple knowledge of God.

Chapter VIII

Concerning power, justice, preservation, redemption, in which also concerning inequality.
SECTION I. BUT since the theologians sing the Divine truth fulness and super-wise wisdom,
both as power and as justice, and designate It preservation and redemption, come then, let
us unfold these Divine Names also, as best we can. Now, that the Godhead is pre-eminent
above, and surpasses every power, howsoever being and conceived, I do not suppose any of
those nourished in the Divine Oracles does not know. For on many occasions the Word of God
attributes the Lordship to It, even when distinguishing It from the supercelestial powers
themselves. How then do the theologians sing it also as a Power, which is pre-eminent
above every power? or how ought we to understand the name of power as applied to It?
SECTION II. We say, then, that Almighty God is Power, as pre-having, and super-having,
every power in Himself, and as Author of every power, and producing everything as beseems
a Power inflexible and unencom-passed, and as being Author of the very existence of power,
either the universal or particular, and as boundless in power, not only by the production
of all power, but by being above all, even the self. existent Power, and by His superior
power, and by His bringing into existence, ad infinitum, endless powers other than the
existing powers; and by the fact that the endless powers, even when brought into existence
without end, are not able to blunt the super-endless production of His power-making power;
and by the unutterable and unknown, and inconceivable nature of His all-surpassing power,
which, through abundance of the powerful, gives power even to weakness, and holds together
and preserves the remotest of its echoes; as also we may see even with regard to the
powerful insensible perception, that the super-brilliant lights reach even to obscure
visions, and they say, that the loud sounds enter even into ears which are not very well
adapted to the reception of sounds. For that which does not hear at all is not hearing;
and that which does not see at all is not sight.

SECTION III. The distribution, then, of boundless power, from Almighty God, passes to all
beings, and there is no single being which is utterly deprived of the possession of some
power; but it has either intellectual, or rational, or sensible, or vital, or essential
power; yea even, if one may say so, self-existent being has power to be from the
superessential Power. SECTION IV. From It, are the godlike powers of the angelic ranks;
from It, they have their immutability, and all their intellectual and immortal perpetual
movements; and their equilibrium itself, and their undiminishable aspiration after good,
they have received from the Power boundless in goodness; since It commits to them the
power to be, and to be such, and to aspire always to be, and the power itself to aspire to
have the power always. SECTION V. But the gifts of the unfailing Power pass on, both to
men and living creatures, and plants, and the entire nature of the universe; and It
empowers things united for their mutual friendship and communion, and things divided for
their being each within their own sphere and limit, without confusion, and without
mingling; and preserves the order and good relations of the whole, for their own proper
good, and guards the undying lives of the individual angels inviolate; and the heavenly
and the life-giving and astral bodies and orders without change: and makes the period of
time possible to be; and disperses the revolutions of time by their progressions, and
collects them together by their returns; and makes the powers of fire unquenchable, and
the rills of water unfailing; and sets bounds to the aerial current, and establishes the
earth upon nothing; and guards its life-giving throes from perishing; and preserves the
mutual harmony and mingling of the elements without confusion, and without division; and
holds together the bond of soul and body; and arouses the nourishing and growing powers of
plants; and sustains the essential powers of the whole; and secures the continuance of the
universe without dissolution, and bequeaths the deification Itself, by furnishing a power
for this to those who are being deified. And in a word, there is absolutely no single
thing which is deprived of the overruling surety and embrace of the Divine Power. For that
which absolutely has no power, neither is, nor is anything, nor is there any sort of
position of it whatever.

SECTION VI. Yet Elymas, the Magician, says, "if Almighty God is All-powerful, how is He
said by your theologian, not to be able to do some thing "? But he calumniates the Divine
Paul, who said, "that Almighty God is not able to deny Himself." Now in advancing this, I
very much fear lest I should incur ridicule for folly, as undertaking to pull down frail
houses, built upon the sand by little boys at play; and as being eager to aim at the
theological intelligence of this, as if it were some inaccessible mark. For, the denial of
Himself, is a falling from truth, but the truth is an existent, and the falling from the
truth is a falling from the existent. If, then, the truth is an existent, and the denial
of the truth a falling from the existent, Almighty God cannot fall from the existent, and
non-existence is not; as any one might say, the powerless is not powerful; and ignorance,
by privation, does not know. The wise man, not having understood this, imitates those
inexperienced wrestlers, who, very often, by assuming that their adversaries are weak,
according to their own opinion, and manfully making a show of fight with them, when
absent, and courageously beating the air with empty blows, think that they have overcome
their antagonists, and proclaim themselves victors (though) not yet having experienced
their rivals' strength. But we, conjecturing the meaning of the Theologian to the best of
our ability, celebrate the Super-powerful God, as Omnipotent, as blessed, and only Lord;
as reigning in the kingdom of Eter-. nity itself; as in no respect fallen from things
existing;----but rather, as both super-having and pre-having all existing things, as
beseems Power superessential; and as having bequeathed to all things being, the power to
be, and this their being in an ungrudging stream, as beseems abundance of surpassing
power.

SECTION VII. But further, Almighty God is celebrated as justice, as distributing things
suitable to all, both due measure, and beauty, and good order, and arrangement, and
marking out all distributions and orders for each, according to that which truly is the
most just limit, and as being Cause for all of the free action of each. For the Divine
Justice arranges and disposes all things, and preserving all things unmingled and
unconfused, from all, gives to all existing beings things convenient for each, according
to the due falling to each existing thing. And, if we speak correctly, all those who abuse
the Divine Justice, unconsciously convict themselves of a manifest injustice. For they
say, that immortality ought to be in mortals, and perfection in the imperfect, and imposed
necessity in the free, and identity in the variable, and perfect power in the weak, and
the temporal should be eternal, and things moveable by nature, unchangeable, and that
temporary pleasures should be eternal; and in one word, they assign the properties of one
thing to another. They ought to know that the Divine Justice in this respect is really a
true justice, because it distributes to all the things proper to themselves, according to
the fitness of each existing thing, and preserves the nature of each in its own order and
capacity.

SECTION VIII. But some one may say, it is not the mark of justice to leave pious men
without assistance, when they are ground down by evil men. To which we must reply, that,
if those whom you call pious do indeed love things on earth, which are zealously sought
after by the earthly, they have altogether fallen from the Divine Love. And I do not know
how they could be called pious, when they unjustly treat things truly loveable and divine,
which do not at once surpass in influence in their estimation things undesirable and
unloveable. But, if they love the realities, they who desire certain things ought to
rejoice when they attain the things desired. Are they not then nearer the angelic virtues,
when, as far as possible, by aspiration after things Divine, they withdraw from the
affection for earthly things, by being exercised very manfully to this, in their perils,
on behalf of the beautiful? So that, it is true to say, that this is rather a property of
the Divine Justice----not to pamper and destroy the bravery of the best, by the gifts of
earthly things, nor, if any one should attempt to do this, to leave them without
assistance, but to establish them in the excellent and harsh condition, and to dispense to
them, as being such, things meet for them.

SECTION IX. This Divine Justice, then, is celebrated also even as preservation of the
whole, as preserving and guarding the essence and order of each, distinct and pure from
the rest; and as being genuine cause of each minding its own business in the whole. But,
if any one should also celebrate this preservation, as rescuing savingly the whole from
the worse, we will entirely accept this as the cantique of the manifold preservation, and
we will deem him worthy to define this even as the principal preservation of the whole,
which preserves all things in themselves, without change, undisturbed and unswaying to the
worse; and guards all things without strife and without war, each being regulated by their
own methods; and excludes all inequality and minding others' business, from the whole; and
maintains the relations of each from falling to things contrary, and from migrating. And
since, without missing the mark of the sacred theology, one might celebrate this
preservation as redeeming all things existing, by the goodness which is preservative of
all, from falling away from their own proper goods, so far as the nature of each of those
who are being preserved admits; wherefore also the Theologians name it redemption, both so
far as it does not permit things really being to fall away to non-existence, and so far
as, if anything should have been led astray to discord and disorder, and should suffer any
diminution of the perfection of its own proper goods, even this it redeems from passion
and listlessness and loss;

supplying what is deficient, and paternally overlooking the slackness, and raising up from
evil; yea, rather, establishing in the good, and filling -up the leaking good, and
arranging and adorning its disorder and deformity, and making it complete, and liberating
it from all its blemishes. But let this suffice concerning these matters, and concerning
Justice, in accordance with which the equality of all is measured and defined, and every
inequality, which arises from deprivation of the equality, in each thing severally, is
excluded. For, if any one should interpret inequality as distinctions in the whole, of the
whole, in relation to the whole, Justice guards even this, not permitting the whole, when
they have become mingled throughout, to be thrown into confusion, but keeping all existing
things within each particular kind, in which each was intended by nature, to be.

Chapter IX

Concerning great, small, same, different, similar, dissimilar, standing, movement,
equality. SECTION I. BUT since even the great and the small are attributed to the Cause of
all, arid the same, and the different, and the similar, and the dissimilar, and the
standing, and the movement. Come! and let us gaze upon these images of the Divine Names,
such as have been manifested to us. Almighty God, then, is celebrated in the Oracles as
great, both in greatness and in a gentle breeze, which manifests the Divine littleness;
and as the same, when the Oracles declare "thou art the same"; and as different, when He
is depicted, by the same Oracles, as of many shapes and many forms; and as similar, as
mainstay of things similar and similitude; and as dissimilar to all, as the like of whom
there is not; and as standing, and unmoved, and seated for ever; and as moving, as going
forth to all; and whatever other Divine Names, of the same force with these, are
celebrated by the Oracles.

SECTION II. Almighty God, then, is named great in reference -to His own peculiar
greatness, which imparts itself to all things great; and overflows, and extends itself
outside of all greatness; embracing every place, surpassing every number, going through
every infinitude, both in reference to its super-fulness, and mighty operation, and its
fontal gifts, in so far as these, being participated by all in a stream of boundless
gifts, are altogether undiminished, and have the same superfulness, and are not lessened
by the impartations, but are even still more bubbling over. This Greatness then is
infinite, and without measure and without number. And this is the preeminence as regards
the absolute and surpassing flood of the incomprehensible greatness. SECTION III. But
little, i.e. fine, is affirmed respecting Him,----that which leaves behind every mass and
distance, and penetrates through all, without hindrance. Yet the little is Elemental Cause
of all, for nowhere will you find the idea of the little unparticipated. Thus then the
little must be received as regards God as penetrating to all, and through all, without
impediment; and operating, and piercing through, to "a dividing of soul and spirit, and
joints and marrow"; and "discerning thoughts and intents of heart," yea rather----all
things that be. For there is not a creature unmanifest in His sight. This littleness is
without quality and without quantity, without restraint, without limit, without bound,
comprehending all things, but itself incomprehensible.

SECTION IV. But the same is superessentially everlasting, inconvertible, abiding in
itself, always being in the same condition and manner; present to all in the same manner,
and itself by itself, upon itself, firmly and purely fixed in the most beautiful limits of
the super-essential sameness, without changing, without falling, without swerving,
unalterable, unmingled, immaterial, most simplex, self-sufficient, without increase,
without diminution, unoriginated, not as not yet come into being, or unperfected, or not
having become from this, or that, nor as being in no manner of way whatever, but as all
unoriginated, and absolutely unoriginated, and ever being; and being self-complete, and
being the same by itself, and differentiated by itself in one sole and same form; and
shedding sameness from itself to all things adapted to participate in It; and assigning
things different to those different; abundance and cause of identity, preholding
identically in itself even things contrary, as beseems the One and unique Cause,
surpassing the whole identity.

SECTION V. But the different, since Almighty God is present to all providentially, and
becomes all in all, for the sake of the preservation of all, resting upon Himself, and His
own identity within Himself, standing, as beseems an energy, one and ceaseless, and
imparting Himself with an unbending power, for deification of those turned to Him. And we
must suppose that the difference of the manifold shapes of Almighty God, during the
multiform visions, signifies that certain things are different from the phenomena under
which they appear. For, as when language depicts the soul itself, under a bodily form, and
fashions bodily members around the memberless, we think differently of the members
attributed to it, as befits the soul's memberless condition; and we call the mind head,
and opinion neck,----as intermediate between rational and irrational----and anger, breast;
and lust, belly; and the constitution, legs and feet; using the names of the members as
symbols of the powers. Much more then, as respects Him, Who is beyond all, is it necessary
to make clear the difference of forms and shapes by reverent and God-becoming, and mystic
explanations. And if you wish to apply the threefold shapes of bodies to the impalpable
and shapeless God, you must say, that the Progression of Almighty God, which spreads out
to all things, is a Diyine extension; and length, the power extending itself over the
whole; and depth, the hiddenness and imperception incomprehensible to all creatures. But,
that we may not forget ourselves, in our explanation, of the different shapes and forms,
by confounding the incorporeal Divine Names with those giyen through symbols of objects of
sense, we have for this reason spoken concerning these things in the Symbolic Theology.
But now, let us suppose the Divine difference, as really not a sort of change from the
superimmovable identity, but as the single multiplication of itself, and the uniform
progressions of its fecundity to all.

SECTION VI. But similar, if any one might speak of Almighty God as the same, as being
wholly throughout, similar to Himself----abidingly and indivisibly; we must not despise
the Divine Name of the Similar; but the Theologians affirm that the God above all, in His
essential nature, is similar to none; but that He bequeaths a Divine similarity to those
who turn to Him, Who is above every limit and expression, by imitation according to their
capacity. And there is the power of the Divine similitude, which turns all created things
to the Cause. These things, then, must be said to be similar to Almighty God, both after a
Divine likeness and similitude. For, neither must we say that Almighty God is similar to
them, because neither is a man like his own image. For, with regard to those of the same
rank, it is possible that these should be similar to each other, and that the similarity
corresponds to each, and that both are similar to each other, after a preceding appearance
of like. But, with respect to the Cause and the things caused, we do not accept the
correspondence. For, the being similar is bequeathed, not to these, or those, alone, but
to all those who participate in similarity. Almighty God becomes Cause of their being
similar, and is mainstay of the self-existing Similarity itself; and the similar in all is
similar to a soft of footprint of the Divine Similarity and completes their Oneness.

SECTION VII. And what must we say concerning this? For the Word of God Itself extols the
fact that He is dissimilar, and of the same rank with none; as "different "even from
everything, and, what is more paradoxical, says there is nothing that is similar to Him.
Yet the expression is not contrary to the similarity towards Him, for the same things are
both similar to God, and dissimilar----the former as regards the received imitation of the
inimitable, the latter as regards the dependence of the things caused upon the cause, and
their being inferior in degrees, endless and incalculable. SECTION VIII. But what also do
we say concerning the Divine standing, i.e. seat? What other than that Almighty God
remains Himself, in Himself, and is abidingly fixed in unmoved identity, and is firmly
established on high; and thâ't He acts according to the same conditions, and in reference
to the same object, and in the same way; and that He exists altogether, as beseems the
immutability from Himself; and as beseems the immovability Itself, entirely immovable, and
that superessentially. For He is Cause of the standing and sitting of all, Who is above
all sitting and standing, and in Him all things consist, being kept from falling out of
the state of their own proper goods.

SECTION IX. But what again, when the Theologians say, that the unmoved goes forth to all,
and is moved? Must we not understand thjs in a sense befitting God? For we must reverently
suppose that He is moved, not as beseems carriage, or change, or alteration, or turning,
or local movement, or the straight, or the circular, or that from both (curvative), or the
intellectual, or the spiritual, or the physical, but that Almighty God brings into being
and sustains everything, and provides in every way for everything; and is present, to all,
by the irresistible embrace of all, and by His providential progressions and operations to
all existing things. But we must concede to our discourse, to celebrate in a sense
becoming God, even movements of God, the immovable. And the straight must be considered
(to be) the unswerving and the undeviating progression of the operation, and the
production from Himself of the whole; and the curvative----r-the steady progression and
the productive condition; and the circular the same, and the holding together the middle
and extremities, which encompass and are encompassed,----and the turning to Him' of the
things which proceeded from Him.

SECTION X. But, if any one should take the Divine Name in the Oracles, of "the same," or
that of "justice," in the sense of "the equal," we must say, that Almighty God is equal,
not only as indivisible and unswerving, but also as going forth to all, and through all,
equally; and as foundation of the self-existent Equality, in conformity with which, He
equally effects the same passage, through all things mutually, and the participation of
those who receive equally, according to the aptitude of each; and the equal gift
distributed to all, according to due; and according as He has anticipated pre-eminently
and uniquely in Himself, every equality, intelligible, intelligent, rational, sensible,
essential, physical, voluntary, as beseems the Power over all, which is productive of
every equality. CAPUT X, Concerning Sovereign Lord, "Ancient of days" in which also,
concerning Age and Time . SECTION I. THE time, then, is come for our discourse, to sing
the God of many Names, as "Sovereign Lord," and as "Ancient of days." For He is called the
former, by reason that He is an all-controlling basis, binding and embracing the whole,
and establishing and supporting, and tightening, and completing the whole. Continuous in
itself, and from itself, producing the whole, as it were from a Sovereign root, and
turning to itself the whole, as to a sovereign parent stock, and holding them together as
an all-embracing basis of all, securing all the things embraced, within one grasp superior
to all, and not permitting them, when fallen from itself to be destroyed, as moved from an
all-perfect sanctuary. But the Godhead is called Sovereign, both as controlling and
governing the members of His household, purely, and as being desired and beloved by all,
and as placing upon all the voluntary yokes, and the sweet pangs of the Divine and
Sovereign, and in dissolvable love of the Goodness itself,

SECTION II. But Almighty God is celebrated as "Ancient of days" because He is of all
things both Age and Time,----and before Days, and before Age and Time. And yet we must
affirm that He is Time and Day, and appointed Time, and Age, in a sense befitting God, as
being throughout every movement unchangeable and unmoved, and in His ever moving remaining
in Himself, and as being Author of Age and Time and Days. Wherefore, in the sacred Divine
manifestations of the mystic visions, He is represented as both old and young; the former
indeed signifying the "Ancient" and being from the beginning, and the latter His never
growing old; or both teaching that He advances through all things from beginning to end,
----or as our Divine initiator says, "since each manifests the priority of God, the Elder
having the first place in Time, but the Younger the priority in number; because the unit,
and things near the unit, are nearer the beginning than numbers further advanced.

SECTION III. But we must, as I think, see from the Oracles the nature of Time and
Eternity, for they do not always (merely) call all the things absolutely unoriginated and
really everlasting, eternal, but also things imperishable and immortal and unchangeable, '
and things which are in like fashion, as when they say, "be ye opened, eternal doors," and
the like. And often they characterize the things the most ancient by the name of Eternity;
and again they call the whole duration of our time Eternity, in so far as the ancient and
unchangeable, and the measurement of existence throughout, is a characteristic of
Eternity. But they call time that concerned in generation and decay and change, and
sometimes the one, and sometimes the other. Wherefore also, the Word of God says that even
we, who are bounded here by time, shall partake of Eternity, when we have reached the
Eternity which is imperishable and ever the same. But sometimes eternity is celebrated in
the Oracles, even as temporal, and time as eternal. But if we know them better and more
accurately, things spiritual are spoken of and denoted by Eternity, and things subject to
generation by time. It is necessary then to suppose that things called eternal are not
absolutely co-eternal with God, Who is before Eternity, but that following unswervingly
the most august Oracles, we should understand things eternal and temporal according to the
hopes recognized by them, hut whatever participates partly in eternity and partly in time,
as things midway between things spiritual and things being born. But Almighty God we ought
to celebrate, both as eternity and time, as Author of every time an'd eternity, and
"Ancient of days," as before time, and above time; and as changing appointed seasons and
times; and again as being before âges, in so far as He is both before eternity and above
eternity and His kingdom, a kingdom of all the Ages. Amen.

Chapter XI

Concerning Peace, and what is meant by the self-existent Being; what is the self-existent
Life, and what the self-existent Power, and such like expressions. SECTION I. COME, then,
let us extol the Peace Divine, and Source of conciliation, by hymns of peace! For this it
is which unifies all, and engenders, and effects the agreement and fellowship of all.
Wherefore, even all things aspire to it, which turns their divided multiplicity into the
thorough Oneness, and unifies the tribal war of the whole into a homogeneous dwelling
together, by the participation of the divine Peace. With regard, then, to the more
reverend of the conciliating powers, these indeed are united to themselves and to each
other, and to the one Source of Peace of the whole; and the things (that are) under them,
these they unite also to themselves and to each other, and to the One and all-perfect
Source and Cause of the Peace of all, which, passing in-divisibly to the whole, limits and
terminates and secures everything, as if by a kind of bolts, which bind together things
that are separated; and do not permit them, when separated, to rush to infinity and the
boundless, and to become without order, and without stability, and destitute of God, and
to depart from the union amongst themselves, and to become intermingled m each other, in
every sort of confusion.

Concerning then, this, the Divine Peace and Repose, which the holy Justus calls
unutterableness, and, as compared with every known progression, immobility, how it rests
and is at ease, and how it is in itself, and within itself, and entire, and to itself
entire is super-united, and when entering into itself, and multiplying itself, neither
loses its own Union, but even proceeds to all, whilst remaining entire within, by reason
of excess of its Union surpassing all, it is neither permitted, nor attainable to any
existing being, either to express or to understand. But, having premised this, as
unutterable and unknowable, as being beyond all, let us examine its conceived and uttered
participations, and this, as possible to men, and to us, as inferior to many good men.
SECTION II. First then, this must be said, that It is mainstay of the self-existent Peace,
both the general and the particular; and that It mingles all things with each other within
their unconfused union, as beseems which, united indivisibly, and at the same time they
severally continuously unmingled stand, as regards their own proper kind, not muddled
through their mingling with the opposite, nor blunting any of their unifying distinctness
and purity. Let us then contemplate a certain One and simple nature of the peaceful Union,
unifying all things to Itself, and to themselves, and to each other; and preserving all
things in an unconfused grasp of all, both unmingled and mingled together; by reason of
which the divine Minds, being united,, are united to their own conceptions, and to the
things conceived; and again they ascend to the unknowable contact of things fixed above
mind; by reason of which, souls, by uniting their manifold reasonings, and collecting them
together to an One intellectual Purity, advance in a manner proper to themselves, by
method and order, through the immaterial and indivisible conception, to the union above
conception; by reason of which, the one and indissoluble connection of all is established,
within its Divine Harmony, and is harmonized by complete concord and agreement and
fellowship, being united without confusion, and held together without division. For the
fulness of the perfect Peace passes through to all existing things, as beseems the most
simple, and unmingled presence of Its unifying power, making all One.

and binding the extremes through the intermediate to the extremes, which are yoked
together in an one connatural friendship; and bestowing the enjoyment of Itself, even to
the furthest extremities of the whole, and making all things of one family, by the
unities, the identities, the unions, the conjunctions of the Divine Peace, standing of
course indivisibly, and showing all in one, and passing through all, and not stepping out
of Its own identity. For It advances to all, and imparts Itself to all, in a manner
appropriate to them, and there overflows an abundance of peaceful fertility; and It
remains, through excess of union, super-united, entire, to and throughout Its whole self.
SECTION III. But how, some one may say, do all things aspire to peace, for many things
rejoice in diversity and division, and would not, at any time, of their own accord, be
willingly in repose. Now, if in saying this, he affirms, that the identity of each
existing thing is diversity and division, and that there is no existent thing whatever,
which at any time is willing to destroy this (identity), neither would we in any way
contradict this, but would delare even this an aspiration after peace. For all things love
to dwell at peace, and to be united amongst themselves, and to be unmoved and unfallen
from themselves, and the things of themselves. And the perfect Peace seeks to guard the
idiosyncrasy of each unmoved and unconfused, by its peace-giving forethought, preserving
everything unmoved and unconfused, both as regards themselves and each other, and
establishes all things by a stable and unswerving power, towards their own peace and
immobility.

SECTION IV. And if all things in motion desire, not repose, but ever to make known their
own proper movement, even this is an aspiration after the Divine Peace of the whole, which
preserves all things from falling away of their own accord, and guards the idiosyncrasy
and moving life of all moving things unmoved and free from falling, so that the things
moved, being at peace amongst themselves, and always in the same condition, perform their
own proper functions. SECTION V. But if, in affirming the diversity as a falling from
peace, he insists that peace is not beloved by all, verily there is no existing being
which has entirely fallen from every kind of union; for, the altogether unstable and
infinite, and unestablished, and without limit, is neither an actual thing, nor in things
actual. But if he says, that those are inimical to peace, and good things of peace, who
rejoice in strife and anger and changes and disturbances, even these are controlled by
obscure images of a peaceful aspiration; being vexed by tumultuous passions, and
ignorantly aspiring to calm them, they imagine that they will pacify themselves by the
gratification of things which ever elude them, and they are disturbed by the non-
attainment of the pleasures which overpowered them. What would any one say of the peaceful
stream of love towards man in Christ, according to which we have learned no longer to wage
war, either with ourselves, or each other, or with angels, but that with them, according
to our power, we should also be fellow-workers in Divine things, after the purpose of
Jesus, Who worketh all in all, and forms a peace unutterable and pre-determined from
Eternity, and reconciles us to Himself, in Spirit, and through Himself and in Himself to
the Father; concerning which supernatural gifts it is sufficiently spoken in the
Theological Outlines, whilst the Oracles of the sacred inspiration furnish us with
additional testimony.

SECTION VI. But, since you once asked me by letter, what in the world I consider the self-
existent Being, the self-existent Life, the self-existent Wisdom, and said that you
debated with yourself how, at one time, I call Almighty God, self-existent Life, and at
another, Mainstay of the self-existent Life, I thought it necessary, O holy man of God, to
also free you from this difficulty, so far as lay in my power. And first then, in order
that we may now resume that which I have said a thousand times already, there is no
contradiction in saying that Almighty God is self-existent Power, or self-existent Life,
and that He is Mainstay of the self-existent Life or Peace or Power. For the latter, He is
named from things existing, and specially from the first existing, as Cause of all
existing things; and the former, as being above all, even the first existing of beings,
being above superessentially. But you say, what in the world do we call the self-existent
Being, or the self-existent Life, or whatever we lay down to be absolutely and originally
and to have stood forth primarily from God? And we reply, this is not crooked but
straight, and has a simple explanation.

For we do not say that the self-existent Being, as Cause of the being of all things, is a
sort of Divine or angelic essence (for the Super-essential alone is Source and Essence and
Cause of the existence of all things, and of the self-existent Being), nor that another
Deity, besides the Super-divine, produces Life for all that live, and is a Life Causative
of the self-existent Life; nor to speak summarily, that essences and personalities
originate and make existing things, so that superficial people have named them both gods,
and creators of existing things,----whom, to speak truly and properly, neither they
themselves knew (for they are non-existent), nor their fathers,----but we call self-
existent Being, and self-existent Life, and self-existent Deity, as regards at least
Source, and Deity, and Cause, the One Superior and Super-essential Source and Cause; but
as regards Impartation, the providential Powers, that issue forth from God the
unparticipating, (these we call) the self-existent essentiation, self-existent living,
self-existent deification, by participating in which according to their own capacity,
things existing, both are, and are said to be, existing, and living, and full of God----
and the rest in the same way. Wherefore also, He is called the good Mainstay of the first
of these, then of the whole of them, then of the portions of them, then of those who
participate in them entirely, then of those who participate in them in part.

And why must we speak of these things, since some of our divine instructors in holy
things, affirm that the Super-good and Super-divine self-existent Goodness and Deity, is
Mainstay even of the self-existent Goodness and Deity; affirming that the good-making and
deifying gift issued forth from God; and that the self-existent beautifying stream, is
self-existent beauty, and whole beauty, and partial beauty, and things absolutely
beautiful, and things partially beautiful, and whatever other things are said and shall be
said after the same fashion, which declare that providences and goodnesses issuing forth
from God the unparticipating, in an ungrudging stream, are participated by existing
things, and bubble over in order that distinctly the Cause of all may be beyond all, and
the Superessential and Supernatural may, in every respect, be above things of any sort of
essence and nature whatever.

Chapter XII

Concerning Holy of Holies, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God of Gods. SECTION I. BUT since
whatever we have to say on these matters has reached, in my opinion, a fitting conclusion,
we must sing Him of endless names, both as Holy of Holies and King of Kings; and as ruling
eternity and for ever and beyond, and as Lord of Lords, and God of Gods. And first we must
say, what we think Holiness Itself is; and what Kingdom, and what Lordship, and what
Divinity, and what the Oracles wish to denote by the duplication of the names. SECTION II.
Holiness then is (so far as we can say) the purity free from every pollution, and all
perfect, and altogether unstained; Kingdom is the assignment of every limit and order, and
ordinance and rank; and Lordship is not only the superiority over the worse, but also the
perfect possession, in. every respect, of the Beautiful and Good; and a true and
unswerving stability. Wherefore Lordship is parallel to τὸ Κῦρος καὶ κύριον, καὶ τὸ
κυριστο͂ν ; and Deity is the Providence watching over all, and with perfect goodness both
circumscribing and grasping all, and filling with Itself, and surpassing all things which
enjoy Its forethought.

SECTION III. These things, then, must be sung absolutely, respecting the Cause surpassing
all, and we must add that It surpasses Holiness, and Lordship, and Kingdom, and most
simplex Deity. For, from It, individually and collectively, were born and distributed
every untarnished distinctness of every spotless purity, the whole arrangement and
regulation of things existing, whilst It excludes want of harmony and want of equality,
and want of symmetry, and rejoices over the well-ordered identity and rectitude, and leads
round things, deemed worthy to participate in Itself. From It is all the perfect and
complete possession of all. good things, every good forethought, watching and sustaining
the objects of Its forethought, imparting Itself, as befits Its goodness, for deification
of those who are turned to It. SECTION IV. But since the Cause of all is super-full of
all, as beseems the One superfluity which surpasses all, He is sung as Holy of Holies and
the rest, as beseems an overflowing Cause, and a towering Pre-eminence. As one might say,
so far as the things which are,----holy or divine, or lordly, or kingly,----surpass the
things which are not, and the self-existent participations, their participants; to such an
extent is seated above all things that be, He Who is above all things that be, and the
unparticipating Cause of all the participants and the participations. But Holy and Kings
and Lords and Gods, the Oracles call the higher orders in each, through whom the inferior
in participating the gifts from God, multiply the simplicity of their distribution around
their own diversities, the variety of which, the superior orders carefully and divinely
collect to their own Oneness.

Chapter XIII

Concerning Perfect and One. SECTION I. So much then on these matters; but let us now at
last, with your good pleasure, approach the most difficult subject in the whole discourse.
For the Word of God predicates everything, singly and collectively, respecting the Cause
of all, and extols Him both as Perfect and as One . He is then perfect not only as self-
perfect, and solitarily separated within Himself, by Himself, and throughout most perfect,
but also as super-perfect, as beseems His pre-eminence over all, and limiting every
infinitude, and surpassing every term, and by none contained or comprehended; but even
extending at once to all, and above all, by His unfailing gratuities and endless energies.
But, on the other hand, He is called perfect, both as without increase, and always
perfect, and as undiminished, as pre-holding all things in Himself, and overflowing as
beseems one, inexhaustible, and same, and super-full, and undiminished, abundance, in
accordance with which He perfects all perfect things, and fills them with His own
perfection.

SECTION II. But One, because He is uniquely all, as beseems an excess of unique Oneness,
and is Cause of all without departing from the One. For there is no single existing being,
which does not participate in the one, but as every number participates in an unit, and
one dual and one decade is spoken of, and one half, and one third and tenth, so
everything, and part of everything participates in the one, and by the fact that the One
is, all existing things are. And the Cause of all is not One, as one of many, but before
every one and multitude, and determinative of every one and multitude. For there is no
multitude which does not partake in some way or other of the one. Yea, that which is many
by parts, is one in the whole; and the many by the accidents, is one by the subject; and
the many by the number or the powers, is one by the species, and the many by the species,
is one by the genus; and the many by the progressions, is one by the source. And there is
no single thing which does not participate in some way in the one, which uniformly pre-
held in the uniqueness throughout all, all and whole, all, even the things opposed. And
indeed, without the one there will not be a multitude, but without the multitude there
will be the one, even as the unit previous to every multiplied number; and, if any one
should suppose, that all things are united to all, the All will be one in the whole.

SECTION III. Especially must this be known, that according to the pre-conceived species of
each one, things united are said to be made one, and the one is elemental of all; and if
you should take away the one, there will be neither totality nor part, nor any other
single existing thing. For the one, uniformly, pre-held and comprehended all things in
itself. For this reason, then, the Word of God celebrates the whole Godhead, as Cause of
all, by the epithet of the One, both one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, and
one and the same Spirit, by reason of the surpassing indivisibility of the whole Divine
Oneness, in which all things are uniquely collected, and are super-unified, and are with
It SLiperessentially. Wherefore also, all things are justly referred and attributed to It,
by Which and from Which, and through Which, and in Which, and to Which, all things are,
and are co-ordinated, and abide, and are held together, and are filled, and are turned
towards It. And you would not find any existing thing, which is not what it is, and
perfected and preserved, by the One, after which the whole Deity is superessentially
named.

And it is necessary also, that we being turned from the many to the One, by the power of
the Divine Oneness, should celebrate as One the whole and one Deity----the one Cause of
all----which is before every one and multitude, and part and whole, and limit and
illimitability, and term and infinity, which bounds all things that be, even the Being
Itself, and is uniquely Cause of all, individually and collectively, and at the same time
before all, and above all, and above the One existing Itself, and bounding the One
existing Itself; since the One existing----that in things being----is numbered, and number
participates in essence; but the superessential One bounds both the One existing, and
every number, and Itself is, of both one and number, and every being, Source and Cause,
and Number and. Order. Wherefore also, whilst celebrated as Unit and Triad, the Deity
above all is neither Unit nor Triad, as understood by us or by any other sort of being,
but, in order that we may celebrate truly. Its super-oneness, and Divine generation, by
the threefold and single name of God, we name the Deity, Which is inexpressible to things
that be, the Superessential. But no Unit nor Triad, nor number nor unity, nor
productiveness, nor any other existing thing, or thing known to any existing thing, brings
forth the hiddenness, above every expression and every mind, of the Super-Deity Which is
above all superessentially. Nor has It a Name, or expression, but is elevated above in the
inaccessible.

And neither do we apply the very Name of Goodness, as making it adequate to It, but
through a desire of understanding and saying something concerning that inexpressible
nature, we consecrate the most august of Names to It, in the first degree, and although we
should be in accord in this matter with the theologians, yet we shall fall short of the
truth of the facts. Wherefore, even they have given the preference to the ascent through
negations, as lifting the soul out of things kindred to itself, and conducting it through
all the Divine conceptions, above which towers that which is above every name, and every
expression and knowledge, and at the furthest extremity attaching it to Him, as far indeed
as is possible for us to be attached to that Being. SECTION IV. We then, having collected
these intelligible Divine Names, have unfolded them to the best of our ability, falling
short not only of the precision which belongs to them, (for this truly, even Angels might
say) nor only of their praises as sung by Angels (and the chief of our Theologians come
behind the lowest of them), nor indeed of the Theologians themselves, nor of their
followers or companions, but even of those who are of the same rank as ourselves, last and
subordinate to them; so that, if the things spoken should be correct, and, if we, as far
as in us lies, have really reached the perception of the unfolding of the Divine Names,
let the fact be ascribed to the Author of all good things, Who, Himself, bestows first the
power to speak, then to speak well. And if any one of the Names of the same force has been
passed over, that also you must understand according to the same methods. But, if these
things are either incorrect or imperfect, and we have wandered from the truth, either
wholly or partially, may it be of thy brotherly kindness to correct him, who unwillingly
is ignorant, and to impart a word to him, who wishes to learn, and to vouchsafe assistance
to him, who has not power in himself; and to heal him, who, not willingly, is sick; and
having found out some things from thyself, and others from others, and receiving all from
the good to transfer them also to us.

By no means grow weary in doing good to a man thy friend, for thou perceivest, that we
also have kept to ourselves none of the hierarchical communications transmitted to us, but
have transmitted them without flaw, both to you and to other holy men, yea, and will
continue to transmit them, as we may be sufficient to speak, and those to whom we speak,
ta hear, doing injury in no respect to the tradition, if at least we do not fail in the
conception and expression thereof. But, let these things be held and spoken in such way,
as is well pleasing to Almighty God; and let this indeed be our conclusion to the
intelligible Divine Names. But I will now pass to the Symbolic Theology , with God for my
Guide. 27 October, 1896. [Selected footnotes renumbered and moved to the end]


THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY
============================

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy describes the rites of the Church as an image of the order of
heaven: Baptism, the Eucharist, the anointing with chrism, the ordination of bishops,
priests and deacons, the ranks of the faithful, and the burial of the dead. It is one of
the oldest detailed accounts of Christian worship in the Greek East.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY

Chapter I

To my Fellow Presbyter Timothy. Dionysius the Presbyter. What is the traditional view of
the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and what is its purpose? Section I. We must, then, most pious
of pious sons, demonstrate from the supermundane and most sacred Oracles and traditions,
that ours is a Hierarchy of the inspired and Divine and Deifying science, and of
operation, and of consecration, for those who have been initiated with the initiation of
the sacred revelation derived from the hierarchical mysteries. See, however, that you do
not put to scorn things most holy (Holy of Holies); but rather treat them reverently, and
you will honour the things of the hidden God by intellectual and obscure researches,
carefully guarding them from the participation and defilement of the uninitiated, and
reverently sharing holy things with the holy alone, by a holy enlightenment. For thus, as
the Word of God has taught us who feast at His Banquet, even Jesus Himself----the most
supremely Divine Mind and superessential, the Source and Essence, and most supremely
Divine Power of every Hierarchy and Sanctification and Divine operation----illuminates the
blessed Beings who are superior to us, in a manner more clear, and at the same time more
intellectual, and assimilates them to His own Light, as far as possible; and by our love
of things beautiful elevated to Him, and which elevates us, folds together our many
diversities, and after perfecting into a uniform and Divine life and habit and operation,
holily bequeaths the power of the Divine Priesthood; from which by approaching to the holy
exercise of the priestly office, we ourselves become nearer to the Beings above us, by
assimilation, according to our power, to their abiding and: unchangeable holy
steadfastness; and thus by looking upwards to the blessed and supremely Divineself of
Jesus, and reverently gazing upon whatever. we are permitted to see, and illuminated with
the knowledge of the visions, we shall be able to become, as regards the science of Divine
mysteries, purified and purifiers; images of Light, and workers, with God, perfected and
perfecting.

Section II. Then what is the Hierarchy of the Angels and Archangels, and of supermundane
Principalities and Authorities, Powers and Lordships, and Divine Thrones, or of the Beings
of the same ranks as the Thrones----which the Word of God declares to be near, and always
about God, and with God, naming them in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim----by
pondering the sacred ranks and divisions of their Orders and Hierarchies, you will find in
the books we have written----not as befits their dignity but to the best of our ability
----and as the Theology of the most holy Scriptures guided, when they extolled their
Hierarchy. Nevertheless, it is necessary to say this, that both that, and every Hierarchy
extolled now by us, has one and the same power, throughout the whole Hierarchical
transaction; and that the Hierarch himself, according to his essence, and analogy, and
rank, is initiated in Divine things, and is deified and imparts to the subordinates,
according to the meetness of each for the sacred deification which comes to him from' God;
also that the subordinates follow the superior, and elevate the inferior towards things in
advance; and that some go before, and, as far as possible, give the lead to others; and
that each, as far as may be, participates in the truly Beautiful, and Wise, and Good,
through this the inspired and sacerdotal harmony.

But the Beings and ranks above us, of whom we have already made a reverent mention, are
both incorporeal, and their Hierarchy is both intelligible and supermundane; but let us
view our Hierarchy, comformably to ourselves, abounding in the variety of the sensible
symbols, by which, in proportion to our capacity, we are conducted, hierarchically
according to our measure, to the uniform deification ----God and Divine virtue. They
indeed, as minds, think, according to laws laid down for themselves; but we are led by
sensible figures to the Divine contemplations, as is possible to us. And, to speak truly,
there is One, to Whom all the Godlike aspire, but they do not partake uniformly of this
One and the Same, but as the Divine balance distributes to each the meet inheritance. Now
these things have been treated more systematically in the Treatise concerning
"Intelligible and Sensible ." But now I will attempt to describe our Hierarchy, both its
source and essence, as best I can; invoking Jesus, the source and Perfecting of all
Hierarchies.

Section III. Every Hierarchy, then, is, according to our august tradition, the whole
account of the sacred things falling under it, a most complete summary of the sacred rites
of this or that Hierarchy, as the case may be. Our Hierarchy, then, is called, and is, the
comprehensive system of the whole sacred rites included within it, according to which the
divine Hierarch, being initiated, will have the communication of all the most sacred
things within himself, as chief of Hierarchy. For as he who speaks of Hierarchy speaks of
the order of the whole sacred rites collectively, so he, who mentions Hierarch, denotes
the inspired and godly man----the skilled in all sacred knowledge----in whom the whole
Hierarchy is clearly completed and recognized within himself. Head of this Hierarchy is
the Fountain of Life, the Essence of Goodness, the one Triad, Cause of things that be,
from Which both being and well-being come to things that be, by reason of goodness. Of
this most supremely Divine blessedness ----exalted beyond all, the threefold Monad, the
really Being,----the Will, inscrutable to us, but known to Itself, is the rational
preservation of beings amongst us and above us; but that (preservation) cannot otherwise
take place, except those who are, being saved are being deified. Now the assimilation to,
and union with, God, as far as attainable, is deification. And this is the common goal of
every Hierarchy,----the clinging love towards God and Divine things divinely and uniformly
ministered; and previous to this, the complete and unswerving removal of things contrary,
the knowledge of things as they are in themselves; the vision and science of sacred truth;
the inspired communication of the uniform perfection of the One Itself, as far as
attainable; the banquet of contemplation, nourishing intelligibly, and deifying every man
elevated towards it.

Section IV. Let us affirm, then, that the supremely Divine Blessedness, the essential
Deity, the Source of deification, from Which comes the deification of those deified,
bequeathed, by Divine Goodness, the Hierarchy, for preservation, and deification of all
rational and intellectual Beings. And to the supermundane and blessed inheritances there
is bequeathed something more immaterial and intellectual (for Almighty God does not move
them to things divine, from without, but intelligibly, since they are illuminated as to
the most Divine will from within, with brilliancy pure and immaterial), but to us----that
which has been bequeathed to them, uniformly, and enveloped, is bequeathed from the
Divinely transmitted Oracles, in a variety and multitude of divisible symbols, as we are
able to receive it. For the Divinely transmitted Oracles are essence of our Hierarchy. And
we affirm that these Oracles----all such as were given from our godly initiators in
inspired Letters of the Word of God ----are most august; and further, whatever our leaders
have revealed to us from the same holy men, by a less material initiation, and already
akin, as it were, to the Heavenly Hierarchy, from mind to mind, through the medium of
speech, corporeal, indeed, but nevertheless more immaterial, without writing. Nor did the
inspired Hierarchs transmit these things, in conceptions clear to the commonalty of
worshippers, but in sacred symbols. For it is not every one that is hallowed; nor, as the
Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all.

Section V. Necessarily, then, the first leaders of our Hierarchy, after having been filled
themselves with the sacred gift, from the superessential Godhead, and sent, by the
supremely Divine Goodness, to extend the same gift successively, and, as godly, earnestly
desiring themselves the elevation and deification of those after them, presented to us----
by their written and unwritten revelations----in accordance with their sacred injunctions,
things supercelestial, by sensible images, the enfolded, by variety and multitude, and
things Divine, by things human, and things immaterial, by things material, and the
superessential, by things belonging to us. Nor did they do this merely on account of the
unhallowed, to whom it is not permitted even to touch the symbols, but because our
Hierarchy is, as I said, a kind of symbol adapted to our condition, which needs things
sensible, for our more Divine elevation from these to things intelligible. Nevertheless
the reasons of the symbols have been revealed to the Divine initiators, which it is not
permitted to explain to those who are yet being initiated, knowing that the Lawgivers of
things divinely transmitted deliberately arranged the Hierarchy in well-established and
unconfused ranks, and in proportionate and sacred distributions of that which was
convenient to each, according to fitness. Wherefore trusting in thy sacred promises (for
it is a pious duty to recall them to thy recollection) ---- that, since every Hierarchical
sacred word is of binding force, thou wilt not communicate to any other but those Godlike
initiators of the same rank with thyself, and wilt persuade them to promise, according to
hierarchical regulation, to touch pure things purely, and to communicate the mysteries of
God to the godly alone, and things perfect to those capable of perfection, and things
altogether most holy to the holy, I have entrusted this Divine gift to thee, in addition
to many other Hierarchical gifts.

Chapter II

I. Concerning things done in Illumination. We have, then, reverently affirmed that this is
the purpose of our Hierarchy, viz., our assimilation and union with God, as far as
attainable. And, as the Divine Oracles teach, we shall attain this only by the love and
the religious performance of the most worshipful Commandments. For He says: "He that
loveth Me will keep My Word, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and
will make Our abode with him. What, then, is source of the religious performance of the
most august commandments? Our preparation for the restitution of the supercelestial rest,
which forms the habits of our souls into an aptitude for the reception of the other sacred
sayings and doings , the transmission of our holy and most divine regeneration . For, as
our illustrious Leader used to say, the very first movement of the mind towards Divine
things is the willing reception of Almighty God, but the very earliest step of the
religious reception towards the religious performance of the Divine commandments is the
unutterable operation of our being from God. For if our being from God is the Divine
engendering, never would he know, and certainly never perform, any of the Divine
instructions, who had not had his beginning to be in God. To speak after the manner of
men, must we not first begin to be, and then to do, our affairs? Since he, who does not
exist at all, has neither movement nor even beginning;

since he, who in some way exists, alone does, or suffers, those things suitable to his own
nature. This, then, as I think, is clear. Let us next contemplate the Divine symbols of
the birth in God. And I pray, let no uninitiated person approach the sight ; for neither
is it without danger to gaze upon the glorious rays of the sun with weak eyes, nor is it
without peril to put our hand to things above us. For right was the priesthood of the Law,
when rejecting Osias, because he put his hand to sacred things; and Korah, because to
things sacred above his capacity; and Nadab and Abihu, because they treated things, within
their own province, unholily. II. Mysterion of Illumination. Section I. The Hierarch,
then, wishing that all men whatsoever should be saved by their assimilation towards God,
and come to recognition of truth, proclaims to all the veritable Good News, that God being
compassionate towards those upon earth, out of His own proper and innate goodness, deigned
Himself to come to us with outstretched arms, by reason of loving-kindness towards men;
and, by the union with Him, to assimilate, like as by fire, things that have been made
one, in proportion to their aptitude for deification. "For as many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become children of God----to those who believe on His Name, who were
begotten, not of bloods, nor of will of flesh, but of God ." Section II. He, who has felt
a religious longing to participate in these truly supermundane gifts, comes to some one of
the initiated, and persuades him to act as his conductor to the Hierarch. He then
professes wholly to follow the teaching that shall be given to him, and prays him to
undertake the superintendence of his introduction, and of all his after life. Now he,
though religiously longing for his salvation, when he measures human infirmity against the
loftiness of the undertaking, is suddenly seized with a shivering and sense of incapacity,
nevertheless, at last, he agrees, with a good grace, to do what is requested, and takes
and leads him to the chief Hierarch.

Section III. He, then, when with joy he has received, as the sheep upon his shoulders, the
two men, and has first worshipped, glorifies with a mental thanksgiving and bodily
prostration the One beneficent Source, from Which, those who are being called, are called,
and those who are being saved, are saved. Section IV. Then collecting a full religious
assembly into the sacred place, for co-operation, and common rejoicing over the man's
salvation, and for thanksgiving for the Divine Goodness, he first chants a certain hymn,
found in the Oracles, accompanied by the whole body of the Church; and after this, when he
has kissed the holy table, he advances to the man before him, and demands of him, what has
brought him here? Section V. When the man, out of love to God, has confessed, according to
the instruction of his sponsor, his ungodliness, his ignorance of the really beautiful,
his insufficiency for the life in God, and prays, through his holy mediation, to attain to
God and Divine things, he (the Hierarch) testifies to him, that his approach ought to be
entire, as to God Who is All Perfect, and without blemish; and when he has expounded to
him fully the godly course of life, and has demanded of him, if he would thus live,----
after his promise he places his right hand upon his head, and when he has sealed him,
commands the priests to register the man and his sponsor.

Section VI. When these have enrolled the names, he makes a holy prayer, and when the whole
Church have completed this with him, he looses his sandals, and removes his clothing,
through the Leitourgoi. Then, when he has placed him facing the west and beating his
hands, averted towards the same quarter, he commands him thrice to breathe scorn upon
Satan, and further, to profess the words of the renunciation. When he has witnessed his
threefold renunciation, he turns him back to the east, after he has professed this thrice;
and when he has looked up to heaven, and extended his hands thitherward, he commands him
to be enrolled under Christ, and all the Divinely transmitted Oracles of God. When the man
has done this, he attests again for him his threefold profession, and again, when he has
thrice professed, after prayer, he gives thanks, and lays his hand upon him.

Section VII. When the Deacons have entirely unclothed him, the Priests bring the holy oil
of the anointing. Then he begins the anointing, through the threefold sealing, and for the
rest assigns the man to the Priests, for the anointing of his whole body, while himself
advances to the mother of filial adoption, and when he has purified the water within it by
the holy invocations, and perfected it by three cruciform effusions of the altogether most
pure Muron , and by the same number of injections of the all holy Muron, and has invoked
the sacred melody of the inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, he orders the man to be
brought forward; and when one of the Priests, from the register, has announced him and his
surety, he is conducted by the Priests near the water to the hand of the Hierarch, being
led by the hand to him. Then the Hierarch, standing above, when the Priests have again
called aloud near the Hierarch within the water the name of the initiated, the Hierarch
dips him three times, invoking the threefold Subsistence of the Divine Blessedness, at the
three immersions and emersions of the initiated. The Priests then take him, and entrust
him to the Sponsor and guide of his introduction; and when they, in conjunction with him,
have cast over the initiated appropriate clothing, they lead him again to the Hierarch,
who, when he has sealed the man with the most Divinely operating Muron, pronounces him to
be henceforward partaker of the most Divinely initiating Eucharist.

Section VIII. When he has finished these things, he elevates himself from his progression
to things secondary, to the contemplation of things first, as one, who, at no time or
manner, turns himself to any other thing whatever than those which are peculiarly his own,
but from things Divine to Divine,----is persistently and always ranging himself under the
banner of the supremely Divine Spirit. III. Contemplation. Section I. This initiation,
then, of the holy birth in God, as in symbols, has nothing unbecoming or irreverent, nor
anything of the sensible images, but (contains) enigmas of a contemplation worthy of God,
likened to physical and human images. For how should it appear misleading? Even when the
very divine meaning of the things done is passed over in silence, the divine Instruction
might convince, religiously pursuing as it does the good life of the candidate, enjoining
upon him the purification from every kind of evil, through a virtuous and Divine life, by
the physical cleansing through the agency of water in a bodily form. This symbolic
teaching then of the things done, even if it had nothing more divine, would not be without
religious value, as I think, introducing a discipline of a well-regulated life, and.
suggesting mysteriously, through the total bodily purification by water, the complete
purification from the evil life.

Section II. Let this, then, be, for the uninitiated, a conducting guidance of the soul,
which separates, as is meet things sacred and uniform from multiplicity, and apportions
the harmonious elevation to the Orders severally in turn. But we, who have ascended by
sacred gradations to the sources of the things performed, and have been religiously taught
these (sources), shall recognize of what moulds they are the reliefs, and of what
invisible things they are the likenesses. For, as is distinctly shewn in the Treatise
concerning "Intelligible and Sensible," sacred things in sensible forms are copies of
things intelligible, to which they lead and shew the way; and things intelligible are
source and science of things hierarchical cognizable by the senses. Section III. Let us
affirm, then, that the goodness of the Divine Blessedness is always in the same condition
and manner, unfolding the beneficent rays of its own light upon all the intellectual
visions without grudging. Should, then, the self-choosing self-sufficiency of the
contemplators either turn away from the light contemplated, by closing, through love of
evil, the faculties for enlightenment naturally implanted within it, it would be separated
from the light present to it, not turned away, but shining upon it when shortsighted and
turning its face from light generously running to it; or should it overstep the bounds of
the visible given to it in due proportion, and rashly undertake to gaze upon the rays
superior to its vision, the light indeed will do nothing beyond its proper functions, but
it, by imperfectly approaching thing's perfect, would not attain to things unsuitable,
and, by stupidly disregarding the due proportion, would fail through its own fault.

But, as I said, the Divine Light is always unfolded beneficently to the intellectual
visions, and it is possible for them to seize it when present, and always being most ready
for the distribution of things appropriate, in a manner becoming God. To this imitation
the divine Hierarch is fashioned, unfolding to all, without grudging, the luminous rays of
his inspired teaching, and, after the Divine example, being most ready to enlighten the
proselyte, neither using a grudging nor an unholy wrath for former back-slidings or
excess, but, after the example of God, always enlightening by his conducting light those
who approach him, as becomes a Hierarch, in fitness, and order, and in proportion to the
aptitude of each for holy things. Section IV. But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source
of sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the
proper view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and will
acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the light. Now he, who has well
looked upon his own proper condition with unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy
recesses of ignorance, but being imperfect he will not, of his own accord, at once desire
the most perfect union and participation of God, but little by little will be carried
orderly and reverently through things present to things more forward, and through these to
things foremost, and when perfected, to the supremely Divine summit. An illustration of
this decorous and sacred order is the modesty of the proselyte, and his prudence in his
own affairs in having the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch. The Divine
Blessedness receives the man, thus conducted, into communion with Itself, and imparts to
him the proper light as a kind of sign, making him godly and sharer of the inheritance of
the godly, and sacred ordering; of which things the Hierarch's seal, given to the
proselyte, and the saving enrolment of the priests are a sacred symbol, registering him
amongst those who are being saved, and placing in the sacred memorials, beside himself
also his sponsor,----the one indeed, as a true lover of the life-giving way to truth and a
companion of a godly guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of his follower by the
Divinely-taught directions.

Section V. Yet it is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities thoroughly opposed, nor
that a man who has had a certain fellowship with the One should have divided lives, if he
clings to the firm participation in the One; but he must be resistless and resolute, as
regards all separations from the uniform. This it is which the teaching of the symbols
reverently and enigmatically intimates, by stripping the proselyte, as it were, of his
former life, and discarding to the very utmost the habits within that life, makes him
stand naked and barefoot, looking away towards the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion
of his hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness, and breathes out, as it were, the
habit of dissimilarity which he had acquired, and professes the entire renunciation of
everything contrary to the Divine likeness. When the man has thus become invincible and
separate from evil, it turns him towards the east, declaring clearly that his position and
recovery will be purely in the Divine Light, in the complete separation from baseness; and
receiving his sacred promises of entire consort with the One, since he has become uniform
through love of the truth. Yet it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in
Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual acquire the unchangeableness of the Godlike
habit, by continuous and persistent struggles towards one, and by the entire destruction
and annihilation of things contrary. For it is necessary that a man should not only depart
from every kind of baseness, but he must be also bravely obdurate and ever fearless
against the baneful submission to it. Nor must he, at any time, become remiss in his
sacred love of the truth, but with all his power persistently and perpetually be elevated
towards it, always religiously pursuing his upward course, to the more perfect mysteries
of the Godhead.

Section VI. Now you may see the distinct illustrations of these things in the religious
rites performed by the Hier-arch. For the Godlike Hierarch starts with the holy anointing,
and the Priests under him complete the Divine service of the Chrism, summoning in type the
man initiated to the holy contests, within which he is placed under Christ as Umpire:
since, as God, He is Institutor of the awards of contest, and as wise, He placed its laws,
and as generous, the prizes suitable to the victors. And this is yet more Divine, since as
good, He devotedly entered the lists with them, contending, on behalf of their freedom and
victory, for their power over deathand destruction, he who is being initiated will enter
the contests, as those of God, rejoicing, and abides by the regulations of the Wise, and
contends according to them, without transgression holding fast the hope of the beautiful
rewards, as being enrolled under a good Lord and Leader of the awards: and when after
following in the Divine footsteps of the first of athletes, through goodness, he has
overthrown, in his struggles after the Divine example, the energies and impulses opposed
to his deification, he dies with Christ----to speak mystically ----to sin, in Baptism.

Section VII. And consider attentively, I pray, with what appropriateness the holy symbols
are presented. For since death is with us not an annihilation of being, as others surmise,
but the separating of things united, leading to that which is invisible to us, the soul
indeed becoming invisible through deprivation of the body, and the body, through being
buried in earth in consequence of one of its bodily changes, becoming invisible to human
ken, appropriately, the whole covering by water would be taken as an image of death, and
the invisible tomb. The symbolical teaching, then, reveals in mystery that the man
baptized according to religious rites, imitates, so far as Divine imitation is attainable
to men, by the three immersions in the water, the supremely Divine death of the Life-
giving Jesus, Who spent three days and three nights in the tomb, in Whom, according to the
mystical and secret teaching of the sacred text, the Prince of the world found nothing.

Section VIII. Next, they throw garments, white as light, over the man initiated. For by
his manly and Godlike insensibility to contrary passions, and by his persistent
inclination towards the One, the unadorned is adorned, and the shapeless takes shape,
being made brilliant by his luminous life. But the perfecting unction of the Muron makes
the man initiated of good odour, for the holy perfecting of the Divine birth unites those
who have been perfected to the supremely Divine Spirit. Now the overshadowing which makes
intelligibly of a good savour, and perfect, as being most unutterable, I leave to the
mental consciousness of those who are deemed worthy of the sacred and deifying
participation of the Holy Spirit within their mind. At the conclusion of all, the Hierarch
calls the man initiated to the most Holy Eucharist, and imparts to him the communion of
the perfecting mysteries. CAPUT III. I. Concerning things accomplished in the Synaxis.

Courage, then, since we have made mention of this (Eucharist) which we may not pass over
to celebrate any other Hierarchical function in preference to it. For according to our
illustrious Leader, it is "initiation of initiations," and one must first lay down the
Divine description of it, before the rest, from the inspired and hierarchical science of
the Oracles, and then be borne by the supremely Divine Spirit to its sacred contemplation.
First, let us reverently consider this; for what reason that, which is common also to the
other Hierarchical initiations, is pre-eminently attributed to it, beyond the rest; and it
is uniquely called, "Communion and Synaxis," when each consecrating function both collects
our divided lives into uniform deification, and gives communion and union with the One, by
the Godlike folding together of our diversities. Now we affirm that the Perfecting by the
communications of the other Hierarchical symbols springs from the supremely Divine and
perfecting gifts of it. For it scarcely ever happens, that any Hierarchical initiation is
completed without the most Divine Eucharist, as head of the things done in each,
ministering the collecting of the person initiated to the One, and completing his
communion with God, by the Divinely transmitted gift of the perfecting mysteries. If,
then, each of the Hierarchical initiations, being indeed incomplete, will not make perfect
our communion and our gathering to the One, even its being initiation is precluded on
account of the lack of completeness.

Now since the imparting of the supremely Divine mysteries to the man initiated is the head
and tail of every initiation, naturally then the Hierarchical judgment hit upon an
appellation propel to it, from the truth of the facts. Thus, for instance, with regard to
the holy initiation of the Divine birth; since it imparts first-Light, and is head of all
the Divine illuminations, we celebrate the true appellation from the enlightening
effected. For, though it be common to all Hierarchical functions to impart the gift of
sacred light to those initiated, yet it gave to me the power to see first, and through its
first light I am enlightened to gaze upon the other religious rites. Having said this, let
us minutely investigate and examine hierarchically the accurate administration and
contemplation of the most pure initiation, in every particular. II. Mysterion of Synaxis,
that is, Communion. The Hierarch, having completed a reverent prayer, near the Divine
Altar, starts with the incensing, and proceeds to every part of the enclosure of the
sacred place; he then returns to the Divine Altar, and begins the sacred chanting of the
Psalms, the whole ecclesiastical assembly chanting, with him, the sacred language of the
Psalter. Next follows the reading of the Holy Scriptures by the Leitourgoi. After these
readings the catechumens quit the sacred enclosure, as well as the "possessed," and the
penitents. But those who are deemed worthy of the sight and participation of the Divine
Mysteries remain. Of the Leitourgoi, some stand near the closed gates of the sanctuary,
whilst others perform some other duty of their own rank. But chosen members of the
ministering Order with the Priests lay the holy Bread and the Cup of Blessing upon the
Divine Altar, whilst the universal Song of Praise is being professed beforehand by the
whole body of the Church. Added to these, the Divine Hierarch makes a sacred prayer, and
proclaims the holy Peace to all. When all have kissed each other, the mystical
proclamation of the holy tablets is performed. When the Hierarch and the Priests have
washed their hands in water, the Hierarch stands in the midst of the Divine Altar, and the
chosen Deacons alone, with the Priests, stand around.

The Hierarch, when he has sung the sacred works of God, ministers things most divine, and
brings to view the things sung, through the symbols reverently exposed , and when he has
shewn the gifts of the works of God , he first proceeds to the sacred participation of the
same, and turns and exhorts the others. When he has received and distributed the supremely
Divine Communion, he terminates with a holy thanksgiving; whilst the multitude have merely
glanced at the Divine symbols alone, he is ever conducted by the Divine Spirit, as becomes
a Hierarch, in the purity of a Godlike condition, to the holy sources of the things
performed, in blessed and intelligible visions. III. Contemplation. Section I. Here then,
too, O excellent son, after the images, I come in due order and reverence to the Godlike
reality of the archetypes, saying here to those yet being initiated, for the harmonious
guidance of their souls, that the varied and sacred composition of the symbols is not
without spiritual contemplation for them, as merely presented superficially. For the most
sacred chants and readings of the Oracles teach them a discipline of a virtuous life, and
previous to this, the, complete purification from destructive evil; and the most Divine,
and common, and peaceful distribution of one and the same, both Bread and Cup, enjoins
upon them a godly fellowship in character, as having a fellowship in food, and recalls to
their memory the most Divine Supper, and arch-symbol of the rites performed, agreeably
with which the Founder of the symbols Himself excludes, most justly, him who had supped
with Him on the holy things, not piously and in a manner suitable to his character;
teaching at once, clearly and Divinely, that the approach to Divine mysteries with a
sincere mind confers, on those who draw nigh, the participation in a gift according to
their own character.

Section II. Let us, then, as I said, leave behind these things, beautifully depicted upon
the entrance of the. innermost shrine, as being sufficient for those, who are yet
incomplete for contemplation, and let us proceed from the effects to the causes; and then,
Jesus lighting the way, we shall view our holy Synaxis, and the comely contemplation of
things intelligible, which makes radiantly manifest the blessed beauty of the archetypes.
But, oh, most Divine and holy initiation, uncovering the folds of the dark mysteries
enveloping thee in symbols, be manifest to us in thy bright glory, and fill our
intellectual visions with single and unconcealed light. Section III. We must, then, in my
opinion, pass within the All Holy Mysteries, after we have laid bare the intelligible of
the first of the votive gifts, to gaze upon its Godlike beauty, and view the Hierarch,
divinely going with sweet fragrance from the Divine Altar to the furthermost bounds of the
holy place, and again returning to it to complete the function. For the Blessedness,
supremely Divine above all, even if, through Divine goodness, It goes forth to the
communion of the holy who participate in It, yet It never goes outside its essential
unmoved position and steadfastness; and illuminates all the Godlike in due degree, being
always self-centred, and in nowise moved from its own proper identity; so, too, the Divine
initiation (sacrament) of the Synaxis, although it has a unique, and simple, and enfolded
Source, is multiplied, out of love towards man, into the holy variety of the symbols, and
travels through the whole range of the supremely Divine description; yet uniformly it is
again collected from these, into its own proper Monady, and unifies those who are being
reverently conducted towards it. In the same Godlike manner, the Divine Hierarch, if he
benignly lowers to his subordinates his own unique Hierarchical science, by using the
multiplicities of the holy enigmas, yet again, as absolute, and not to be held in check by
smaller things, he is restored to his proper headship without diminution, and, when he has
made the intellectual entry of himself to the One, he sees clearly the uniform raisons
d'être of the things done, as he makes the goal of his philanthropic progress to things
secondary the more Divine return to things primary.

Section IV. The chanting of the Psalms, being co-essential with almost all the
Hierarchical mysteries, was not likely to be separated from the most Hierarchical of all.
For every holy and inspired Scripture sets forth for those meet for deification, either
the originated beginning and ordering of things from God; or the Hierarchy and polity of
the Law; or the distributions and possessions of the inheritances of the people of God; or
the understanding of sacred judges, or of wise kings, or of inspired Priests: or
philosophy of men of old time, unshaken in endurances of the things let loose in variety
and multitude; or the treasures of wisdom for the conduct of life; or songs and inspired
pictures of Divine Loves; or the declaratory predictions of things to come; or the
Theandric works of Jesus; or the God-transmitted and God - imitating polities and holy
teachings of His Disciples, or the hidden and mystic gaze of the beloved and divinely
sweet of the disciples, or the supermundane theology of Jesus; and implanted them in the
holy and Godlike instructions of the mystic rites. Now the sacred description of the
Divine Odes, whose purpose is to sing the words and works of God throughout, and to praise
the holy words and works of godly men, forms an universal Ode and narrative of things
Divine, and makes, in those who inspiredly recite it, a habit suitable for the reception
and distribution of every Hierarchical mystery.

Section V. When, then, the comprehensive melody of the holy Hymns has harmonized the
habits of our souls to the things which are presently to be ministered, and, by the unison
of the Divine Odes, as one and concordant chorus of holy men, has established an accord
with things Divine, and themselves , and one another, the things, more strained and
obscure in the intellectual language of the mystic Psalms, are expanded by the most holy
lections of the inspired writings, through more full and distinct images and narratives.
He, who devoutly contemplates these, will perceive the uniform and one conspiration, as
being moved by One, the supremely Divine Spirit. Hence, naturally, in the history of the
world, after the more ancient tradition, the new Covenant is proclaimed; the inspired and
Hierarchical order teaching this, as I think, that the one affirmed the Divine works of
Jesus, as to come; but the other accomplished; and as that described the truth in figures,
this shewed it present. For the accomplishment, within this, of the predictions of that,
established the truth, and the work of God is a consummation of the Word of God.

Section VI. Those who absolutely have no ear for these sacred initiations do not even
recognize the images,---- unblushingly rejecting the saving revelation of the Divine
Birth, and in opposition to the Oracles reply to their destruction, "Thy ways I do not
wish to know Now the regulation of the holy Hierarchy permits the catechumens, and the
possessed, and the penitents, to hear the sacred chanting of the Psalms, and the inspired
reading of the all-Holy Scriptures; but it does not invite them to the next religious
services and contemplations, but only the eyes of the initiated. For the Godlike Hierarchy
is full of reverent justice, and distributes savingly to each, according to their due,
bequeathing savingly the harmonious communication of each of the things Divine, in
measure, and proportion, and due time. The lowest rank, then, is assigned to the
catechumens, for they are without participation and instruction in every Hierarchical
initiation, not even having the being in God by Divine Birth, but are yet being brought to
Birth by the Paternal Oracles, and moulded, by life-giving formations, towards the blessed
introduction to their first life and first light from Birth in God. As, then, children
after the flesh, if, whilst immature and unformed, they should anticipate their proper
delivery, as untimely born and abortions, will fall to earth without life and without
light; and no one, in his senses, would say from what he saw, that they, released from the
darkness of the womb, were brought to the light (for the medical authority, which is
learned in the functions of the body, would say that light operates on things receptive of
light); so also the all-wise science of religious rites brings these first to delivery, by
the preparatory nourishment of the formative and life-giving Oracles; and when it has made
their person ripe for Divine Birth, gives to them savingly, in due order, the
participation in things luminous and perfecting; but, at present, it separates things
perfect from them as imperfect, consulting the good order of sacred things, and the
delivery and life of the catechumens, in a Godlike order of the Hierarchical rites.

Section VII. Now the multitude of the possessed indeed is unholy, but it is next above the
catechumens, which is lowest. Nor is that which has received a certain participation in
the most holy offices, but is yet entangled by contrary qualities, whether enchantments or
terrors, on a par, as I think, with the altogether uninitiated and entirely uncommunicated
in the Divine initiations; but, even for them, the view and participation in the holy
mysteries is contracted, and very properly. For, if it be true that the altogether godly
man, the worthy partaker of the Divine mysteries, the one carried to the very summit of
the Divine likeness, to the best of his powers, in complete and most perfect deifications,
does not even perform the things of the flesh, beyond the most necessary requirements of
nature, and then as a parergon, but will be, at the same time, a temple, and a follower,
according to his ability, of the supremely Divine Spirit, in the highest deification,
implanting like in like;----such an one as this would never be possessed by opposing
phantoms or fears, but will laugh them to scorn, and when they approach, will cast them
down and put them to flight, and will act rather than comply, and in addition to the
passionless and indomitableness of his own character, will be seen also a physician to
others, for such "possessions" as these;

(and I think further, yea, rather, I know certainly that the most impartial discrimination
of Hierarchical persons knows more than they , that such as are possessed with a most
detestable possession, by departing from the Godlike life, become of one mind and one
condition with destructive demons, by turning themselves from things that really are, and
undying possessions, and everlasting pleasures, for the sake of the most base and
impassioned folly destructive to themselves; and by desiring and pursuing the earthly
variableness, and the perishable and corrupting pleasures, and the unstable comfort in
things foreign to their nature, not real but seeming; these then, first, and more properly
than those, were shut out by the discriminating authority of the Deacon; for it is not
permitted to them to have part in any other holy function than the teaching of the
Oracles, which is likely to turn them to better things. For, if the super-mundane Service
of the Divine Mysteries excludes those under penitence, and those who have already
attained it, not permitting anything to come near which is not completely perfect, and
proclaims, and this in all sincerity, that "I am unseen and uncom-municated by those who
are in any respect imperfectly weak as regards the summit of the Divine Likeness" (for
that altogether most pure voice scares away even those who cannot be associated with the
worthy partakers of the most Divine mysteries).;

how much more, then, will the multitude of those who are under the sway of their passions
be unhallowed and alien from every sight and participation in the holy mysteries. When,
then, the uninitiated in the mysteries, and the imperfect, and with them the apostates
from the religious life, and after them, those who through unmanliness are prone to the
fears and fancies of contrary influences, as not reaching through the persistent and
indomitable inclination towards godliness, the stability and activity of a Godlike
condition; then, in addition to these, those who have separated indeed from the contrary
life, but have not yet been cleansed from its imaginations by a godly and pure habit and
love, and next, those who are not altogether uniform, and to use an expression of the Law,
"entirely without spot and blemish," when these have been excluded from the divine temple
and the service which is too high for them, the all-holy ministers and loving
contemplators of things all-holy, gazing reverently upon the most pure rite, sing in an
universal Hymn of Praise the Author and Giver of all good, from Whom the saving mystic
Rites were exhibited to us, which divinely work the sacred deification of those being
initiated. Now this Hymn some indeed call a Hymn of Praise, others, the symbol of worship,
but others, as I think, more divinely, a Hierarchical thanksgiving, as giving a summary of
the holy gifts which come to us from God.

For, it seems to me the record of all the works of God related to have been done for us in
song, which, after it had benevolently fixed our being and life, and moulded the Divine
likeness in ourselves to beautiful archetypes, and placed us in participation of a more
Divine condition and elevation; but when it beheld the dearth of Divine gifts, which came
upon us by our heedlessness, is declared to have called us back to our first condition, by
goods restored, and by the complete assumption of what was ours, to have made good the
most perfect impartation of His own, and thus tp have given to us a participation in God
and Divine things. Section VIII. When the supremely Divine love towards Man has thus been
religiously celebrated, the Divine Bread is presented, veiled, and likewise the Cup of
Blessing, and the most Divine greeting is devoutly performed, and the mystic and
supermundane recital of the holy-written tablets. For it is not possible to be collected
to the One, and to partake of the peaceful union with the One, when people are divided
amongst themselves. For if, being illuminated by the contemplation and knowledge of the
One, we would be united to an uniform and Divine agreement, we must not permit ourselves
to descend to divided lusts, from which are formed earthly enmities, envious and
passionate, against that which is according to nature. This-unified and undivided life is,
in my opinion, established by the holy service of the "peace," which establishes like in
like, and separates the Divine and unified visions from things divided. The recital of the
holy tablets after the "peace" proclaims those who have passed through life holily, and
have reached the term of a virtuous life without faltering, urging and conducting us to
their blessed' condition and Divine repose, through similarity to them, and, announcing
them as living, and, as the Word of God says, "not dead, but as having passed from death
to a most divine life ."

Section IX. But observe that they are enrolled in the holy memorials, not as though the
Divine memory were represented under the figure of a memorial, after the manner of men;
but as one might say, with reverence towards God, as beseems the august and unfailing
knowledge in God of those who have been perfected in the likeness of God. For "He
knoweth," say the Oracles, "them that are His," and "precious, in the sight of the Lord,
is the death of His saints, "death of saints," being said, instead of the perfection in
holiness. And bear this religiously in mind, that when the worshipful symbols have been
placed on the Divine Altar, through which (symbols) the Christ is signified and partaken,
there is inseparably present the reading of the register of the holy persons, signifying
the indivisible conjunction of their supermundane and sacred union with Him. When these
things have been ministered, according to the regulations described, the Hierarch,
standing before the most holy symbols, washes his hands with water, together with the
reverend order of the Priests. Because, as the Oracles testify, when a man has been
washed, he needs no other washing, except that of his extremities, i.e his lowest; through
which extreme cleansing he will be resistless and free, as altogether uniform, in a
sanctified habit of the Divine Likeness, and advancing in a goodly manner to things
secondary, and being turned again uniquely to the One, he will make his return, without
spot and blemish, as preserving the fulness and completeness of the Divine Likeness.

Section X. There was indeed the sacred laver, as we have said, in the Hierarchy of the Law
; and the present cleansing of the hands of the Hierarch and the Priests suggests it. For
it behoves those who approach the most hallowed service to be purified even to the
remotest imaginations of the soul, through likeness to it, and, as far as possible, to
draw nigh; for thus they will shed around more visibly the Divine manifestations, since
the supermundane flashes permit their own splendour to pass more thoroughly and
brilliantly into the brightness of mirrors like themselves. Further, the cleansing of the
Hierarch and the Priests to their extremities, i.e. lowest, takes place before the most
holy symbols, as in the presence of Christ, Who surveys all our most secret thoughts, and
since the utmost purification is established under His all-surveying scrutiny, and most
just and unflinching judgment, the Hierarch thus becomes one with the things Divine, and,
when he has extolled the holy works of God, he ministers things most Divine, and brings to
view the things being sung .

Section XI. We will now explain, in detail, to the best of our ability, certain works of
God, of which we spoke. For I am not competent to sing all, much less to know accurately,
and to reveal their mysteries to others. Now whatever things have been sung and ministered
by the inspired Hierarchs, agreeably to the Oracles, these we will declare, as far as
attainable to us, invoking the Hierarchical inspiration to our aid. When, in the
beginning, our human nature had thoughtlessly fallen from the good things of God, it
received, by inheritance, the life subject to many passions, and the goal of the
destructive death . For, as a natural consequence, the pernicious falling away from
genuine goodness and the transgression of the sacred Law in Paradise delivered the man
fretted with the life-giving yoke, to his own downward inclinations and the enticing and
hostile wiles of the adversary----the contraries of the divine goods; thence it pitiably
exchanged for the eternal, the mortal, and, having had its own origin in deadly
generations, the goal naturally corresponded with the beginning; but having willingly
fallen from the Divine and elevating life, it was carried to the contrary extremity,----
the variableness of many passions, and lead astray, and turned aside from the strait way
leading to the true God,----and subjected to destructive and evil-working multitudes----
naturally forgot that it was worshipping, not gods, or friends, but enemies. Now when
these had treated it harshly, according to their own cruelty, it fell pitiably into danger
of annihilation and destruction;

but the boundless Loving-kindness of the supremely Divine goodness towards man did not, in
Its benevolence, withdraw from us Its spontaneous forethought, but having truly
participated sinlessly in all things belonging to us, and having been made one with our
lowliness in connection with the unconfused and flawless possession of Its own properties
in full perfection, It bequeathed to us, as henceforth members of the same family, the
communion with Itself, and proclaimed us partakers of Its own beautiful things; having, as
the secret teaching holds, loosed the power of the rebellious multiplicity, which was
against us; not by force, as having the upper hand, but, according to the Logion,
mystically transmitted to us, "in judgment and righteousness." The things within us, then,
It benevolently changed to the entire contrary. For the lightless within Our mind It
filled with blessed and most Divine Light, and adorned the formless with Godlike beauties;
the tabernacle of our soul It liberated from most damnable passions and destructive stains
by a perfected deliverance of our being which was all but prostrate, by shewing to us a
supermundane elevation, and an inspired polity in our religious assimilation to Itself, as
far as is possible. Section XII.

But how could the Divine imitation otherwise become ours, unless the remembrance of the
most holy works of God were perpetually being renewed by the mystical teachings and
ministrations of the Hierarchy? This, then, we do, as the Oracles say, "for Its
remembrance. Wherefore the Divine Hierarch, standing before the Divine Altar, extols the
aforesaid holy works of God, which proceed from the most divine forethought of Jesus on
our behalf, which He accomplished for preservation of our race, by the good pleasure of
the most Holy Father in the Holy Spirit, according to the Logion. When he has extolled
their majesty, and gazed, with intellectual eyes, upon their intelligible contemplation,
he proceeds to their symbolical ministration,----and this,----as transmitted from God.
Whence after the holy hymns of the works of God, he piously and, as becomes a hierarch,
deprecates his own unworthiness for a service above his merits, first, reverently crying
aloud to Him, "Thou hast said, This do for My remembrance. Then, having asked to become
meet for this the God-imitating of service, and to consecrate things Divine by the
assimilation to Christ Himself, and to distribute them altogether purely, and that those
who shall partake of things holy may receive them holily, he consecrates things most
Divine, and brings to view through the symbols reverently exposed the things whose praises
are being sung.

For when he has unveiled the veiled and undivided Bread, and divided it into many, and has
divided the Oneness of the Cup to all, he symbolically multiplies and distributes the
unity, completing in these an altogether most holy ministration. For the "one," and
"simple," and "hidden," of Jesus, the most supremely Divine Word, by His incarnation
amongst us, came forth, out of goodness and love towards man, to the compound and visible,
and benevolently devised the unifying, communion, having united, to the utmost, our
lowliness to the most Divine of Himself; if indeed we have been fitted to Him, as members
to a body, after the identity of a blameless and Divine life, and have not, by being
killed through destructive passions, become inharmonious, and unfastened, and unyoked, to
the godly and most healthy members. For, if we aspire to communion with Him, we must keep
our eye fixed upon His most godly Life in the flesh, and we must retrace our path to the
Godlike and blameless habit of Its holy sinlessness by assimilation to It; for thus He
will communicate harmoniously to us the communion with the similar.

Section XIII. The Hierarch makes known these things to those who are living religiously,
by bringing the veiled gifts to view, by dividing their oneness into many, and by making
the recipients partakers of them, by the utmost union of the things distributed with those
who receive them. For he delineates in these things under sensible forms our intelligible
life in figures, by bringing to view the Christ Jesus from the Hidden within the Divine
Being, out of love to man, made like unto us by the all-perfect and unconfused incarnation
in our race, from us, and advancing to the divided condition of ourselves, without change
from the essential One, and calling the human race, through this beneficent love of man,
into participation with Himself and His own good things, provided we are united to His
most Divine Life by our assimilation to it, as far as possible; and by this, in very
truth, we shall have been perfected, as partakers of God and of Divine things.

Section XIV. Having received and distributed the supremely Divine Communion, he terminates
with a holy thanksgiving, in which the whole body of the Church take part. For the
Communion precedes the imparting, and the reception of the mysteries, the mystic
distribution. For this is the universal regulation and order of the Divine Mysteries, that
the reverend Leader should first partake, and be filled with the gifts, to be imparted,
through him, from God to others, and so impart to others also. Wherefore, those who rashly
content themselves with the inspired instructions, in preference to a life and condition
agreeable to the same, are profane, and entirely alien from the sacred regulation
established. For, as in the case of the bright shining of the sun, the more delicate and
luminous substances, being first filled with the brilliancy flowing into them, brightly
impart their overflowing light to things after them; so it is not tolerable that one, who
has not become altogether Godlike in his whole character, and proved to be in harmony with
the Divine influence and judgment, should become Leader to others, in the altogether
divine.

Section XV. Meanwhile, the whole order of the Priests having been collected together in
hierarchical order, and communicated in the most Divine mysteries, finishes with a holy
thanksgiving, after having recognized and sung the favours of the works of God, according
to their degree. So that those, who have not partaken and are ignorant of things Divine,
would not attain to thanksgiving, although the most Divine gifts are, in their essential
nature, worthy of thanksgiving. But, as I said, not having wished even to look at the
Divine gifts, from their inclination to things inferior, they have remained throughout
ungracious towards the boundless graces of the works of God. "Taste and see," say the
Oracles, for, by the sacred initiation of things Divine, the initiated recognize their
munificent graces, and, by gazing with utmost reverence upon their most Divine height and
breadth in the participation, they will sing the super-celestial beneficent works of the
Godhead with gracious thanksgiving.

Chapter IV

I. Concerning things performed in the Muron, and concerning things perfected in it. So
great and so beautiful are the intelligible visions of the most holy Synaxis, which
minister hierarchically, as we have often said, our participation in, and collection
towards, the One. But there is another perfecting Service of the same rank, which our
Leaders name "Initiation of Muron," by contemplating whose parts in due order, in
accordance with the sacred images, we shall thus be borne, by hierarchical contemplations,
to its Oneness through its parts. II. Mysterion of Initiation of Muron . In the same way
as in the Synaxis, the orders of the imperfect are dismissed, that is, after the
hierarchical procession has made the whole circuit of the temple, attended with fragrant
incense; and the chanting of the Psalms, and.the reading of the most Divine Oracles. Then
the Hierarch takes the Muron and places it, veiled under twelve sacred wings, upon the
Divine Altar, whilst all cry aloud, with most devout voice, the sacred melody of the
inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, and when he has finished the prayer offered over it,
he uses it, in the most holy mystic Rites of things being hallowed, for almost every
Hierarchical consecration.

III. Contemplation. Section I. The elementary teaching, then, of this the perfecting
service, through the things done over the Divine Muron, shews this, in my judgment, that,
that which is holy and of sweet savour in the minds of devout men is covered, as with a
veil, since it Divinely enjoins upon holy men to have their beautiful and well-savoured
assimilations in virtue to the hidden God not seen for vain glory. For the hidden
comeliness of God is unsullied, and is sweet beyond conception, and manifested for
spiritual contemplation to the intellectual alone, through a desire to have the unsullied
images of virtue in souls of the same pattern. For by looking away from the undistorted
and well imitated image of the Godlike virtue to that contemplated and fragrant beauty, he
thus moulds and fashions it to the most beautiful imitation. And, as in the case of
sensible images, if the artist look without distraction upon the archetypal form, not
distracted by sight of anything else, or in any way divided in attention, he will
duplicate, if I may so speak, the very person that is being sketched, whoever he may be,
and will shew the reality in the likeness, and the archetype in the image, and each in
each, save the difference of substance; thus, to copyists who love the beautiful in mind,
the persistent and unflinching contemplation of the sweet-savoured and hidden beauty will
confer the unerring and most Godlike appearance .

Naturally, then, the divine copyists, who unflinchingly mould their own intellectual
contemplation to the superessentially sweet and contemplated comeliness, do. none of their
divinely imitated virtues "to be seen of men , as the Divine text expresses it; but
reverently gaze upon the most holy things of the Church, veiled in the Divine Muron as in
a figure. Wherefore, these also, by religiously concealing that which is holy and most
Divine in virtue within their Godlike and God-engraved mind, look away to the archetypal
conception alone; for not only are they blind to things dissimilar, but neither are they
drawn down to gaze upon them. Wherefore, as becomes their character, they do neither love
things, merely seeming good and just, but those really being such; nor do they look to
opinion, upon which the multitude irrationally congratulate themselves, but, after the
Divine example, by distinguishing the good or evil as it is in itself, they are Divine
images of the most supremely Divine sweetness, which, having the truly sweet within
itself, is not turned to the anomalously seeming of the multitude, moulding Its
genuineness to the true images of Itself.

Section II. Come, then, since we have viewed the exterior comeliness of the entirely
beautiful ministration, let us now look away to its more godly beauty (whilst itself, by
itself, has uncovered the veils), gazing upon its blessed radiance, shedding its bright
beams openly around, and filling us with the fragrance unveiled to the contemplators. For
the visible consecration of the Muron is neither uncommunicated in, or unseen by those who
surround the Hierarch, but, on the contrary, by passing through to them, and fixing the
contemplation above the many, is reverently covered by them, and by Hierarchical direction
kept from the multitude. For the splendour of things all holy, by shedding its light
clearly and without symbol to men inspired, as being congenial to the thing contemplated,
and perfuming their contemplating perceptions without; concealment, advances not yet in
the same way to the inferior, but by them as deep contemplators of the thing contemplated
is concealed under the enigmas of the wings, without ostentation, so that it may not be
defiled by the dissimilar; through which sacred enigmas the well-ordered Ranks of the
subordinate are conducted to the degree of holiness compatible with their powers.

Section III. The holy consecration, then, which we are now extolling, is, as I said, of
the perfecting rank and capacity of the Hierarchical functions. Wherefore our Divine
Leaders arranged the same, as being of the same rank and effect as the holy perfecting of
the Synaxis, with the same figures, for the most part, and with mystical regulations and
lections. And you may see in like manner the Hierarch bearing forward the sweet perfume
from the more holy place into the sacred precincts beyond, and teaching, by the return to
the same, that the participation in things Divine comes to all holy persons, according to
fitness, and is undiminished and altogether unmoved and stands unchangeably in its
identity, as beseems Divine fixity. In the same way the Psalms and readings of the Oracles
nurse the imperfect to a life-bringing adoption of sons, and form a religious inclination
in those who are possessed with accursed spirits, and dispel the opposing fear and
effeminacy from those possessed by a spirit of unmanliness; shewing to them, according to
their capacity, the highest pinnacle of the Godlike habit and power, by aid of which they
will, the rather, scare away the opposing forces, and will take the lead in healing
others; and, following the example of God, they will, whilst unmoved from their own proper
gifts, not only be active against those opposing fears, but will themselves give activity
to others; and they also impart a religious habit to those who have changed from the worse
to a religious mind, so that they should not be again enslaved by evil, and purify
completely those who need to become altogether pure; and they lead the holy to the Divine
likenesses, and contemplations and communions belonging to themselves, and so establish
those who are entirely holy, in blessed and intelligible visions, fulfilling their uniform
likeness of the One, and making them one.

Section IV. What, then, shall I say further? Is it not those Ranks already mentioned,
which are not entirely pure, that the present consecrating service excludes without
distinction, in the same way as the Synaxis, so that it is viewed by the holy alone, in
figures, and is contemplated and ministered, by the perfectly holy alone, immediately,
through hierarchical directions? Now it is superfluous, as I think, to run over, by the
same statements, these things already so often mentioned, and not to pass to the next,
viewing the Hierarch, devoutly holding the Divine Muron veiled under twelve wings, and
ministering the altogether holy consecration upon it. Let us then affirm that the
composition of the Muron is a composition of sweet-smelling materials, which has in itself
abundantly fragrant qualities, of which (composition) those who partake become perfumed in
proportion to the degree to which they partake of its sweet savour. Now we are persuaded
that the most supremely Divine Jesus is superessentially of good savour, filling the
contemplative part of ourselves by bequests of Divine sweetness for contemplation.

For if the reception of the sensible odours make to feel joyous, and nourishes, with much
sweetness, the sensitive organs of our nostrils, ----if at least they be sound and well
apportioned to the sweet savour----in the same way any one might say that our
contemplative faculties, being soundly disposed as regards the subjection to the worse, in
the strength of the distinguishing faculty implanted in us by nature, receive the
supremely Divine fragrance, and are filled with a holy comfort and most Divine
nourishment, in accordance with Divinely fixed proportions, and the correlative turning of
the mind towards the Divine Being. Wherefore, the symbolical composition of the Muron, as
expressing in form things that are formless, depicts to us Jesus Himself, as a well-spring
of the wealth of the Divine sweet receptions, distributing, in degrees supremely Divine,
for the most Godlike of the contemplators, the most Divine perfumes; upon which the Minds,
joyfully refreshed, and filled with the holy receptions, indulge in a feast of spiritual
contemplation, by the entrance of the sweet bequests into their contemplative part, as
beseems a Divine participation.

Section V. Now it is evident, as I think, that the distribution of the fontal perfume to
the Beings above ourselves, who are more Divine, is, as it were, nearer, and manifests and
distributes itself more to the transparent and wholesome mental condition of their
receptive faculty, overflowing ungrudgingly and entering in many fashions; but as regards
the subordinate contemplators, which are not so receptive, piously concealing the highest
vision and participation, it is distributed in a supremely Divine proportion, in fragrance
corresponding to the recipients. Amongst the holy Beings, then, who are above us, the
superior order of the Seraphim is represented under the figure of the twelve wings,
established and fixed around Jesus, casting itself upon the most blessed contemplations of
Him, as far as permissible, and filled reverently with the contemplated truth distributed
in most pure receptions, and, to speak after the manner of men, crying aloud, with never
silent lips, the frequent Hymn of Praise; for the sacred knowledge of the supermundane
minds is both untiring, and possesses the Divine love without intermission, and is at the
same time superior to all baseness and forgetfulness. Hence, as I think, that phrase,
"unceasing cry," suggests their perpetual and persistent science and conception of things
Divine, with full concord and thanksgiving.

Section VI. Now we have, as I think, sufficiently contemplated, in the description of the
super-heavenly Hierarchy, the incorporeal properties of the Seraphim, Divinely described
in the Scriptures under sensible figures explanatory of the contemplated Beings, and we
have made them evident to thy contemplating eyes. Nevertheless, since now also they who
stand reverently around the Hierarch, reflect the highest Order, on a small scale, we will
now view with most immaterial visions their most Godlike splendour. Section VII. Their
numberless faces then, and many feet, manifest, as I think, their property of viewing the
most Divine illuminations from many sides, and their conception of the good things of God
as ever active and abundantly receptive; and the sixfold arrangement of the wings, of
which the Scripture speaks, does not, I think, denote, as seems to some, a sacred number,
but that of the highest Essence and Order around God; the first and middle and last of its
contemplative and Godlike powers are altogether elevating, free, and supermundane. Hence
the most holy wisdom of the Oracles, when reverently describing the formation of the
wings, places the wings around their heads , and middle, and feet; suggesting their
complete covering with wings, and their manifold faculty of leading to the Really Being.

Section VIII. Now if they cover their faces and their feet, and fly by their middle wings
only, bear this reverently in mind, that the Order, so far exalted above the highest
beings, is circumspect respecting the more lofty and deep of its conceptions, and raises
itself, in due proportion, by its middle wings, to the vision of God, by placing its own
proper life under the Divine yokes, and by these is reverently directed to the judgment of
itself. Section IX. And, as regards the statement of Holy Scripture, that "one cried out
to the other," that shews, I think, that they impart to each other ungrudgingly their own
visions of God. And this we should deem worthy of religious recollection, that the Hebrew
word in the Holy Scriptures names the most holy Beings of the Seraphim by an explanatory
epithet, from their glowing and seething in a Divine and ever-moving life.

Section X. Since, then, as those who understand Hebrew say, the most Divine Seraphim were
named by the Word of God, "Kindling" and "Heating," by a name expressive of their
essential condition, they possess, according to the symbolical imagery of the Divine
Muron, most elevating powers, which call it to manifestation and distribution of most
exhilarating perfumes. For the Being, sweet beyond conception, loves to be moved by the
glowing and most pure minds into manifestation, and imparts Its most Divine inspirations,
in cheerful distributions, to those who thus supermundanely call It forth. Thus the most
Divine Order of supercelestial Beings did not fail to recognize the most supremely Divine
Jesus, when He descended for the purpose of being sanctified; but recognizes, reverently,
Him lowering Himself in our belongings, through Divine and inexpressible goodness; and
when viewing Him sanctified, in a manner befitting man, by the Father and Himself and the
Holy Spirit, recognized its own supreme Head as being essentially unchanged, in whatever
He may do as supreme God. Hence the tradition of the sacred symbols places the Seraphim
near the Divine Muron, when it is being consecrated, recognizing and describing the Christ
as unchanged, in our complete manhood in very truth. And what is still more divine is,
that it uses the Divine Muron for the consecration of every thing sacred, distinctly
shewing, according to the Logion, the Sanctified Sanctifying, as always being the same
with Himself throughout the whole supremely Divine sanctification.

Wherefore also the consecrating gift and grace of the Divine Birth in God is completed in
the most Divine perfectings of the Muron. Whence, as I think, the Hierarch pouring the
Muron upon the purifying font in cruciform injections, brings to view, for contemplative
eyes, the Lord Jesus descending even to death itself through the cross, for our Birth in
God, benevolently drawing up, from the old gulping of the destructive death, by the same
Divine and resistless descent, those, who, according to the mysterious saying, "are
baptized into His death,"and renewing them to a godly and eternal existence. Section XI.
But further, the perfecting unction of the Muron gives to him who has been initiated in
the most sacred initiation of the Birth in God, the abiding of the supremely Divine
Spirit; the sacred imagery of the symbols, portraying, as I think, the most Divine Spirit
abundantly supplied by Him, Who, for our sakes, has been sanctified as man by the
supremely Divine Spirit, in an unaltered condition of His essential Godhead. Section XII.

And bear this also hierarchically in mind, that the Law of the most pure initiation
completes the sacred consecration of the Divine Altar, by the all pure effusions of the
most holy Muron. And the super-celestial and superessential contemplation is source and
essence, and perfecting power, of all our deifying holiness. For if our most Divine Altar
is Jesus----the supremely Divine sanctifying of the Godly Minds ----in Whom, according to
the Logion, "being sanctified and mystically offered as a whole burnt-offering, we have
the access," let us gaze with supermundane eyes upon the most Divine Altar itself (in
which things being perfected, are perfected and sanctified), being perfected from the most
Divine Muron itself; for the altogether most holy Jesus sanctifies Himself on our behalf,
and fills us full of every sanctification, since the things consecrated upon them pass
fraternally afterwards in their beneficent effects to us, as children of God. Hence, as I
think, the Divine Leaders of our Hierarchy, in conformity with a Hierarchical conception
divinely transmitted, name this altogether august ministration "consecration of Muron,"
from "being consecrated thoroughly," as one might say, "consecration of God," extolling
its divine consecrating work in each sense. For both the being sanctified for our sakes,
as becomes Man, and the consecrating all things as supreme God, and the sanctifying things
being consecrated, is "consecration of Him." As for the sacred song of the inspiration of
the God-rapt Prophets, it is called by those who know Hebrew, the "Praise of God," or
"Praise ye the Lord," for since every divine manifestation and work of God is reverently
portrayed in the varied composition of the Hierarchical symbols, it is not unfitting to
mention the Divinely moved song of the Prophets; for it teaches at once, distinctly and
reverently, that the beneficent works of the Divine Goodness are worthy of devout praise.

Chapter V

I. Concerning sacerdotal Consecrations. Section I. Such, then, is the most Divine
perfecting work of the Muroa But it may be opportune, after these Divine ministrations, to
set forth the sacerdotal Orders and elections themselves, and their powers, and
operations, and consecrations, and the triad of the superior ranks under them; in order
that the arrangement of our Hierarchy may be demonstrated, as entirely rejecting and
excluding the disordered, the unregulated, and the confused; and, at the same time,
choosing and manifesting the regulated and ordered, and well-established, in the
gradations of the sacred Ranks within it. Now we have well shewn, as I think, in the
Hierarchies already extolled by us, the threefold division of every Hierarchy, when we
affirmed that our sacred tradition holds, that every Hierarchical transaction is divided
into the most Divine Mystic Rites, and the inspired experts and teachers of them, and
those who are being religiously initiated by them.

Section II. Thus the most holy Hierarchy of the supercelestial Beings has, for its
initiation, its own possible and most immaterial conception of God and things Divine, and
the complete likeness to God, and a persistent habit of imitating God, as far as
permissible. And its illuminators, and leaders to this sacred consecration, are the very
first Beings around God. For these generously and proportionately transmit to the
subordinate sacred Ranks the ever deifying notions given to them, by the self-perfect
Godhead and the wise-making Divine Minds. Now the Ranks, who are subordinate to the first
Beings, are, and are truly called, the initiated Orders, as being religiously conducted,
through those, to the deifying illumination of the Godhead. And after this,----the
heavenly and supermundane Hierarchy,----the Godhead gave the Hierarchy under the Law,
imparting its most holy gifts, for the benefit of our race, to them (as being children
according to the Logion), by faint images of the true, and copies far from the Archetypes,
and enigmas hard to understand, and types having the contemplation enveloped within, as an
analogous light not easily discerned, so as not to wound weak, eyes by the light shed upon
them. Now to this Hierarchy under the Law, the elevation to spiritual worship is an
initiation. Now the men religiously instructed for that holy tabernacle by Moses,----the
first initiated and leader of the Hierarchs under the Law,----were conductors;

in reference to which holy tabernacle,----when describing for purposes of instruction the
Hierarchy under the Law,----he called all the sacred services of the Law an image of the
type shewn to him in Mount Sinai. But "initiated" are those who are being conducted to a
more perfect revelation of the symbols of the Law, in proportion to their capacity. Now
the Word of God calls our Hierarchy the more perfect revelation, naming it a fulfilmentof
that, and a holy inheritance. It is both heavenly and legal, like the mean between
extremes, common to the one, by intellectual contemplations, and to the other, because it
is variegated by sensible signs; and, through these, reverently conduces to the Divine
Being. And it has likewise a threefold division of the Hierarchy, which is divided into
the most holy ministrations of the Mystic Rites, and into the Godlike ministers of holy
things, and those who are being conducted by them, according to their capacity, to things
holy.

And each of the three divisions of our Hierarchy, comformably to that of the Law, and the
Hierarchy, more divine than ours, is arranged as first and middle and last in power;
consulting both reverent proportion, and well-ordered and concordant fellowship of all
things in harmonious rank. Section III. The most holy ministration, then, of the Mystic
Rites has, as first Godlike power, the holy cleansing of the uninitiated; and as middle,
the enlightening instruction of the purified; and as last, and summary of the former, the
perfecting of those instructed in science of their proper instructions; and the order of
the Ministers, in the first power, cleanses the uninitiated through the Mystic Rites; and
in the second, conducts to light the purified; and in the last and highest of the
Ministering Powers, makes perfect those who have participated in the Divine light, by the
scientific completions of the illuminations contemplated. And of the Initiated, the first
power is that being purified; and the middle is that being enlightened, after the
cleansing, and which contemplates certain holy things; and the last and more divine than
the others, is that enlightened in the perfecting science of the holy enlightenment of
which it has become a contemplator. Let, then, the threefold power of the holy service of
the Mystic Rites be extolled, since the Birth in God is exhibited in the Oracles as a
purification and enlightening illumination, and the Rite of the Synaxis and the Muron, as
a perfecting knowledge and science of the works of God, through which the unifying
elevation to the Godhead and most blessed communion is reverently perfected. And now let
us explain next the sacerdotal Order, which is divided into a purifying and illuminating
and perfecting discipline.

Section IV. This, then, is the all-sacred Law of the Godhead, that, through the first, the
second are conducted to Its most Divine splendour. Do we not see the material substances
of the elements, first approaching, by preference, things which are more congenial to
them, and, through these, diffusing their own energy to other things? Naturally, then, the
Head and Foundation of all good order, invisible and visible, causes the deifying rays to
approach the more Godlike first, and through them, as being more transparent Minds, and
more properly adapted for reception and transmission of Light, transmits light and
manifestations to the subordinate, in proportions suitable to them. It is, then, the
function of these, the first contem-plators of God, to exhibit ungrudgingly to those
second, in proportion to their capacity, the Divine visions reverently gazed upon by
themselves, and to reveal the things relating to the Hierarchy (since they have been
abundantly instructed with a perfecting science in all matters relating to their own
Hierarchy, and have received the effectual power of instruction), and to impart sacred
gifts according to fitness, since they scientifically and wholly participate in sacerdotal
perfection.

Section V. The Divine Rank of the Hierarchs, then, is the first of the God-contemplative
Ranks; and it is, at the same time, highest and lowest; inasmuch as every Order of our
Hierarchy is summed up and fulfilled in it. For, as we see every Hierarchy terminated in
the Lord Jesus, so we see each terminated in its own inspired Hierarch. Now the power of
the Hierarchical Rank permeates the whole sacred body, and through every one of the sacred
Ranks performs the mysteries of its proper Hierarchy. But, pre-eminently, to it, rather
than to the other Ranks, the Divine institution assigned the more Divine ministrations.
For these are the perfecting images of the supremely Divine Power, completing all the most
Divine symbols and all the sacred orderings. For though some of the worshipful symbols are
consecrated by the Priests, yet never will the Priest effect the holy Birth in God without
the most Divine Muron; nor will he consecrate the mysteries of the Divine Communion,
unless the communicating symbols have been placed upon the most Divine Altar; and neither
will he be Priest himself, unless he has been elected to this by the Hierarchical
consecrations. Hence the Divine Institution uniquely assigned the dedication of the
Hierarchical Ranks, and the consecration of the Divine Muron and the sacred completion of
the Altar, to the perfecting powers of the inspired Hierarchs.

Section VI. It is, then, the Hierarchical Rank which, full of the perfecting power, pre-
eminently completes the perfecting functions of the Hierarchy, and reveals lucidly the
sciences of the holy mysteries, and teaches their proportionate and sacred conditions and
powers. But the illuminating Rank of the Priests conducts those, who are being initiated
under the Rank of, the inspired Hierarchs, to the Divine visions of the Mystic Rites, and
in co-operation with it, ministers its proper ministrations. Whatever then this Rank may
do, by shewing the works of God, through the most holy symbols, and perfecting those who
draw nigh in the Divine contemplations, and communion of the holy rites, it yet refers
those, who crave the science of the religious services contemplated, to the Hierarch. And
the Rank of the Leitourgoi (which is purifying and separates the unfit, previous to the
approach to the ministrations of the Priests), thoroughly purifies those who are drawing
nigh, by making them entirely pure from opposing passions, and suitable for the
sanctifying vision and communion. Hence, during the service of the Birth in God, the
Leitourgoi strip him who draws nigh of his old clothing, yea further, even take off his
sandals, and make him stand towards the west for renunciation;

and again, they lead him back to the east (for they are of the purifying rank and power),
enjoining on those who approach to entirely cast away the surroundings of their former
life, and shewing the darkness of their former conduct, and teaching those, who have said
farewell to the lightless, to transfer their allegiance to the luminous. The Leitourgical
Order, then, is purifying, by leading those who have been purified to the bright
ministrations of the Priests, both by thoroughly purifying the uninitiated and by bringing
to birth, by the purifying illuminations and teachings of the Oracles, and further, by
sending away from the Priests the unholy, without respect of persons. Wherefore also the
Hierarchical institution places it at the holy gates, suggesting that the approach of
those who draw nigh to holy things should be in altogether complete purification, and
entrusting the approach to their reverent vision and communion to the purifying powers,
and admitting them, through these, without spot.

Section VII. We have shewn, then, that the Rank of the Hier-archs is consecrating and
perfecting, that of the Priests, illuminating and conducting to the light; and that of the
Leitourgoi purifying and discriminating; that is to say, the Hierarchical Rank is
appointed not only to perfect, but also at the same time,to enlighten and to purify, and
has within itself the purifying sciences of the power of the Priests together with the
illuminating. For the inferior Ranks cannot cross to the superior functions, and, besides
this, it is not permitted to them to take in hand such quackery as that. Now the more
Divine Orders know also, together with their own, the sacred sciences subordinate to their
own perfection. Nevertheless, since the sacerdotal orderings of the well-arranged and
unconfused order of the Divine operations are images of Divine operations, they were
arranged in Hierarchical distinctions, shewing in themselves the illuminations marshalled
into the first, and middle, and last, sacred operations and Ranks; manifesting, as I said,
in themselves the well-ordered and unconfused character of the Divine operations. For
since the Godhead first cleanses the minds which He may enter, then enlightens, and, when
enlightened, perfects them to a Godlike perfection; naturally the Hierarchical of the
Divine images divides itself into well-defined Ranks and powers, shewing clearly the
supremely Divine operation firmly established, without confusion, in most hallowed and
unmixed Ranks. But, since we have spoken, as attainable to us, of the sacerdotal Ranks and
elections, and their powers and operations, let us now contemplate their most holy
consecrations as well as we can.

II. Mysterion of Sacerdotal Consecrations. The Hierarch, then, being led to the
Hierarchical consecration, after he has bent both his knees before the Altar, has upon his
head the God-transmitted oracles, and the Hierarchical hand, and in this manner is
consecrated by the Hierarch, who ordains him by the altogether most holy invocations. And
the Priest, after he has bent both his knees before the Divine Altar, has the Hierarchical
right hand upon his head, and in this manner is dedicated by the Hierarch, who ordains him
with hallowing invocations. And the Leitourgos, after he has bent one of two knees before
the Divine Altar, has upon his head the right hand of the Hierarch who ordains him, being
completed by him with the initiating invocations of the Leitourgoi. Upon each of them the
cruciform seal is impressed, by the ordaining Hierarch, and, in each case, a sacred
proclamation of name takes place, and a perfecting salutation, since every sacerdotal
person present, and the Hierarch who ordained, salute him who has been enrolled to any of
the aforenamed sacerdotal Ranks.

III. Contemplation. Section I. These things, then, are common both to the Hier-archs, and
Priests, and Leitourgoi, in their sacerdotal consecrations,----the conducting to the
Divine Altar and kneeling,----the imposition of the Hierarchical hand,----the cruciform
seal,----the announcement of name,----the completing salutation. And special and select
for the Hierarchs is the imposition of the Oracles upon the head, since the subordinate
Ranks have not this; and for the Priests the bending of both knees, since the consecration
of the Leitourgoi has not this; for the Leitourgoi, as has been said, bend the one of two
knees only. Section II. The conducting then to the Divine Altar, and kneeling, suggests to
all those who are being sacer-dotally ordained, that their own life is entirely placed
under God, as source of consecration, and that their whole intellectual self, all pure and
hallowed, approaches to Him, and that it is of one likeness, and, as far as possible, meet
for the supremely Divine and altogether most holy, both Victim and Altar, which purifies,
sacerdotally, the Godlike Minds.

Section III. And the imposition of the Hierarchical hand signifies at once the
consecrating protection, by which, as holy children, they are paternally tended, which
bequeaths to them a sacerdotal condition and power, and drives away their adverse powers,
and teaches, at the same time also, to perform the sacerdotal operations, as those who,
having been consecrated, are acting under God, and have Him as Leader of their own
operations in every respect. Section IV. And the cruciform seal manifests the inaction of
all the impulses of the flesh, and the God-imitated life looking away unflinchingly to the
manly most Divine life of Jesus, Who came even to Cross and death with a supremely Divine
sinlessness, and stamped those who so live with the cruciform image of His own sinlessness
as of the same likeness. Section V. And the Hierarch calls aloud the name of the
consecrations and of those consecrated, the mystery denoting that the God-beloved
consecrator is manifestor of the supremely Divine choice,----not of his own accord or by
his own favour leading those who are ordained to the sacerdotal consecration, but being
moved by God to all the Hierarchical dedications. Thus Moses, the consecrator under the
Law, does not lead even Aaron, his brother, to sacerdotal consecration, though thinking
him both beloved of God and fit for the priesthood, until moved by God to this, he in
submission to God, Head of consecration, completed by Hierarchical rites the sacerdotal
consecration. But even our supremely Divine and first Consecrator (for the most
philanthropic Jesus, for our sake, became even this), did "not glorify Himself," as the
Logia say, but He Who said to Him, "Thou art Priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek. Wherefore also whilst Himself leading the disciples to sacerdotal
consecration, although being as God chief Consecrator, nevertheless He refers the
Hierarchical completion of the work of consecration to His altogether most Holy Father,
and the supremely Divine Spirit, by admonishing the disciples, as the Oracles say, not to
depart from Jerusalem, but to "await the promise of the Father, which ye heard of Me, that
ye shall be baptized in Holy Ghost.

And indeed, the Coryphaeus of the disciples himself, with the ten, of the same rank and
Hierarchy with himself, when he proceeded to the sacerdotal consecration of the twelfth of
the disciples, piously left the selection to the Godhead, saying, "Shew whom Thou hast
chosen," and received him, who was divinely designated by the Divine lot, into the
Hierarchical number of the sacred twelve. Now concerning the Divine lot, which fell as a
Divine intimation upon Matthias, others have expressed another view, not clearly, as I
think, but I will express my own sentiment. For it seems to me that the Oracles name "lot
" a certain supremely Divine gift, pointing out to that Hierarchical Choir him who was
designated by the Divine election; more particularly, because the Divine Hierarch must not
perform the sacerdotal acts of his own motion, but, under God, moving him to do them as
prescribed by the Hierarchy and Heaven.

Section VI. Now the salutation, for the completion of the sacerdotal consecration, has a
religious significance. For all the members of the sacerdotal Ranks present, as well as
the Hierarch himself who has consecrated them, salute the ordained. For when, by
sacerdotal habits and powers, and by Divine call and dedication, a religious mind has
attained to sacerdotal completion, he is dearly loved by the most holy Orders of the same
rank, being conducted to a most Godlike comeliness, loving the minds similar to himself,
and religiously loved by them in return. Hence it is that the mutual sacerdotal salutation
is religiously performed, proclaiming the religious communion of minds of like character,
and their loveable benignity towards each other, as keeping, throughout, by sacerdotal
training, their most Godlike comeliness. Section VII These things, as I said, are common
to the whole sacerdotal consecration. The Hierarch, however, as a distinctive mark, has
the Oracles most reverently placed upon his head. For since the perfecting power and
science of the whole Priesthood is bequeathed to the inspired Hierarchs, by the supremely
Divine and perfecting goodness, naturally are placed upon the heads of the Hierarchs the
Divinely transmitted Oracles, which set forth comprehensively and scientifically every
teaching of God, work of God, manifestation of God, sacred word, sacred work, in one word,
all the Divine and sacred works and words bequeathed to our Hierarchy by the beneficent
Godhead; since the Godlike Hierarch, having participated entirely in the whole
Hierarchical power, will not only be illuminated, in the true and God-transmitted science
of all the sacred words and works committed to the Hierarchy, but will also transmit them
to others in Hierarchical proportions, and will perfect Hierarchically in most Divine
kinds of knowledge and the highest mystical, instructions, all the most perfecting
functions of the whole Hierarchy. And the distinctive feature of the ordination of
Priests, as contrasted with the ordering of the Leitourgoi, is the bending of the two
knees, as that bends only the one, and is ordained in this Hierarchical fashion.

Section VIII. The bending then denotes the subordinate introduction of the conductor, who
places under God that which is reverently introduced. And since, as we have often said,
the three Orders of the consecrators, through the three most holy Mystic Rites and powers,
preside over the three ranks of those initiated, and minister their saving introduction
under the Divine yokes, naturally the order of Leitourgoi as only purifying, ministers the
one introduction of those who are being purified, by placing it under the Divine Altar,
since in it the minds being purified, are supermundanely hallowed. And the Priests bend
both their knees, since those who are religiously brought nigh by them have not only been
purified, but have been ministerially perfected into a contemplative habit and power of a
life thoroughly cleansed by their most luminous, ministrations through instruction. And
the Hierarchy bending both his knees, has upon his head the God-transmitted Oracles,
leading, through his office of Hierarch, those who have been purified by the Leitourgic
power, and enlightened by the ministerial, to the science of the holy things contemplated
by them in proportion to their capacities, and through this science perfecting those who
are brought nigh, into the most complete holiness of which they are capable.

Chapter VI

I. Concerning the Ranks of the Initiated. Section I. These, then, are the sacerdotal Ranks
and elections, their powers, and operations, and consecrations. We must next explain the
triad of the Ranks being initiated under them. We affirm then that the multitudes, of whom
we have already made mention, who are dismissed from the ministrations and consecrations,
are Ranks under purification; since one is being yet moulded and fashioned by the
Leitourgoi through the obstetric Oracles to a living birth; and another is yet to be
called back to the holy life, from which it had departed, by the hortatory teaching of the
good Oracles; and another, as being yet terrorized, through want of manliness, by opposing
fears, and being fortified by the strengthening Oracles; and another, as being yet led
back from the worse to holy efforts; and another as having been led back, indeed, but not
yet having a chaste fixedness in more Godlike and tranquil habits. For these are the
Orders under purification, by the nursing and purifying power of the Leitourgoi. These,
the Leitourgoi perfect, by their sacred powers, for the purpose of their being brought,
after their complete cleansing, to the enlightening contemplation and participation in the
most luminous ministrations.

Section II. And a middle rank is the contemplative, which participates in certain Divine
Offices in all purity, according to its capacity, which is assigned to the Priests for its
enlightenment. For it is evident, in my opinion, that, that having been cleansed from all
unholy impurity, and having acquired the pure and unmoved steadfastness of its own mind,
is led back, ministerially, to the contemplative habit and power, and communicates the
most Divine symbols, according to its capability, filled with every holy joy in their
contemplations and communions, mounting gradually to the Divine love of their science,
through their elevating powers. This, I affirm, is the rank of the holy people, as having
passed through complete purification, and deemed worthy, as far as is lawful, both of the
reverent vision, and participation of the most luminous Mystic Rites. Section III. Now the
rank, higher than all the initiated, is the sacred Order of the Monks, which, by reason of
an entirely purified purification, through complete power and perfect chastity of its own
operations, has attained to intellectual contemplation and communion in every ministration
which it is lawful for it to contemplate, and is conducted by the most perfecting powers
of the Hierarchs, and taught by their inspired illuminations and hierarchical traditions
the ministrations of the Mystic Rites, contemplated, according to its capacity, and
elevated by their sacred science, to the most perfecting perfection of which it is
capable. Hence our Divine leaders have deemed them worthy of sacred appellations, some,
indeed, calling them "Therapeutae," and others "Monks," from the pure service and fervid
devotion to the true God, and from the undivided and single life, as it were unifying
them, in the sacred enfoldings of things- divided, into a God-like Monad, and God-loving
perfection. Wherefore the Divine institution accorded them a consecrating grace, and
deemed them worthy of a certain hallowing invocation----not hierarchical----for that is
confined to the sacerdotal orders alone, but ministrative, as being ministered, by the
pious Priests, by the hierarchial consecration in the second degree.

II. Mysterion on Monastic Consecration. The Priest then stands before the Divine Altar,
religiously pronouncing the invocation for Monks. The ordinand stands behind the Priest,
neither bending both knees, nor one of them, nor having upon his head the Divinely-
transmitted Oracles, but only standing near the Priest, who pronounces over him the
mystical invocation. When the Priest has finished this, he approaches the ordinand, and
asks him first, if he bids farewell to all the distracted----not lives only, but also
imaginations. Then he sets before him the most perfect life, testifying that it is his
bounden duty to surpass the ordinary life. When the ordinand has promised steadfastly all
these things, the Priest, after he has sealed him with the sign of the Cross, crops his
hair, after an invocation to the threefold Subsistence of the Divine Beatitude, and when
he has stripped off all his clothing, he covers him with different, and when, with all the
holy men present, he has saluted him, he finishes by making him partaker of the supremely
Divine Mysteries.

III. Contemplation. Section I. The fact that he bends neither knee, nor has upon his head
the Divinely-transmitted Oracles, but stands by the Priest, who pronounces the invocation,
signifies, that the monastic Rank is not for leading others, but stands by itself, in a
monastic and holy state, following the sacerdotal Ranks, and readily conducted by them, as
a follower, to the Divine science of sacred things, according to its capacity. Section II.
And the renunciation of the divided, not only lives, but even imaginations, shews the most
perfect love of wisdom in the Monks, which exercises itself in science of the unifying
commandments. For it is, as I said, not of the middle Rank of the initiated, but of the
higher than all. Section III. Therefore many of the things, which are done without
reproach by the middle Rank, are forbidden in every way to the single Monks,----inasmuch
as they are under obligation to be unified to the One, and to be collected to a sacred
Monad, and to be transformed to the sacerdotal life, as far as lawful, as possessing an
affinity to it in many things, and as being nearer to it than the other Ranks of the
initiated. Now the sealing with the sign of the Cross, as we have already said, denotes
the inaction of almost all the desires of the flesh. And the cropping of the hair shews
the pure and unpretentious life, which does not beautify the darkness within the mind, by
overlarding it with smeared pretence, but that it by itself is being led, not by human
attractions but by single and monastic, to the highest likeness of God.

Section IV. The casting aside of the former clothing, and the taking a different, is
intended to shew the transition from a middle religious life to the more perfect; just as,
during the holy Birth from God, the exchange of the clothing denoted the elevation of a
thoroughly purified life, to a contemplative and enlightened condition. And even if now
also the Priest, and all the religious present, salute the man ordained, understand from
this the holy fellowship of the Godlike, who lovingly congratulate each other in a Divine
rejoicing. Section V. Last of all, the Priest calls the ordained to the supremely Divine
Communion, shewing religiously that the ordained, if he would really attain to the
monastic and single elevation, will not merely contemplate the sacred mysteries within
them, nor come to the communion of the most holy symbols, after the fashion of the middle
Rank, but, with a Divine knowledge of the holy things received by him, will come to the
reception of the supremely Divine Communion, in a manner different from that of the holy
people. Wherefore, the Communion of the most holy Eucharist is also given to the
sacerdotal Orders, in their consecrating dedications, by the Hierarch who consecrated
them, at the end of their most holy sanctifications, not only because the reception of the
supremely Divine Mysteries is the consummation of each Hierarchical reception, but because
all the sacred Orders, according to their capacity, partake of the self-same common and
most godly gifts, for their own elevation and perfection in deification. We conclude,
then, that the holy Mystic Rites are, purification, and illumination, and consecration.
The Leitourgoi are a purifying rank, the Priests an illuminating, and the Godlike
Hierarchs a consecrating. But the holy people is a contemplative Order. That which does
not participate in the sacred contemplation and communion, is a Rank being purified, as
still under course of purification. The holy people is a contemplative Rank, and that of
the single Monks is a perfected Rank. For thus our Hierarchy, reverently arranged in Ranks
fixed by God, is like the Heavenly Hierarchies, preserving, so far as man can do, its God-
imitated and Godlike characteristics.

Section VI. But thou wilt say that the Ranks undergoing purification utterly fall short of
the Heavenly Hierarchies (for it is neither permitted nor true to say that any heavenly
Ordering is defiled), yea, I would altogether affirm myself, that they are entirely
without blemish, and possess a perfect purity above this world, unless I had completely
fallen away from a religious mind. For if any of them should have become captive to evil,
and have fallen from the heavenly and undefiled harmony of the divine Minds, he would be
brought to the gloomy fall of the rebellious multitudes. But one may reverently say with
regard to the Heavenly Hierarchy, that the illuminating from God in things hitherto
unknown is a purification to the subordinate Beings, leading them to a more perfect
science of the supremely Divine kinds of knowledge, and purifying them as far as possible
from the ignorance of those things of which they had not hitherto the science, conducted,
as they are, by the first and more Divine Beings to the higher and more luminous
splendours of the visions of God: and so there are Ranks being illuminated and perfected,
and purifying and illuminating and perfecting, after the example of the Heavenly
Hierarchy; since the highest and more Divine Beings purify the subordinate, holy, and
reverent Orders, from all ignorance (in ranks and proportions of the Heavenly
Hierarchies), and filling them with the most Divine illuminatings, and perfecting in the
most pure science of the supremely Divine conceptions. For we have already said, and the
Oracles divinely demonstrate, that all the heavenly Orders are not the same, in all the
sacred sciences of the God-contemplating visions; but the first, from G.od immediately,
and, through these, again from God, the subordinate are illuminated, in proportion to
their powers, with the most luminous glories of the supremely Divine ray.

Chapter VII

I. Concerning things performed over those fallen asleep. Section I. These things having
been defined, I think it necessary also to describe the things religiously performed by us
over those who have fallen asleep. For neither is this also the same between the holy and
the unholy; but, as the form of life of each is different, so also, when approaching
death, those who have led a religious life, by looking steadfastly to the unfailing
promises of the Godhead (inasmuch as they have observed their proof, in the resurrection
proclaimed by it), come to the goal of death, with firm and unfailing hope, in godly
rejoicing, knowing that at the end of holy contests their condition will be altogether in
a perfect and endless life and safety, through their future entire resurrection . For the
holy souls, which may possibly fall during this present life to a change for the worse, in
the regeneration, will have the most Godlike transition to an unchangeable condition. Now,
the pure bodies which are enrolled together as yoke-fellows and companions of the holy
souls, and have fought together within their Divine struggles in the unchanged
steadfastness of their souls throughout the divine life, will jointly receive their own
resurrection; for, having been united with the holy souls to which they were united in
this present life, by having become members of Christ, they will receive in return the
Godlike and imperishable immortality, and blessed repose. In this respect then the sleep
of the holy is in comfort and unshaken hopes, as it attains the goal of the Divine
contests.

Section II. Now, amongst the profane, some illogically think to go to a non-existence;
others that the bodily blending with their proper souls will be severed once for all, as
unsuitable to them in a Divine life and blessed lots, not considering nor being
sufficiently instructed in Divine science, that our most Godlike life in Christ has
already begun. But others assign to souls union with other bodies, committing , as I
think, this injustice to them, that, after (bodies) have laboured together with the godly
souls, and have reached the goal of their most Divine course, they relentlessly deprive
them of their righteous retributions. And others (I do not know how they have strayed to
conceptions of such earthly tendency) say, that the most holy and blessed repose promised
to the devout is similar to our life in this world, and unlawfully reject, for those who
are equal to the Angels, nourishments appropriate to another kind of life. None of the
most religious men, however, will ever fall into such errors as these; but, knowing that
their whole selves will receive the Christ-like inheritance, when they have come to the
goal of this present life, they see more clearly their road to incorruption already become
nearer, and extol the gifts of the Godhead, and are filled with a Divine satisfaction, no
longer fearing the fall to a worse condition, but knowing well that they will hold firmly
and everlastingly the good things already acquired.

Those, however, who are full of blemishes, and unholy stains, even though they have
attained to some initiation, yet, of their own accord, have, to their own destruction,
rejected this from their mind, and have rashly followed their destructive lusts, to them
when they have come to the end of their life here, the Divine regulation of the Oracles
will no longer appear as before, a subject of scorn , but, when they have looked with
different eyes upon the pleasures of their passions destroyed, and when they have
pronounced blessed the holy life from which they thoughtlessly fell away, they are,
piteously and against their will, separated from this present life, conducted to no holy
hope, by reason of their shameful life . Section III. Now, whilst none of these attain the
repose of the holy men, he himself, when coming to the end of his own struggles, is filled
with a holy consolation, and with much satisfaction enters the path of the holy
regeneration. The familiar friends, however, of him who has fallen asleep, as befits their
divine familiarity and fellowship, pronounce him blessed, whoever he is, as having reached
the desired end crowned with victory, and they send up odes of thanksgiving to the Author
of victory, praying also that they may reach the same inheritance. Then they take him and
bring him to the Hierarch, as to a bequest of holy crowns; and he right gladly receives
him, and performs the things fixed by reverend men, to be performed over those who have
piously fallen asleep. II. Mysterion over those who have religiously fallen asleep.

The Divine Hierarch collects the reverend Choir, and if the person who has fallen asleep
were of the sacerdotal rank, he lays him down before the Divine Altar, and begins with the
prayer and thanksgiving to God; but if he belonged to the rank of the chaste Monks, or the
holy people, he lays him down near the hallowed sanctuary, before the sacerdotal entrance.
Then the Hierarch finishes the prayer of thanksgiving to God; and next, the Leitourgoi,
after reading the unfailing promises concerning our holy resurrection, contained in the
Divine Oracles, reverently chant the odes of the same teaching and power, from the Oracles
of the Psalter . Then the first Leitourgos dismisses the catechumens, and calls aloud the
names of the holy people, who have already fallen asleep; amongst whom he deems the man,
who has just terminated his life, worthy of mention in the same rank, and urges all to
seek the blessed consummation in Christ; then the Divine Hierarch advances, and offers a
most holy prayer over him, and after the prayer both the Hierarch himself salutes the
defunct, and after him, all who are present. When all have saluted, the Hierarch pours the
oil upon the fallen asleep, and when he has offered the holy prayer for all, he places the
body in a worthy chamber, with other holy bodies of the same rank.

III. Contemplation. Section I. Now, if the profane should see or hear that these things
are done by us, they will, I suppose, split with laughter, and commiserate us on our,
folly. But there is no need to wonder at this. For, as the Oracles say, "If they will not
believe, neither shall they understand ." And as for us, who have contemplated the
spiritual meaning of the things done, whilst Jesus leads us to the light, let us say,
that, not without reason, does the Hierarch conduct to, and place the man fallen asleep,
in the place of the same rank; for it shews reverently, that, in the regeneration, all
will be in those chosen inheritances, for which they have chosen their own life here . For
example, if any one led a Godlike and most holy life here, so far as the imitation of God
is attainable by man, he will be, in the age to come, in divine and blessed inheritances;
but if he led a life inferior to the divine likeness in the highest degree, but,
nevertheless, a holy life, even this man will receive the holy and similar retributions.
The Hierarch, having given thanks for this Divine righteousness, offers a sacred prayer,
and extols the worshipful Godhead, as subjugating the unjust and tyrannical power against
us all, and conducting us back to our own most just possessions (or judgments).

Section II. Now, the Chants and Readings of the supremely Divine promises are explanatory
of the most blessed inheritances, to which those, who have attained a Divine perfection,
shall be eternally appointed, and descriptive of him who has religiously fallen asleep,
and stimulative of those, who are still living, to the same perfection. Section III.
Observe, however, that not all the ranks under purification are customarily dismissed, but
only the catechumens are expelled from the holy places, for this class is entirely
uninitiated in every holy Rite, and is not permitted to view any of the religious
celebrations, great or small, inasmuch as it has not participated in the faculty of
contemplating the holy mysteries, through the Birth from God, which is Source and gift of
light. The rest, however, of the ranks under purification, have already been under
instruction in sacred tradition; but, as they have foolishly returned to an evil course it
is incumbent to complete their proper elevation in advance, and they are reasonably
dismissed from the supremely Divine contemplations and communions, as in holy symbols; for
they will be injured, by partaking of them unholily, and will come to a greater contempt
of the Divine Mysteries and themselves.

Section IV. Naturally, however, they are present at the things now done, being clearly
taught by seeing both the fearlessness of death amongst us, and the last honour of the
saints extolled from the unfailing Oracles, and that the sufferings threatened to the
unholy like themselves will be endless; for it will perhaps be profitable for them to have
seen him, who has religiously finished his course, reverently proclaimed by the public
proclamation of the Leitourgoi, as being certainly companion of the Saints for ever. And,
perchance, even they will come to the like aspiration, and will be taught from the science
of the Liturgy, that the consummation in Christ is blessed indeed. Section V. Then the
Divine Hierarch, advancing, offers a holy prayer over the man fallen asleep. After the
prayer, both the Hierarch himself salutes him, and next all who are present. Now the
prayer beseeches the supremely Divine Goodness to remit to the man fallen asleep all the
failings committed by reason of human infirmity, and to transfer him in light and land of
living, into the bosom of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob: in a place where grief and sorrow
and sighing are no more. It is evident, then, as I think, that these, the rewards of the
pious, are most blessed. For what can be equal to an immortality entirely without grief
and luminous with light. Especially if all the promises which pass man's understanding,
and which are signified to us by signs adapted to our capacity, fall short, in their
description, of their actual truth. For we must remember that the Logion is true, that
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." "Bosoms" of the blessed
Patriarchs, and of all the other pious men, are, in my judgment, the most divine and
blessed inheritances, which await all godly men, in that consummation which grows not old,
and is full of blessedness.

Section VI. But thou mayst, perhaps, say that these things are correctly affirmed by us,
indeed, but want to know for what reason the Hierarch beseeches the supremely Divine
Goodness, for the remission of the faults committed by the man fallen asleep, and his most
glorious inheritance, amongst godly men of the same rank. For, if every one shall receive,
by the Divine justice, equivalents for what he has done in the present life, whether it be
good or different, and the man fallen asleep has finished his own activities in this
present life, from what prayer offered by the Hierarch will he be transferred to another
inheritance, than that due to and equivalent for his life here? Now, well do I know,
following the Oracles, that each one will have the inheritance equivalent; for the Lord
says, he has closed respecting him, and each one shall receive the things done in his body
according to that he hath done, whether it be good, or whether it be bad." Yea, the sure
traditions of the Oracles teach us that the prayers, even of the just, avail only for
those who are worthy of pious prayers during this present life, let alone (by no means)
after death. What forsooth did Saul gain from Samuel? and what did the intercession of the
Prophet profit the people of the Hebrews? For, as if any one, when the sun is shedding its
own splendour upon unblemished eyes, seeks to enjoy the solar splendour by obliterating
his own powers of vision; so does he cling to impossible and extravagant expectations, who
beseeches the intercessions of holy men, and, by driving away the holy efforts natural to
the same, plays truant from the most luminous and beneficent commandments, through
heedlessness of the Divine gifts.

Nevertheless, according to the Oracles, I affirm that the intercessions of the pious are,
in every respect, profitable in this present life, after the following fashion. If any
one, longing for holy gifts, and having a religious disposition for their reception, as
recognizing his own insufficiency, approaches some pious man, and should prevail upon him
to become his fellow-helper, and fellow-suppliant, he will be benefitted in every respect,
thereby, with a benefit superior to all; for he will attain the most Divine gifts he prays
for, since the supremely Divine Goodness assists him, as well as his pious judgment of
himself, and his reverence for devout men, and his praiseworthy craving for the religious
requests requested, and his brotherly and Godlike disposition. For this has been firmly
fixed by the supremely Divine decrees, that the Divine gifts are given, in an order most
befitting God, to those who are meet to receive them, through those who are meet to
distribute them.

If any one, then, should despise this sacred regulation, and betaking himself to a
wretched self-conceit, should deem himself sufficient for the supremely Divine Converse,
and look down upon pious men, and if he should further request requests, unworthy of God,
and not holy, and if he should have his aspiration for things divine not sustained, and
correlative to himself, he will fail in his ignorant request, through his own fault. Now,
with reference to the prayer mentioned, which the Hierarch prays over the man fallen
asleep, we think it necessary to mention the tradition which has come to us from our
inspired leaders. The Divine Hierarch, as the Oracles say, is interpreter of the supremely
Divine awards; for he is messenger of the Lord God Omnipotent. He has learned then, from
the God-transmitted Oracles, that to those who have passed their life piously, the most
bright and divine life is given in return, according to their due, by the most just
balances, the Divine Love towards man overlooking, through its goodness, the stains which
have come to them through human infirmity, since no one, as the Oracles say, is pure from
blemish.

Section VII. Now, the Hierarch knew these things to have been promised by the infallible
Oracles; and he asks, that these things may come to pass, and that the right-teous returns
be given to those who have lived piously, whilst being moulded beneficently to the Divine
imitation, he beseeches gifts for others, as favours to himself; and, whilst knowing that
the promises will be unfailing, he makes known clearly to those present, that the things
asked by him, according to a holy law, will be entirely realized for those who have been
perfected in a Divine life. For the Hierarch, the expounder of the supremely Divine
Justice, would never seek things, which were not most pleasing to the Almighty God, and
divinely promised to be given by Him . Wherefore, he does not offer these prayers over the
unholy fallen asleep, not only because in this he would deviate from his office of
expounder, and would presumptuously arrogate, on his own authority, a function of the
Hierarchy, without being moved by the Supreme Legislator, but because he would both fail
to obtain his abominable prayer, and he, not unnaturally, would hear from the just Oracle,
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss. Therefore, the Divine Hierarch beseeches
things divinely promised, and dear to God, and which will, in every respect, be given,
demonstrating both his own likeness to the good loving God, and declaring explicitly the
gifts which will be received by the devout.

Thus, the Hierarchs have discriminating powers, as interpreters of the Divine Awards, not
as though the All-Wise Deity, to put it mildly, were slavishly following their irrational
impulses, but, as though they, as expounders of God, were separating, by the motion of the
Divine Spirit, those who have already been judged by God, according to due. For "receive,"
he says, "the Holy Spirit, whose faults ye may have remitted, they are remitted; whose ye
may have retained, they are retained. And to him who was illuminated with the Divine
revelations of the most Holy Father, the Oracles say, "Whatsoever thou shalt have bound
upon the earth, shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever thou shalt have loosed on
earth, shall be loosed in the heavens," inasmuch as he, and every Hierarch like him,
according to the revelations of the Father's awards through him, receives those dear to
God, and rejects those without God, as announcing and interpreting the Divine Will.
Further, as the Oracles affirm, he uttered that sacred and divine confession, npt as self-
moved, nor as though flesh and blood had revealed it, but moved by God Who revealed to him
the spiritual meaning of Divine things. The inspired Hierarchs then must so exercise their
separations and all their Hierarchical powers as the Godhead, the Supreme Initiator, may
move them; and the others must so cling to the Hierarchs as moved by God, in what they may
do hierarchically, "For he who despiseth you," He says, "despiseth Me ."

Section VIII. Let us now proceed to that, which follows the prayer mentioned. When the
Hierarch has finished it, he first salutes the fallen asleep, and next, all who are
present; for dear and honoured by all Godlike men is he who has been perfected in a Divine
life. After the salutation, the Hierarch pours the oil upon the man fallen asleep. And
remember, that during the sacred Birth from God, before the most Divine Baptism, a first
participation of a holy symbol is given to the man initiated----the oil of Chrism----after
the entire removal of the former clothing; and now, at the conclusion of all, the Oil is
poured upon the man fallen asleep. Then indeed the anointing with the Oil summoned the
initiated to the holy contests; and now the Oil poured upon him shews the fallen asleep to
have struggled, and to have been made perfect, throughout those same contests.

Section IX. When the Hierarch has finished these things, he places the body in an
honourable chamber, with other holy bodies of the same rank. For if, in soul and body, the
man fallen asleep passed a life dear to God, there will be honoured, with the devout soul,
the body also, which contended with it throughout the devout struggles. Hence the Divine
justice gives to it, together with its own body, the retributive inheritances, as
companion and participator in the devout, or the contrary, life. Wherefore, the Divine
institution of sacred rites bequeaths the supremely Divine participations to them both----
to the soul, indeed, in pure contemplation and in science of the things being done, and to
the body, by sanctifying the whole man, as in a figure with the most Divine Muron, and the
most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, sanctifying the whole man, and
announcing, by purifications of the whole man, that his resurrection will be most
complete.

Section X. Now, as regards the consecrating" invocations, it is not permitted to explain
them in writing, nor may we bring their mysterious meaning, or the powers from God working
in them, from secrecy to publicity; but, as our sacred tradition holds, by learning these,
through quiet instructions, and being perfected to a more Godlike condition and elevation,
through Divine love and religious exercises, thou wilt be borne by the consecrating
enlightenment to their highest science. Section XI. Now the fact that even children, not
yet able to understand the things Divine, become recipients of the holy Birth in God, and
of the most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, seems, as you say, to the
profane, a fit subject for reasonable laughter, if the Hierarchs teach things Divine to
those not able to hear, and vainly transmit the sacred traditions to those who do not
understand. And this is still more laughable----that others, on their behalf, repeat the
abjurations and the sacred compacts. But thy Hierarchical judgment must not be too hard
upon those who are led astray, but, persuasively, and for the purpose of leading them to
the light, reply affectionately to the objections alleged by them, bringing forward this
fact, in accordance with sacred rule, that not all things Divine are comprehended in our
knowledge, but many of the things, unknown by us, have causes beseeming God, unknown to us
indeed, but well known to the Ranks above us. Many things also escape even the most
exalted Beings, and are known distinctly by the All-Wise and Wise-making Godhead alone.
Further, also, concerning this, we affirm the same things which our Godlike initiators
conveyed to us, after initiations from the early tradition. For they say, what is also a
fact, that infants, being brought up according to a Divine institution, will attain a
religious disposition, exempt from every error, and inexperienced in an unholy-life. When
our Divine leaders came to this conclusion, it was determined to admit infants upon the
following conditions, viz.:

that the natural parents of the child presented, should transfer the child to some one of
the initiated,----a good teacher of children in Divine things,----and that the child
should lead the rest of his life under him, as under a godfather and sponsor, for his
religious safe-keeping. The Hierarch then requires him, when he has promised to bring up
the child according to the religious life, to pronounce the renunciations and the
religious professions, not, as they would jokingly say, by instructing one instead of
another in Divine things; for he does not say this, "that on behalf of this child I make,
myself, the renunciations and the sacred professions," but, that the child is set apart
and enlisted; i.e. I promise to persuade the child, when he has come to a religious mind,
through my godly instructions, to bid adieu wholly to things contrary, and to profess and
perform the Divine professions. There is here, then, nothing absurd, in my judgment,
provided the child is brought up as beseems a godlike training, in having a guide and
religious surety, who implants in him a disposition for Divine things, and keeps him
inexperienced in things contrary.

The Hierarch imparts to the child the sacred, symbols, in order that he may be nourished
by them, and may not have any other life but that which always contemplates Divine things;
and in religious progress become partaker of them and have a religious disposition in
these matters, and be devoutly brought up by his Godlike surety. So great, my son, and so
beautiful, are the uniform visions of our Hierarchy, which have been presented to my view;
and from others, perhaps, more contemplative minds, these things have been viewed, not
only more clearly, but also more divinely. And to thee, as I fancy, more brilliant and
more divine beauties will shine forth, by using the foregoing stepping-stones to a higher
ray. Impart then, my friend, thyself also, to me, more perfect enlightenment, and shew to
mine eyes the more comely and uniform beauties that thou mayst have been able to see, for
I am confident that, by what has been said, I shall strike the sparks of the Divine Fire
stored up in thee.

Thanks be to God. JOHN PARKER. All Saints' Day, 1898.


THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY
=====================

THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

The Mystical Theology is a short treatise of five chapters on how the soul is led beyond
all thought and speech into the divine darkness. It sets out the way of affirming what God
is and the higher way of denying every such statement, and it has been read ever since as
the root of Christian mystical theology.

THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY

Chapter I

What is the Divine Gloom? SECTION I. TRIAD supernal, both super-God and super-good,
Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and
super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple and absolute
and changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous gloom of the
silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most
super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the
eyeless minds with glories of surpassing beauty. This then be my prayer; but thou, O dear
Timothy, by thy persistent commerce with the mystic visions, leave behind both sensible
perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all objects of sense and intelligence, and all
things not being and being, and be raised aloft unknowingly to the union, as far' as
attainable, with Him Who is above every essence and knowledge. For by the resistless and
absolute ecstasy in all purity, from thyself and all, thou wilt be carried on high, to the
superessential ray of the Divine darkness, when thou hast cast away all, and become free
from all.

SECTION II. But see that none of the uninitiated listen to these things----those I mean
who are entangled in things being, and fancy there is nothing superessentially above
things being, but imagine that they know, by their own knowledge, Him, Who has placed
darkness as His hiding-place. But, if the Divine initiations are above such, what would
any one say respecting those still more uninitiated, such as both portray the Cause
exalted above all, from the lowest of things created, and say that It in no wise excels
the no-gods fashioned by themselves and of manifold shapes, it being our duty both to
attribute and affirm all the attributes of things existing to It, as Cause of all, and
more properly to deny them all to It, as being above all, and not to consider the
negations to be in opposition to the affirmations, but far rather that It, which is above
every abstraction and definition, is above the privations.

SECTION III. Thus, then, the divine Bartholomew says that Theology is much and least, and
the Gospel broad and great, and on the other hand concise. He seems to me to have
comprehended this supernaturally, that the good Cause of all is both of much utterance,
and at the same time of briefest utterance and without utterance; as having neither
utterance nor conception, because It is superessentially exalted above all, and manifested
without veil and in truth, to those alone who pass through both all things consecrated and
pure, and ascend above every ascent of all holy summits, and leave behind all divine
lights and sounds, and heavenly words, and enter into the gloom, where really is, as the
Oracles say, He Who is beyond all. For even the divine Moses is himself strictly bidden to
be first purified, and then to be separated from those who are not so, and after entire
cleansing hears the many-voiced trumpets, and sees many lights, shedding pure and
streaming rays; then he is separated from the multitude, and with the chosen priests goes
first to the summit of the divine ascents, although even then he does not meet with
Almighty God Himself, but views not Him (for He is viewless) but the place where He is.

Now this I think signifies that the most Divine and Highest of the things seen and
contemplated are a sort of suggestive expression, 'of the things subject to Him Who is
above all, through which Hjs wholly inconceivable Presence is shown, reaching to the
highest spiritual summits of His most holy places; and then he (Moses) is freed from them
who are both seen and seeing, and enters into the gloom of the Agnosia; a gloom veritably
mystic, within which he closes all perceptions of knowledge and enters into the altogether
impalpable and unseen, being wholly of Him Who is beyond all, and of none, neither himself
nor other; and by inactivity of all knowledge, united in his better part to. the
altogether Unknown, and by knowing nothing, knowing above mind.

Chapter II

How we ought both to be united and render praise to the Cause of all and above all.
SECTION I. WE pray to enter within the super-bright gloom, and through not seeing and not
knowing, to see and to know that the not to see nor to know is itself the above sight and
knowledge. For this is veritably to see and to know and to celebrate super-essentially the
Superessential, through the abstraction of all existing things, just as those who make a
lifelike statue, by extracting all the encumbrances which have been placed upon the clear
view of the concealed, and by bringing to light, by the mere cutting away , the genuine
beauty concealed in it. And, it is necessary, as I think, to celebrate the abstractions in
an opposite way to the definitions. For, we used to place these latter by beginning from
the foremost and descending through the middle to the lowest, but, in this case, by making
the ascents from the lowest to the highest, we abstract everything, in order that, without
veil, we may know that Agnosia, which is enshrouded under all the known, in all things
that be, and may see that superessential gloom, which is hidden by all the light in
existing things.

Chapter III

What are the affirmative expressions respecting God, and what the negative. SECTION I. IN
the Theological Outlines, then, we celebrated the principal affirmative expressions
respecting God----how the Divine and good Nature is spoken of as One----how as Threefold
----what is that within it which is spoken of as Paternity and Sonship----what the Divine
name of "the Spirit "is meant to signify,----how from the immaterial and indivisible Good
the Lights dwelling in the heart of Goodness sprang forth, and remained, in their
branching forth, without departing from the coeternal abiding in Himself and in Themselves
and in each other,----how the super-essential Jesus takes substance in veritable human
nature----and whatever other things, made known by the Oracles, are celebrated throughout
the Theological Outlines; and in the treatise concerning Divine Names, how He is named
Good----how Being----how Life and Wisdom and Power----and whatever else belongs to the
nomenclature of God. Further, in the Symbolical Theology, what are the Names transferred
from objects of sense to things Divine?----what are the Divine forms?----what the Divine
appearances, and parts and organs?----what the Divine places and ornaments?----what the
angers?----what the griefs?----and the Divine wrath?----what the carousals, and the
ensuing sicknesses?----what the oaths,----and what the curses?----what the sleepings, and
what the awak-ings?----and all the other Divinely formed representations, which belong to
the description of God, through symbols. And I imagine that you have comprehended, how the
lowest are expressed in somewhat more words than the first. For, it was necessary that the
Theological Outlines, and the unfolding of the Divine Names should be expressed in fewer
words than the Symbolic Theology;

since, in proportion as we ascend to the higher, in such a degree the expressions are
circumscribed by the contemplations of the things intelligible. As even now, when entering
into the gloom which is above mind, we shall find, not a little speaking, but a complete
absence of speech, and absence of conception. In the other case, the discourse, in
descending from the above to the lowest, is widened according to the descent, to a
proportionate extent; but now, in ascending from below to that which is above, in
proportion to the ascent, it is contracted, and after a complete ascent, it will become
wholly voiceless, and will be wholly united to the unutterable. But, for what reason in
short, you say, having attributed the Divine attributes from the foremost, do we begin the
Divine abstraction from things lowest? Because it is necessary that they who place
attributes on that which is above every attribute, should place the attributive
affirmation from that which is more cognate to it; but that they who abstract, with regard
to that which is above every abstraction, should make the abstraction from things which
are further removed from it. Are not life and goodness more (cognate) than air and stone?
and He is not given to debauch and to wrath, more (removed) than He is not expressed nor
conceived.

Chapter IV

That the pre-eminent Cause of every object of sensible perception is none of the objects
of sensible perception. SECTION I. WE say then- that the Cause of all, which is above all,
is neither without being, nor without life----nor with- out reason, nor without mind, nor
is a body----nor has shape----nor form----nor quality, or quantity, or bulk----nor is in a
place----nor is seen----nor has sensible contact----nor perceives, nor is perceived, by
the senses----nor has disorder and confusion, as being vexed by earthly passions,----nor
is powerless, as being subject to casualties of sense,----nor is in need of
light;----neither is It, nor has It, change, or decay, or division, or deprivation, or
flux,----or any other of the objects of sense. CAPUT V. That the pre-eminent Cause of
every object of intelligible perception is none of the objects of intelligible perception.
ON the other hand, ascending, we say, that It is neither soul, nor mind, nor has
imagination, or opinion, or reason, or conception; neither is expressed, nor conceived;
neither is number, nor order, nor greatness, nor littleness; nor equality, nor inequality;
nor similarity, nor dissimilarity; neither is standing, nor moving; nor at rest; neither
has power, nor is power, nor light; neither lives, nor is life; neither is essence nor
eternity, nor time; neither is Its touch intelligible, neither is It science, nor truth;
nor kingdom, nor wisdom; neither one, nor oneness; neither Deity, nor Goodness; nor is It
Spirit according to our understanding; nor Sonship, nor Paternity; nor any other thing of
those known to us, or to any other existing being; neither is It any of non-existing nor
of existing things, nor do things existing know It, as It is; nor does It know existing
things, qua existing; neither is there expression of It, nor name, nor knowledge; neither
is It darkness, nor light; nor error, nor truth; neither is there any definition at all of
It, nor any abstraction. But when making the predications and abstractions of things after
It, we neither predicate, nor abstract from It; since the all-perfect and uniform Cause of
all is both above every definition and the pre-eminence of Him, Who is absolutely freed
from all, and beyond the whole, is also above every abstraction.

[Selected footnote renumbered and moved to the end]


THE LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS
========================

THE LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

Ten short letters to Gaius, Dorotheus, Sopater, Polycarp, Demophilus, Titus and John the
Theologian. They take up questions of the darkness in which God dwells, the person of
Christ, and the right way for a Christian to deal with those who think otherwise.

THE LETTERS

Letter I: To Gaius Therapeutes

DARKNESS becomes invisible by light, and specially by much light. Varied knowledge (αἰ
γνώσεις), and especially much varied knowledge, makes the Agnosia to vanish. Take this in
a superlative, but not in a defective sense, and reply with superlative truth, that the
Agnosia, respecting God, escapes those who possess existing light, and knowledge of things
being; and His pre-eminent darkness is both concealed by every light, and is hidden from
every knowledge. And, if any one, having seen God, understood what he saw, he did not see
Him, but some of His creatures that are existing and known. But He Himself, highly
established above mind, and above essence, by the very fact of His being wholly unknown,
and not being, both is super-essentially, and is known above mind. And the all-perfect
Agnosia, in its superior sense, is a knowledge of Him, Who is above all known things.

Letter II: To the same Gaius Therapeutes

How is He, Who is beyond all , both above source of Divinity and above source of Good?
Provided you understand Deity and Goodness, as the very Actuality of the Good-making and
God-making gift, and the inimitable imitation of the super-divine and super-good (gift),
by aid of which we are deified and made good. For, moreover, if this becomes source of the
deification and making good of those who are being deified and made good, He,----Who is
super-source of every source, even of the so-called Deity and Goodness, seeing He is
beyond source of Divinity and source of Goodness, in so far as He is inimitable, and not
to be retained----excels the imitations and retentions, and the things which are imitated
and those participating. LETTER III. To the same Gaius. "Sudden "is that which, contrary
to expectation, and out of the, as yet, unmanifest, is brought into the manifest. But with
regard to Christ's love of man, I think that the Word of God suggests even this, that the
Superessential proceeded forth out of the hidden, into the manifestation amongst us, by
having taken substance as man. But, He is hidden, even after the manifestation, or to
speak more divinely, even in the manifestation, for in truth this of Jesus has been kept
hidden, and the mystery with respect to Him has been reached by no word nor mind, but even
when spoken, remains unsaid, and when conceived unknown.

Letter IV: To the same Gaius Therapeutes

How, you ask, is Jesus, Who is beyond all, ranked essentially with all men? For, not as
Author of men is He here called man, but as being in absolute whole essence truly man. But
we do not define the Lord Jesus, humanly, for He is not man only, (neither superessential
nor man only), but truly man, He Who is pre-eminently a lover of man, the Super-essential,
taking substance, above men and after men, from the substance of men. And it is nothing
less, the ever Superessential, super-full of super-essentiality, disregards the excess of
this, and having come truly into substance, took substance above substance, and above man
works things of man. And a virgin supernaturally conceiving, and unstable water, holding
up weight of material and earthly feet, and not giving way, but, by a supernatural power
standing together so as not to be divided, demonstrate this. Why should any one go through
the rest, which are very many? Through which, he who looks with a divine vision, will know
beyond mind, even the things affirmed respecting the love towards man, of (the Lord)
Jesus,----things which possess a force of superlative negation. For, even, to speak
summarily, He was not man, not as not being man, but as being from men was beyond men, and
was above man, having truly been born man, and for the rest, not having done things Divine
as God, nor things human as man, but exercising for us a certain new God-incarnate energy
of God having become man.

Letter V: To Dorotheus, Leitourgos

The Divine gloom is the unapproachable light in which God is said to dwell . And in this
gloom, invisible indeed, on account of the surpassing brightness, and unapproachable on
account of the excess of the superessential stream of light, enters every one deemed
worthy to know and to see God, by the very fact of neither seeing nor knowing, really
entering in Him, Who is above vision and knowledge, knowing this very thing, that He is
after all the object of sensible and intelligent perception, and saying in the words of
the Prophet, "Thy knowledge was regarded as wonderful by me; It was confirmed; I can by no
means attain unto it ;" even as the Divine Paul is said to have known Almighty God, by
having known Him as being above all conception and knowledge. Wherefore also, he says,
"His ways are past finding out and His Judgements inscrutable," and His gifts
"indescribable ," and that His peace surpasses every mind , as having found Him Who is
above all, and having known this which is above conception, that, by being Cause of all,
He is beyond all.

Letter VI: To Sopatros -----Priest

Do not imagine this a victory, holy Sopatros, to have denounced a devotion, or an opinion,
which apparently is not good. For neither----even if you should have convicted it
accurately----are the (teachings) of Sopatros consequently good. For it is possible, both
that you and others, whilst occupied in many things that are false and apparent, should
overlook the true, which is One and hidden. For neither, if anything is not red, is it
therefore white, nor if something is not a horse, is it necessarily a man. But thus will
you do, if you follow my advice, you will cease indeed to speak against others, but will
so speak on behalf of truth, that every thing said is altogether unquestionable. LETTER
VII. SECTION I. To Polycarp----Hierarch. I, at any rate, am not conscious, when speaking
in reply to Greeks or others, of fancying to assist good men, in case they should be able
to know and speak the very truth, as it really is in itself. For, when this is correctly
demonstrated in its essential nature, according to a law of truth, and has been
established without flaw, every thing which is otherwise, and simulates the truth, will be
convicted of being other than the reality, and dissimilar, and that which is seeming
rather than real. It is superfluous then, that the expounder of truth should contend with
these or those . For each affirms himself to have the royal coin, and perchance has some
deceptive image of a certain portion of the true. And, if you refute this, first the one,
and then the other, will contend concerning the same. But, when the true statement itself
has been correctly laid down, and has remained unrefuted by all the rest, every thing
which is not so in every respect is cast down of itself, by the impregnable stability of
the really true. Having then as I think well understood this, I have not been over zealous
to speak in reply to Greeks or to others; but it is sufficient for me (and may God grant
this), first to know about truth, then, having known, to speak as it is fitting to speak.

SECTION II. But you say, the Sophist Apollophanes rails at me, and calls me parricide, as
using, not piously, the writings of Greeks against the Greeks. Yet, in reply to him, it
were more true for us to say, that Greeks use, not piously, things Divine against things
Divine, attempting through the wisdom of Almighty God to eject the Divine Worship. And I
am not speaking of the opinion of the multitude, who cling tenaciously to the writings of
the poets, with earthly and impassioned proclivities, and Worship the creature rather than
the Creator; but even Apollophanes himself uses not piously things Divine against things
Divine; for by the knowledge of things created, well called Philosophy by him, and by the
divine Paul named Wisdom of God, the true philosophers ought to have been elevated to the
Cause of things created and of the knowledge of them. And in order that he may not
improperly impute to me the opinion of others, or that of himself, Apollophanes, being a
wise man, ought to recognise that nothing could otherwise be removed from its heavenly
course and movement, if it had not the Sustainer and Cause of its being moving it thereto,
who forms all things, and "transforms them "according to the sacred text.

How then does he not worship Him, known to us even from this, and verily being God of the
whole, admiring Him for His all causative and super-inexpressible power, when sun and
moon, together with the universe, by a power and stability most supernatural, were fixed
by them to entire immobility, and, for a measure of a whole day, all the constellations
stood in the same places; or (which is greater than even this), if when the whole and the
greater and embracing were thus carried along, those embraced did not follow in their
course; and when a certain other day was almost tripled in duration, even in twenty whole
hours, either the universe retraced contrary routes for so long a time, and (was) turned
back by the thus very most supernatural backward revolutions; or the sun, in its own
course, having contracted its five-fold motion in ten hours, retrogressively again
retraced it in the other ten hours, by traversing a sort of new route. This thing indeed
naturally astounded even Babylonians , and, without battle, brought them into subjection
to Hezekiah, as though he were a somebody equal to God, and superior to ordinary men. And,
by no means do I allege the great works in Egypt , or certain other Divine portents, which
took place elsewhere, but the well-known and celestial ones, which were renowned in every
place and by all persons. But Apollophanes is ever saying that these things are not true.

At any rate then, this is reported by the Persian sacerdotal legends, and to this day,
Magi celebrate the memorials of the threefold Mithrus . But let him disbelieve these
things, by reason of his ignorance or his inexperience. Say to him, however, "What do you
affirm concerning the eclipse, which took place at the time of the saving Cross ? For both
of us at that time, at Heliopolis, being present, and standing together, saw the moon
approaching the sun, to our surprise (for it was not appointed time for conjunction); and
again, from the ninth hour to the evening, supernaturally placed back again into a line
opposite the sun. And remind him also of something further. For he knows that we saw, to
our surprise, the contact itself beginning from the east, and going towards the edge of
the sun's disc, then receding back, and again, both the contact and the re-clearing , not
taking place from the same point, but from that diametrically opposite. So great are the
supernatural things of that appointed time, and possible to Christ alone, the Cause of
all, Who worketh great things and marvellous, of which there is not number.

SECTION III. These things say, if occasion serves, and if possible, O Apollophanes, refute
them, and to me, who was then both present with thee, and saw and judged and wondered with
thee at them all. And in truth Apollophanes begins prophesying at that time, I know not
whence, and to me he said, as if conjecturing the things taking place, "these things, O
excellent Dionysius, are requitals of Divine deeds." Let so much be said by us by letter;
but you are capable, both to supply the deficiency, and to bring eventually to God that
distinguished man, who is wise in many things, and who perhaps will not disdain to meekly
learn the truth, which is above wisdom, of our religion. LETTER VIII. To Demophilus,
Therapeutes. About minding ones own business, and kindness. SECTION I. The histories of
the Hebrews say, O noble Demophilus, that, even that holy, distinguished Moses was deemed
worthy of the Divine manifestation on account of his great meekness . And, if at any time
they describe him as being excluded from the vision of God, they do not cast him out from
God for his meekness. But they say that when speaking very rashly, and opposing the Divine
Counsels, Jehovah was angry with him with wrath. But when they make him proclaimed by his
God-discerned deserts, he is proclaimed, from his pre-eminent imitation of the Good. For
he was very meek, and on this account is called "Servant of God," and deemed more fit for
vision of God than all Prophets. Now, when certain envious people were contending with him
and Aaron, about the High Priesthood and government of the tribes, he was superior to all
love of honour, and love of rule, and referred the presidency over the people to the
Divine judgment. And, when they even rose up against him, and reproaching him concerning
the precedency, were threatening him, and were already almost upon him, the meek man
invoked the Good for preservation, but very suitably asserted that he would be guiltless
of all evils to the governed. For he knew that it is necessary, that the familiar with God
the Good should be moulded, as far as is attainable, to that which is specially most like
the Good, and should be conscious within himself of the performance of deeds of good
friendship.

And what made David , the father of God, a friend of God? Even for being good and generous
towards enemies . The Super-Good, and the Friend of Good says----" I have found a man
after mine own heart. Further also, a generous injunction was given, to care for even
one's enemy's beasts of burden . And Job was pronounced just, as being free from injury.
And Joseph did not take revenge upon the brethren who had plotted against him; and Abel,
at once, and without suspicion, accompanied the fratricide. And the Word of God proclaims
all the good as not devising evil things , not doing them , but neither being changed from
the good, by the baseness of others , but, on the contrary, after the example of God , as
doing good to, and throwing their shield over the evil; and generously calling them to
their own abundant goodness, and to their own similitude. But let us ascend higher, not
proclaiming the gentleness of holy men, nor kindness of philanthropic angels, who take
compassion upon nations, and invoke good on their behalf, and punish the destructive and
devastating mobs, and, whilst being grieved over calamities, yet rejoice over the safety
of those who are being called back to things good ; nor whatever else the Word of God
teaches concerning the beneficent angels ; but, whilst in silence welcoming the beneficent
rays of the really good and super-good Christ, by them let us be lighted on our path, to
His Divine works of Goodness.

For assuredly is it not of a Goodness inexpressible and beyond conception, that He makes
all things existing to be, and brought all things themselves to being, and wishes all
things ever to become near to Himself, and participants of Himself, according to the
aptitude of each? And why? Because He clings lovingly to those who even depart from Him,
and strives and beseeches not to be disowned by those beloved who are themselves coy; and
He bears with those who heedlessly reproach Him , and Himself makes excuse for them, and
further promises to serve them, and runs towards and meets even those who hold themselves
aloof, immediately that they approach; and when His entire self has embraced their entire
selves, He kisses them, and does not reproach them for former things, but rejoices over
the present, and holds a feast, and calls together the friends, that is to say, the good,
in order that the household may be altogether rejoicing. (But, Demophilus, of all persons
in the world, is at enmity with, and very justly rebukes, and teaches beautiful things to,
good men, and rejoices. "For how," He says, "ought not the good to rejoice over safety of
the lost, and over life of those who are dead.

And, as a matter of course, He raises upon His shoulders that which with difficulty has
been turned from error, and summons the good angels to rejoicing, and is generous to the
unthankful, and makes His sun to rise upon evil and good, and presents His very soul as an
offering on behalf of those who are fleeing from Him. But thou, as thy letters testify, I
do not know how, being in thy senses, hast spurned one fallen down before the priest, who,
as thou sayest, was unholy and a sinner. Then this one entreated and confessed that he has
come for healing of evil deeds, but thou didst not shiver, but even insolently didst cover
with abuse the good priest, for shewing compassion to a penitent, and justifying the
unholy. And at last, thou saidst to the priest, "Go out with thy like"; and didst burst,
contrary to permission, into the sanctuary, and defiledst the Holy of holies, and writest
to us, that "I have providentially preserved the things sacred, which were about to be
profaned, and am still keeping them undefiled."

Now, then, hear our view. It is not lawful that a priest should be corrected by the
Leitourgoi, who are above thee, or by the Therapeutae, who are of the same rank with thee;
even though he should seem to act irreverently towards things Divine, and though he should
be convicted of having done some other thing forbidden. For, if want of order, and want of
regulation, is a departure from the most Divine institutions and decrees, it is not
reasonable that the divinely transmitted order should be changed on God's behalf. For
Almighty God is not divided against Himself, for, "how then shall His kingdom stand ? And
if the judgment is of God, as the Oracles affirm , and the priests are angels and
interpreters, after the hierarchs, of the Divine judgments, learn from them through whom
thou wast deemed worthy to be a Therapeutes, through the intermediate Leitourgoi, when
opportunity serves, the things Divine suitable for thyself . And do not the Divine Symbols
proclaim this, for is not the Holy of holies altogether simply separated from all, and the
order of the consecrators is in closer proximity to it than the rank of the priests, and
following these, that of the Leitourgoi. But the gates of the sanctuary are bounded by the
appointed Therapeutae, within which they are both ordained, and around which they stand,
not to guard them, but for order, and teaching of themselves that they are nearer the
people than the priesthood.

Whence the holy regulation of the priests orders them to participate in things Divine,
enjoining the impartation of these to others, that is to say, the more inward. For even
those who always stand around the Divine Altar, for a symbolical purpose, see and hear
things Divine revealed to themselves in all clearness; and advancing generously to things
outside the Divine Veils, they shew, to the subject Therapeutae, and to the holy people,
and to the orders under purification, according to their meetness, things holy which had
been beautifully guarded without pollution, until thou didst tyrannically burst into them,
and compelledst the Holy of holies, against its will, to be strutted over by thee, and
thou sayest, that thou holdest and guardest the sacred things, although thou neither hast
known, nor heard, nor possessest any of the things belonging to the priests; as neither
hast thou known the truth of the Oracles, whilst cavilling about them each day to
subversion of the hearers. And even if same civil Governor undertook what was not
commanded him by a King, justly would any one of the subordinates standing by be punished
who dared to criticise the Governor, when justifying, or condemning any one; (for I do not
go so far as to say to vituperate), and at the same time thought to cast him from his
government; but thou, man, art thus rash in what concerns the affairs of the meek and
good, and his hierarchical jurisdiction.

We are bound to say these things, when any one undertakes what is above his rank, and at
the same time thinks that he acts properly. For this is not within the powers of any one.
For what was Ozias doing out of place, when offering incense to Almighty God? and what
Saul in sacrificing? Yea, further, what were those domineering demons , who were truly
proclaiming the Lord Jesus God? But every one who meddles with other people's business, is
outlawed by the Word of God; and each one shall be in the rank of his own service, and
alone the High Priest shall enter into the Holy of holies, and once only throughout the
year , and this in the full legal hierarchical purification . And the priests encompass
the holy things, and the Levites must not touch the holy things, lest they die. And
Jehovah was angry with wrath at the rashness of Ozias, and Mariam becomes leprous, because
she had presumed to lay down laws for the lawgiver. And the demons fastened on the sons of
Sceva, and He says, "I did not send them, yet they ran, and I spake not to them yt they
prophesied ." "And the profane who sacrifices to me a calf, (is) as he who slays a dog,"
and to speak briefly, the all-perfect justice of Almighty God does not tolerate the dis-
regarders of law, but whilst they are saying "in Thy Name, we ourselves did many wonderful
works," He retorts, "And I know you not; go from Me all ye workers of lawlessness." So
that it is not permissible, as the holy Oracles say, even to pursue things that are just,
when not according to order , but each must keep to himself , and not meditate things too
high and too deep for him , but contemplate alone things prescribed for him according to
order.

SECTION II. "What then," thou sayest, "is it not necessary to correct the priests who are
acting irreverently, or convicted of something else out of place, but to those only, who
glory in law, shall it be permitted to dishonour Almighty God , through the transgression
of the Law? "And how are the priests interpreters of Almighty God? For, how do they
announce to the people the Divine virtues, who do not know the power of them? or how do
they, who are in darkness , communicate light? Further, how do they impart the Divine
Spirit, who, by habit and truth do not believe whether there is a Holy Spirit ? Now I will
give thee an answer to these things. For truly my Demophilus is not an enemy, nor will I
tolerate that thou shouldst be overreached by Satan. For each rank of those about God, is
more godlike than that which stands further away. And those which are somewhat nearer to
the true light, are at once more luminous, and more illuminating; and do not understand
the nearness topically, but according to God-receptive aptitude. If, then, the order of
the priests is the illuminating, entirely has he fallen from the priestly rank and power,
who does not illuminate, or perhaps rather (he becomes) the unilluminated. And he seems,
to me at least, rash who, being such, undertakes the priestly functions, and has no fear,
and does not blush, when performing things Divine, contrary to propriety, and fancying
that God does not know the very things of which he is conscious in himself, and thinks to
mislead Him Who is falsely called by him Father, and presumes to repeat his cursed
blasphemies (for I would not say prayers) over the Divine symbols, after the example of
Christ. This one is not a priest,----No!----but devilish----crafty ----a deceiver of
himself----and a wolf to the people of God, clothed in sheep's clothing.

SECTION III. But, it is not to Demophilus that it is permitted to put these things
straight. For, if the Word of God commands to pursue just things justly (but to pursue
just things is, when any one wishes to distribute to each one things that are meet), this
must be pursued by all justly, not beyond their own meetness or rank ; since even to
angels it is just that things meet be assigned and apportioned, but not from us, O
Demophilus, but through them to us, of God, and to them through the angels who are still
more pre-eminent. And to speak shortly, amongst all existing things their due is assigned
through the first to the second, by the well-ordered and most just forethought of all. Let
those, then, who have been ordered by God to superintend others, distribute after
themselves their due to their inferiors. But, let Demophilus apportion their due to reason
and anger and passion; and let him not maltreat the regulation of himself, but let the
superior reason bear rule over things inferior. For, if one were to see, in the market-
place, a servant abusing a master, and a younger man, an elder; or also a son, a father;
and in addition attacking and inflicting wounds, we should seem even to fail in reverence
if we did not run and succour the superior, even though perhaps they were first guilty of
injustice; how then shall we not blush, when we see reason maltreated by anger and
passion, and cast out of the sovereignty given by God;

and when we raise in our own selves an irreverent and unjust disorder, and insurrection
and confusion? Naturally, our blessed Law-giver from God does not deem right that one
should preside over the Church of God, who has not already well presided over his own
house . For, he who has governed himself will also govern another; and who, another, will
also govern a house; and who, a house, also a city; and who, a city, also a nation. And to
speak briefly as the Oracles affirm, "he who is faithful in little, is faithful also in
much," and "he who is unfaithful in little, is unfaithful also in much." SECTION IV.
Thyself, then, assign their due limit to passion and anger and reason. And to thyself, let
the divine Leitourgoi assign the due limit, and to these, the priests, and to the priests,
hierarchs, and to the hierarchs, the Apostles and the successors of the Apostles. And if,
perchance, any, even among these, should have failed in what is becoming, he shall be put
right by the holy men of the same rank; and rank shall not be turned against rank, but
each shall be in his own rank, and in his own service. So much for thee, from us, on
behalf of knowing and doing one's own business. But, concerning the inhuman treatment
towards that man, whom thou callest "irreverent and sinner," I know not how I shall bewail
the scandal of my beloved. For, of whom dost thou suppose thou wast ordained Therapeutes
by us? For if it were not of the Good, it is necessary that thou shouldst be altogether
alien from Him and from us, and from our whole religion, and it is time for thee both to
seek a God, and other priests, and amongst them to become brutal rather than perfected,
and to be a cruel minister of thine own fierceness.

For, have we ourselves, forsooth, been perfected to the altogether Good, and have no need
of the divine compassion for ourselves , or do we commit the double sin , as the Oracles
say, after the example of the unholy, not knowing in what we offend, but even justifying
ourselves and supposing we see, whilst really not seeing ? Heaven was startled at this,
and I shivered, and I distrust myself. And unless I had met with thy letters (as know well
I would I had not), they would not have persuaded me if indeed any other had thought good
to persuade me concerning thee, that Demophilus supposes, that Almighty God, Who is good
to all, is not also compassionate towards men, and that he himself has no need of the
Merciful or the Saviour; yea further, he deposes those priests who are deemed worthy,
through clemency, to bear the ignorances of the people, and who well know, that they also
are compassed with infirmity. But, the supremely Divine Priest pursued a different
(course), and that as the Oracles say, from being separate of sinners, and makes the most
gentle tending of the sheep a proof of the love towards Himself; and He stigmatizes as
wicked, him who did not forgive his fellow-servant the debt, nor impart a portion of that
manifold goodness, graciously given to himself; and He condemns him to enjoy his own
deserts, which both myself and Demophilus must take care to avoid.

For, even for those who were treating Him impiously, at the very time of His suffering, He
invokes remission from the Father; and He rebukes even the disciples, because without
mercy they thought it right to convict of impiety the Samaritans who drove Him away. This,
indeed, is the thousand times repeated theme of thy impudent letter (for thou repeatest
the same from beginning to end), that thou hast avenged, not thyself, but Almighty God.
Tell me (dost thou avenge) the Good by means of evil? SECTION V. Avaunt! We have not a
High Priest, "Who cannot be touched with our infirmities, but is both without sin and
merciful. "He shall not strive nor cry, and is Himself meek, and Himself propitiatory for
our sins; so that we will not approve your unenviable attacks, not if you should allege a
thousand times your Phineas and your Elias. For, when the Lord Jesus heard these things,
He was displeased with the disciples, who at that time lacked the meek and good spirit.
For, even our most divine preceptor teaches in meekness those who opposed themselves to
the teaching of Almighty God. For, we must teach, not avenge ourselves upon, the ignorant,
as we do not punish the blind, but rather lead them by the hand. But thou, after striking
him on the cheek, rustiest upon that man, who is beginning to rise to the truth, and when
he is approaching with much modesty, thou insolently kickest him away (certainly, this is
enough to make one shudder), whom the Lord Christ, as being good, seeks, when wandering
upon the mountains, and calls to Him, when fleeing from Him, and when, with difficulty,
found, places upon His shoulders. Do not, I pray, do not let us thus injuriously counsel
for ourselves, nor drive the sword against ourselves.

For they, who undertake to injure any one, or on the contrary to do them good, do not
always effect what they wish, but for themselves, when they have brought into their house
vice or virtue, will be filled either with Divine virtues, or ungovernable passions. And
these indeed, as followers and companions of good angels, both here and there, with all
peace and freedom from all evil, will inherit the most blessed inheritances for the ever-
continuing age, and will be ever with God, the greatest of all blessings; but, the other
will fall both from the divine and their own peace, and here, and after death, will be
companions with cruel demons. For which reason, we have an earnest desire to become
companions of God, the Good, and to be ever with the Lord, and not to be separated, along
with the evil, from the most Just One, whilst undergoing that which is due from ourselves,
which I fear most of all, and pray to have no share in anything evil. And, with your
permission, I will mention a divine vision of a certain holy man, and do not laugh, for I
am speaking true.

SECTION VI. When I was once in Crete, the holy Carpus entertained me,----a man, of all
others, most fitted, on account of great purity of mind, for Divine Vision. Now, he never
undertook the holy celebrations of the Mysteries, unless a propitious vision were first
manifested to him during his preparatory devout prayers. He said then, when some one of
the unbelievers had at one time grieved him (and his grief was, that he had led astray to
ungodliness a certain member of the Church, whilst the days of rejoicing were still being
celebrated for him); that he ought compassionately to have prayed on behalf of both, and
taking God, the Saviour, as his fellow-helper, to convert the one, and to overcome the
other by goodness , and not to have ceased warning them so long as he lived until this
day; and thus to lead them to the knowledge of God, so that the things disputed by them
might be clearly determined, and those, who were irrationally bold, might be compelled to
be wiser by a judgment according to law. Now, as he had never before experienced this, I
do not know how he then went to bed with such a surfeit of ill-will and bitterness. In
this evil condition he went to sleep, for it was evening, and at midnight (for he was
accustomed at that appointed hour to rise, of his own accord, for the Divine melodies) he
arose, not having enjoyed, undisturbed, his slumbers, which were many and continually
broken;

and, when he stood collected for the, Divine Converse, he was guiltily vexed and
displeased, saying, that it was not just that godless men, who pervert the straight ways
of the Lord, should live. And, whilst saying this, he besought Almighty God, by some
stroke of lightning, suddenly, without mercy, to cut short the lives of them both. But,
whilst saying this, he declared, that he seemed to see suddenly the house in which he
stood, first torn asunder, and from the roof divided into two in the midst, and a sort of
gleaming fire before his eyes (for the place seemed now under the open sky) borne down
from the heavenly region close to him; and, the heaven itself giving way, and upon the
back of the heaven, Jesus, with innumerable angels, in the form of men, standing around
Him. This indeed, he saw, above, and himself marvelled; but below, when Carpus had bent
down, he affirmed that he saw the very foundation ripped in two, to a sort of yawning and
dark chasm, and those very men, upon whom he had invoked a curse, standing before his
eyes, within the mouth of the chasm, trembling, pitiful, only just not yet carried down by
the mere slipping of their feet;

and from below the chasm, serpents, creeping up and gliding from underneath, around their
feet, now contriving to drag them away, and weighing them down, and lifting them up, and
again inflaming or irritating with their teeth or their tails, and all the time
endeavouring to pull them down into the yawning gulf; and that certain men also were in
the midst, co-operating with the serpents against these men, at once tearing and pushing
and beating them down. And they seemed to be on the point of falling, partly against their
will, partly by their will; almost overcome by the calamity, and at the same time
resigned. And Carpus said, that he himself was glad, whilst looking below, and that he was
forgetful of the things above; further, that he was vexed and made light of it, because
they had not already fallen, and that he often attempted to accomplish the fact, and that,
when he did not succeed, he was both irritated and cursed. And, when with difficulty he
raised himself, he saw the heaven again, as he saw it before, and Jesus, moved with pity
at what was taking place, standing up from His super-celestial throne, and descending to
them, and stretching a helping hand, and the angels, co-operating with Him, taking hold of
the two men, one from one place and another from, another, and the Lord Jesus said to
Carpus, whilst His hand was yet extended, "Strike against Me in future, for I am ready,
even again, to suffer for the salvation of men;

and this is pleasing to Me, provided that other men do not commit sin. But see, whether it
is well for thee to exchange the dwelling in the chasm, and with serpents, for that with
God, and the good and philanthropic angels. These are the things which I heard myself, and
believe to be true. TITUS. ZENAS, one of the seventy-two disciples, who was versed in the
science of law, wrote a life of Titus, and says that he was descended from the family of
Minos, King of Crete. Titus gave himself to the study of Homer and Philosophy till his
twentieth year, when he heard a voice from heaven, which told him to quit this place and
save his soul. He waited one year, to test the truth of the voice, and then had a
revelation which bade him read the Hebrew Scriptures. Opening Isaiah, his eye fell on
chapter xli. vv. 1-5. He was then sent to Jerusalem by the pro-consul of Crete to report
upon the reality of the miracles said to be performed by Jesus Christ. He saw our Saviour,
and His miracles, and believed; and became one of the seventy-two. He witnessed the
Passion and Ascension; the Apostles consecrated him, and sent him with Paul, whom he
attended to Antioch, to Seleucia and to Crete, where Rutilus, pro-consul, was baptized,
and Titus appointed Bishop. In A.D. 64, St. Paul addressed his Epistle to Titus, and about
the same time Dionysius also, this letter. Dexter records that Titus visited Spain, and
that Pliny, the younger, was converted to the Faith by Titus. He consecrated the second
Bishop of Alexandria, and died at the age of 94.

LETTER IX. To Titus, Hierarch, asking by letter what is the house of wisdom, what the
bowl, and what are its meats and drinks? SECTION I. I do not know, O excellent Titus,
whether the holy Timothy departed, deaf to some of the theological symbols which were
explained by me. But, in the Symbolic Theology, we have thoroughly investigated for him
all the expressions of the Oracles concerning God, which appear to the multitude to be
monstrous. For they give a colour of incongruity dreadful to the uninitiated souls, when
the Fathers of the unutterable wisdom explain the Divine and Mystical Truth,
unapproachable by the profane, through certain, certainly hidden and daring enigmas.
Wherefore also, the many discredit the expressions concerning the Divine Mysteries. For,
we contemplate them only through the sensible symbols that have grown upon them. We must
then strip them, and view them by themselves in their naked purity. For, thus
contemplating them, we should reverence a fountain of Life flowing into Itself----viewing
It even standing by Itself, and as a kind of single power, simple, self-moved, and self-
worked, not abandoning Itself, but a knowledge surpassing every kind of knowledge, and
always contemplating Itself, through Itself. We thought it necessary then, both for him
and for others, that we should, as far as possible, unfold the varied forms of the Divine"
representations of God in symbols. For, with what incredible and simulated monstrosities
are its external, forms filled? For instance, with regard to the superessential Divine
generation, representing a body of God corporally generating God; and describing a word
flowing out into air from a man's heart, which eructates it, and a breath, breathed forth
from a mouth;

and celebrating God-bearing bosoms embracing a son of God, bodily; or representing these
things after the manner of plants, and producing certain trees, and branches, and flowers
and roots, as examples; or fountains of waters y, bubbling forth; or seductive light
productions of reflected splendours; or certain other sacred representations which explain
superessential descriptions of God; but with regard to the intelligible providences of
Almighty God, either gifts, manifestations, or powers, or properties, or repose, or
abidings, or progressions, or distinctions, or unions, clothing Almighty God in human
form, and in the varied shape of wild beasts and other living creatures, and plants, and
stones; and attributing to Him ornaments of women, or weapons of savages; and assigning
working in clay, and in a furnace, as it were to a sort of artisan; and placing under Him,
horses and chariots and thrones; and spreading before Him certain dainty meats delicately
cooked; and representing Him as drinking, and drunken, and sleeping, and suffering from
excess. What would any one say concerning the angers, the griefs, the various oaths, the
repentances, the curses, the revenges, the manifold and dubious excuses for the failure of
promises, the battle of giants in Genesis, during which He is said to scheme against those
powerful and great men, and this when they were contriving the building, not with a view
to injustice towards other people, but on behalf of their own safety? And that counsel
devised in heaven to deceive and mislead Achab ; and those mundane and meritricious
passions of the Canticles; and all the other sacred compositions which appear in the
description of God, which stick at nothing, as projections, and multiplications of hidden
things, and divisions of things one and undivided, and formative and manifold forms of the
shapeless and unformed; of which, if any one were able to see their inner hidden beauty,
he will find every one of them mystical and Godlike, and filled with abundant theological
light.

For let us not think, that the appearances of the compositions have been formed for their
own sake, but that they shield the science unutterable and invisible to the multitude,
since things all-holy are not within the reach of the profane, but are manifested to those
only who are genuine lovers of piety, who reject all childish fancy respecting the holy
symbols, and are capable to pass with simplicity of mind, and aptitude of contemplative
faculty, to the simple and supernatural and elevated truth of the symbols. Besides, we
must also consider this, that the teaching, handed down by the Theologians is two-fold----
one, secret and mystical----the other, open and better known----one, symbolical and
initiative----the other, philosophic and demonstrative;----and the unspoken is intertwined
with the spoken. The one persuades, and desiderates the truth of the things expressed, the
other acts and implants in Almighty God, by instructions in mysteries not learnt by
teaching. And certainly, neither our holy instructors, nor those of the law, abstain from
the God-befitting symbols, throughout the celebrations of the most holy mysteries. Yea, we
see even the most holy Angels, mystically advancing things Divine through enigmas; and
Jesus Himself, speaking the word of God in parables, and transmitting the divinely wrought
mysteries, through a typical spreading of a table. For, it was seemly, not only that the
Holy of holies should be preserved undefiled by the multitude, but also that the Divine
knowledge should illuminate the human life, which is at once indivisible and divisible, in
a manner suitable to itself;

and to limit the passionless part of the soul to the simple, and most inward visions of
the most godlike images; but that its impassioned part should wait upon, and, at the same
time, strive after, the most Divine coverings, through the pre-arranged representations of
the typical symbols, as such (coverings) are, by nature, congenial to it. And all those
who are hearers of a distinct theology without symbols, weave in themselves a sort of
type, which conducts them to the conception of the aforesaid theology. SECTION II. But
also the very order of the visible universe sets forth the invisible things of Almighty
God, as says both Paul and the infallible Word. Wherefore, also, the Theologians view some
things politicallyand legally, but other things, purely and without flaw; and some things
humanly, and mediately, but other things supermundanely and perfectly; at one time indeed,
from the laws which are manifest, and at another, from the institutions which are
unmanifest, as befits the holy writings and minds and souls under consideration. For the
whole statement lying before them, and all its details, does not contain a bare history,
but a vivifying perfection. We must then, in opposition to the vulgar conception
concerning them, reverently enter within the sacred symbols, and not dishonour them, being
as they are, products and moulds of the Divine characteristics, and manifest images of the
unutterable and supernatural visions. For, not only are the superessential lights, and
things intelligible, and, in one word, things Divine, represented in various forms through
the typical symbols, as the superessential God, spoken of as fire, and the intelligible
Oracles of Almighty God, as flames of fire; but further, even the godlike orders of the
angels, both contemplated and contemplating, are described under varied forms, and
manifold likenesses, and empyrean shapes. And differently must we take the same likeness
of fire, when spoken with regard to the inconceivable God; and differently with regard to
His intelligible providences or words; and differently respecting the Angels. The, one as
causal, but the other as originated, and the third as participative, and different things
differently, as their contemplation, and scientific arrangements suggest.

And never must we confuse the sacred symbols hap-hazard, but we must unfold them suitably
to the causes, or the origins, or the powers, or the orders, or the dignities of which
they are explanatory tokens. And, in order that I may not extend my letter beyond the
bounds of propriety, let us come at once to the very question propounded by you; and we
affirm that every nourishment is perfective of those nourished, filling up their
imperfection and their lack, and tending the weak, and guarding their lives, making to
sprout, and renewing and bequeathing to them a vivifying wellbeing; and in one word,
urging the slackening and imperfect, and contributing towards their comfort and
perfection. SECTION III. Beautifully then, the super-wise and Good Wisdom is celebrated by
the Oracles, as placing a mystical bowl, and pouring forth its sacred drink, but first
setting forth the solid meats, and with a loud voice Itself benignly soliciting those who
seek It. The Divine Wisdom, then, sets forth the two-fold food; one indeed, solid and
fixed, but the other liquid and flowing forth; and in a bowl furnishes Its own
providential generosities. Now the bowl, being spherical and open, let it be a symbol of
the Providence over the whole, which at once expands Itself and encircles all, without
beginning and without end. But since, even while going forth to all, It remains in Itself,
and stands fixed in unmoved sameness; and never departing from Itself, the bowl also
itself stands fixedly and unmovably. But Wisdom is also said to build a house for itself,
and in it to set forth the solid meats and drinks, and the bowl, so that it may be evident
to those who understand things Divine in a manner becoming God, that the Author of the
being, and of the well being, of all things, is both an all-perfect providence, and
advances to all, and comes into being in everything, and embraces them all; and on the
other hand, He, the same, in the same, par excellence, is nothing in anything at all, but
overtops the whole, Himself being in Himself, identically and always; and standing, and
remaining, and resting, and ever being in the same condition and in the same way, and
never becoming outside Himself, nor falling from His own session, and unmoved abiding, and
shrine,----yea even, in it, benevolently exercising His complete and all-perfect
providences, and whilst going forth to all, remaining by Himself alone, and standing
always, and moving Himself; and neither standing, nor moving Himself, but, as one might
say, both connaturally and supernaturally, having His providential energies, in His
steadfastness, and His steadiness in His Providence.

SECTION IV. But what is the solid food and what the liquid? For the Good Wisdom is
celebrated as at once bestowing and providing these. I suppose then, that the solid food
is suggestive of the intellectual and abiding perfection and sameness, within which,
things Divine are participated as a stable, and strong, and unifying, and indivisible
knowledge, by those contemplating organs of sense, by which the most Divine Paul, after
partaking of wisdom, imparts his really solid nourishment; but that the liquid is
suggestive of the stream, at once flowing through and to all; eager to advance, and
further conducting those who are properly nourished as to goodness, through things
variegated and many and divided, to the simple and invariable knowledge of God. Wherefore
the divine and spiritually perceived Oracles are likened to dew, and water, and to milk,
and wine, and honey; on account of their life-producing power, as in water; and growth-
giving, as in milk; and reviving, as in wine; and both purifying and preserving, as in
honey. For these things, the Divine Wisdom gives to those approaching it, and furnishes
and fills to overflowing, a stream of ungrudging and unfailing good cheer. This, then, is
the veritable good cheer; and, on this account, it is celebrated, as at once life-giving
and nourishing and perfecting.

SECTION V. According to this sacred explanation of good cheer, even Almighty God, Himself
the Author of all good things, is said to be inebriated, by reason of the super-full, and
beyond conception, and ineffable, immeasurableness, of the good cheer, or to speak more
properly, good condition of Almighty God. For, as regards us, in the worst sense,
drunkenness is both an immoderate repletion, and being out of mind and wits; so, in the
best sense, respecting God, we ought not to imagine drunkenness as anything else beyond
the super-full immeasurableness of all good things pre-existing in Him as Cause. But, even
in respect to being out of wits, which follows upon drunkenness, we must consider the pre-
eminence of Almighty God, which is above conception, in which He overtops our conception,
as being above conception and above being conceived, and above being itself; and in short,
Almighty God is inebriated with, and outside of, all good things whatever, as being at
once a super-full hyperbole of every immeasurableness of them all; and again, as dwelling
outside and beyond the whole. Starting then from these, we will take in the same fashion
even the feasting of the pious, in the Kingdom of Almighty God. For He says, the King
Himself will come and make them recline, and will Himself minister to them. Now these
things manifest a common and concordant communion of the holy,

upon the good things of God, and a church of the first born, whose names are written in
heavens; and spirits of just men made perfect by all good things, and replete with all
good things; and the reclining, we imagine, a cessation from their many labours, and a
life without pain; and a godly citizenship in light and place of living souls, replete
with every holy bliss, and an ungrudging provision of every sort of blessed goods; within
which they are filled with every delight; whilst Jesus both makes them recline, and
ministers to them, and furnishes this delight; and Himself bequeaths their everlasting
rest; and at once distributes and pours forth the fulness of good things. SECTION VI. But,
I well know you will further ask that the propitious sleep of Almighty God, and His
awakening, should be explained. And, when we have said, that the superiority of Almighty
God, and His incommunicability with the objects of His Providence is a Divine sleep, and
that the attention to His Providential cares of those who need His discipline, or His
preservation, is an awakening, you will pass to other symbols of the Word of God.
Wherefore, thinking it superfluous that by running through the same things to the same.
persons, we should seem to say different things, and, at the same time, conscious that you
assent to things that are good, we finish this letter at what we have said, having set
forth, as I think, more than the things solicited in your letters. Further, we send the
whole of our Symbolical Theology, within which you will find, together with the house of
wisdom, also the seven pillars investigated, and its solid food divided into sacrifices
and breads. And what is the mingling of the wine; and again, What is the sickness arising
from the inebriety of Almighty God? and in fact, the things now spoken of are explained in
it more explicitly. And it is, in my judgment, a correct enquiry into all the symbols of
the Word of God, and agreeable to the sacred traditions and truths of the Oracles.

I salute thee, the holy soul! O beloved one! and this for me is more appropriate than for
most. Hail! O truly beloved! And to the truly Loveable and Desired, very beloved! Why
should it be a marvel, if Christ speaks truly, and the unjust banish His disciples from
their cities , themselves bringing upon themselves their due, and the accursed severing
themselves, and departing from the holy. Truly things seen are manifest images of things
unseen. For, neither in the ages which are approaching, will Almighty God be Cause of the
just separations from Himself, but they by having separated themselves entirely from
Almighty God; even as we observe the others, becoming here already with Almighty God,
since being lovers of truth, they depart from the proclivities of things material, and
love peace in a complete freedom from all things evil, and a Divine love of all things
good; and start their purification, even from the present life, by living, in the midst of
mankind, the life which is to come, in a manner suitable to angels, with complete
cessation of passion, and deification and goodness, and the other good attributes. As for
you then, I would never be so crazy as to imagine that you feel any suffering; but I am
persuaded that you ate sensible of the bodily sufferings merely to appraise them.

But, as for those who are unjustly treating you, and fancying to imprison, not correctly,
the sun of the Gospel, whilst fairly blaming them, I pray that by separating themselves
from those things which they are bringing upon themselves they may be turned to the good,
and may draw you to themselves, and may participate in the light. But for ourselves, the
contrary will not deprive us of the all-luminous ray of John, who are even now about to
read the record, and the renewal of this, thy true theology: but shortly after (for I will
say it, even though it be rash), about to be united to you yourself. For, I am altogether
trustworthy, from having learned, and reading the things made foreknown to you by God,
that you will both be liberated from your imprisonment in Patmos, and will return to the
Asiatic coast, and will perform there imitations of the good God, and will transmit them
to those after you.

LETTER XI. Dionysius to Apollophanes, Philosopher. At length I send a word to thee, O Love
of my heart, and recall to thy memory the many anxieties and solicitudes, which I have
formerly undergone on thy account. For thou rememberest with what a mild and benevolent
disposition I have been accustomed to rebuke thy obstinacy in error, although with scant
reason, in order that I might uproot those vain opinions with which thou wast deceived.
But now, adoring the supreme toleration of the Divine long-suffering towards thee, I offer
thee my congratulations, O part of my soul, now that you are turning your eyes to your
soul's health. For, even the very things which formerly you delighted to spurn, you now
delight to affirm; and the things that you used to reject with scorn, you now delight to
enforce. For, often have I set before you, and that with great precision, what even Moses
committed to writing, that man was first made by God, from mud, and the sins of the world
were punished by the. flood, and in process of time, that the same Moses, united in
friendship with God, - performed many wonders, both in Egypt and the exodus from Egypt, by
the power and action of the same God. Nor Moses only, but other divine prophets
subsequently, published similar things, not infrequently, who long before foretold that
God should take the nature of man from a Virgin.

To which statement of mine, not once, but often, you replied, that you did not know
whether these things were true, and that you were entirely ignorant, even who that Moses
was, and whether he was white or black. Further, that you rejected with scorn the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, Who is God of all Majesty----which you used to call mine. Further, that
Paul, the globe trotter, and a scatterer of words, who was calling people from things
terrestrial to things celestial, you were unwilling to receive. Lastly, you reproach me,
as a turncoat, who had left the customs of my country's religion, and was leading people
to iniquitous sacrilege, and urged me to unlearn the things in which I was placing my
trust; or, at least, that I should put away other people's things, and deem it sufficient
to keep what was my own, lest I should be found to detract from the honour due to divine
deities, and the institutions of my fathers. But, after the supernal light of the paternal
glory of His own will sent the rays of His own splendour upon the darkness of your mind,
at once He put into my inmost heart, that I should recall to your mind the whole counsel
of God.

How, for instance, when we were staying in Heliopolis (I was then about twenty-five, and
your age was nearly the same as mine), on a certain sixth day, and about the sixth hour,
the sun, to our great surprise, became obscured, through the moon passing over it, not
because it is a god, but because a creature of God, when its very true light was setting,
could not bear to shine. Then I earnestly asked thee, what thou, O man most wise, thought
of it. Thou, then, gave such an answer as remained fixed in my mind, and that no oblivion,
not even that of the image of death, ever allowed to escape. For, when the whole orb had
been throughout darkened, by a black mist of darkness, and the sun's disk had begun again
to be purged and to shine anew, then taking the table of Philip Aridaeus, and
contemplating the orbs of heaven, we learned, what was otherwise well known, that an
eclipse of the sun could not, at that time, occur. Next, we observed that the moon
approached the sun from the east, and intercepted its rays, until it covered the whole;
whereas, at other times, it used to approach from the west. Further also, we noted that
when it had reached the extreme edge of the sun, and had covered the whole orb, that it
then went back towards the east, although that was a time which called neither for the
presence of the moon, nor for the conjunction of the sun.

I therefore, O treasury of manifold learning, since I was incapable of understanding so
great a mystery, thus addressed thee----"What thinkest thou of this thing, O Apollophanes,
mirror of learning? "Of what mysteries do these unaccustomed portents appear to you to be
indications? Thou then, with inspired lips, rather than with speech of human voice, "These
are, O excellent Dionysius," thou saidst, "changes of things divine. At last, when I had
taken note of the day and year, and had perceived that, that time, by its testifying
signs, agreed with that which Paul announced to me, once when I was hanging upon his lips,
then I gave my hand to the truth, and extricated my feet from the meshes of error. Which
truth, henceforth, I, with admiration, both preach and urge upon thee----which is life and
way, and true light,----which lighteth every man coming into this world,----to which even
thou at last, as truly wise, hast yielded. For thou yieldedst to life when thou renounced
death. And surely thou hast, at length, acted in the best possible manner, if thou shalt
adhere henceforth to the same truth, so as to associate with us more closely. For those
lips will henceforth be on our side, by the splendour of whose words, as blunting the edge
of my mind, thou hast been accustomed by pretexts brought from various quarters, and by a
gorgeous glow of eloquence, to vex the innermost recesses of our breast;----yea, even
sometimes to probe us sharply by occasional stings of malice.

Wherefore as formerly, as thou thyself used to say, the knowledge of Christian doctrine,
although savoury, was not savoury to thee, but when you had brought yourself to it, merely
to taste, it shrank from your mental palate, and as it were, disdained to find a resting-
place in your stomach; so now, after you have acquired a heart, intelligent and provident,
elevate thyself to things supernal, and do not surrender, for things that are not, things
which really are. Therefore in future, be so much more obstinate against those who have
urged you to the false, as you showed yourself perverse towards us, when we invited you,
with all our force, to the truth. For thus, I, in the Lord Jesus, Whose Presence is my
being and my life, will henceforth die joyful, since thou also livest in Him. End of
Dionysius the Areopagite. May his prayer be with us! NOTE, p. 147. The "twenty hours"
which made one day almost equal to three are reckoned thus. A degree represents an hour.
The Sun went down ten degrees = ten hours. The Sun had then run already a course of ten
hours, from 6 A.M. to 4 P.M. In returning there were ten hours more, and in retracing the
route ten hours more, which together make thirty hours. The two hours, to complete the day
of twelve hours, make thirty-two hours. The thirty-two hours are four hours less than
thirty-six, the time of three days of twelve hours each. One day was thus nearly equal to
three. Whatever we may think the facts, the Babylonians commemorated the threefold Mythra
----the Sun----in consequence. See Dulac. [Selected footnotes moved to the end and
numbered]


THE LITURGY OF SAINT DIONYSIUS
==============================

THE LITURGY OF SAINT DIONYSIUS Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

c. AD 500

This is a liturgy of the Syriac Church that carries the name of Dionysius. It is a later
work than the treatises above, and it belongs to the worship of the Syrian Orthodox
Church.

THE LITURGY

1st. The Prayer before the Pax . Pr. "O Lord God, Who art simplex, not compound, and
hidden in essence sublime! God the Father, from Whom all paternity which is in heaven and
earth is named , Source of Divinity, of those who participate in the Divine Nature, and
Perfector of those who attain perfection; Good above all good, and Beautiful above all
beautiful; Peaceful repose, Peace, Concord and Union of all souls; compose the dissensions
which divide us from one another, and lead them back to an union with charity, which has a
kind of similitude to Thy sublime essence: and as Thou art One above all, and we, one,
through the unanimity of a good mind; that we may be found before Thee simplex and not
divided, whilst celebrating this mystery; and that through the embraces of Charity and
bonds of Love, we may be spiritually one, both with ourselves and with one another,
through that Thy Peace pacifying all; through the Grace and Compassion and Love towards
man of Thine Only-begotten Son; through Whom, and with Whom is due to Thee, glory, honour
and dominion, with Thy most holy Spirit. P. "Amen. Pr. "Pax" (to all). P. "And with thy
spirit. D. "Let each one give the Peace. P. "All. D. "Post. P. "Before Thee, O Lord. Pr.
"Giver of Holiness, and distributor of every good, O Lord, Who sanctifiest every rational
creature with sanctification, which is from Thee; sanctify, through Thy Holy Spirit, us
Thy servants, who bow before Thee;

free us from all servile passions of sin, from envy, treachery, deceit, hatred, enmities,
and from him, who works the same, that we may be worthy, holily to complete the ministry
of these life-giving Sacraments, through the heavenly Pontiff, Jesus Christ, Thine Only-
begotten Son, through Whom, and with Whom, is due to Thee, glory and honour. P. "Amen. Pr.
"Essentially existing, and from all ages; Whose nature is incomprehensible, Who art near
and present to all, without any change of Thy sublimity; Whose goodness every existing
thing longs for and desires; the intelligible indeed, and creatures endowed with
intelligence, through intelligence; those endowed with sense, through their senses; Who,
although Thou art One essentially, nevertheless art present with us, and amongst us, in
this hour, in which Thou hast called and led us to these Thy holy mysteries; and hast made
us worthy to stand before the sublime throne of Thy majesty, and to handle the sacred
vessels of Thy ministry with our impure hands: take away from us, O Lord, the cloke of
iniquity in which we are enfolded, as from Jesus, the son of Josedec the High Priest, Thou
didst take away the filthy garments, and adorn us with piety and justice, as Thou didst
adorn him with a vestment of glory; that clothed with Thee alone, as it were with a
garment, and being like temples crowned with glory, we may see Thee unveiled with a mind
divinely illuminated, and may feast, whilst we, by communicating therein, enjoy this
sacrifice set before us;

and render to Thee glory and praise. P. "Amen. D. "Let us stand becomingly. P. "The
Mercies of God. Pr. "Charity. P. "And with thy spirit. Pr. "Lift up your hearts. P. "We
lift them to the Lord. Pr. "Let us give thanks to the Lord. P. "It is meet and right.
Priest (bending low), "For truly the celebration of Thy benefits, O Lord, surpasses, the
powers of mind, of speech, and of thought; neither is sufficient every mouth, mind and
tongue, to glorify Thee worthily. For, by Thy word the heavens were made, and by the
breath of Thy mouth all the celestial powers; all the lights in the firmament, sun and
moon, sea and dry land, and whatever is in them. The voiceless, by their silence, the
vocal, by their voices, words and hymns, perpetually bless Thee; because Thou art
essentially good and beyond all praise, existing in Thy essence incomprehensibly. This
visible and sensible creature praises Thee, and also that intellectual, placed above
sensible perception. Heaven and earth glorify Thee. Sea and air proclaim Thee. The sun, in
his course, praises Thee; the Moon, in her changes, venerates Thee. Troops of Archangels,
and hosts of Angels; those virtues, more sublime than the world and mental faculty, send
benedictions to Thine abode. Rays of light, eminent and hidden, send their sanctus to Thy
glory. Principalities and Orders praise Thee, with their Jubilate. Powers and dominions
venerate Thee. Virtues, Thrones and Seats inaccessible exalt Thee.

Splendours of light eternal----mirrors without flaw----holy essences----recipients of
wisdom sublime----beyond all, investigators of the will hidden from all, in clearest
modulations of inimitable tones, and by voices becoming a rational creature; many eyed
Cherubim of most subtle movement, bless Thee. Séraphin, furnished with six wings
intertwined, cry Sanctus unto Thee. Those very ones, who veil their faces with their
wings, and cover their feet with wings, and flying on every side, and clapping with their
wings, (that they may not be devoured by Thy devouring fire) sing one to another with
equal harmony of all, sweet chants, pure from every thing material, rendering to Thee,
eternal glory; crying with one hymn, worthy of God, and saying," P. "Holy, holy, holy.
Priest (bending)----"Holy art Thou, O God the Father, Omnipotent, Maker and Creator of
every creature----Invisible and visible, and sensible; Holy art Thou, O God, the Only-
begotten Son, Power and Wisdom of the Father, Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Holy art
Thou, O God, the Holy Spirit, Perfector and Sanctifier of Saints. Triad, Holy and
undivided:----co-essential and of equal glory, Whose compassion towards our race is most
effusive. Thou art holy, and making all things holy. Who didst not leave that, our very
race, in exile from Paradise, although in the meantime involved in every kind of sin, but
wast manifested to it by the Word, Who, in the presence of the" world, suffered extreme
poverty;

it in very truth, He, the Word, took, being made like to it in all things, sin excepted,
that it might make Him prepared beforehand unto holiness, and disposed for this life-
giving feast. (Raising his voice) Who being conceived, formed and configured by the Holy
Spirit, and from virgin blood of the Virgin Mary, holy genitrix of God, was born indeed
Man, and from the pure and most holy body of the same, and receiving Deity in Flesh,
whilst the law and properties of nature were preserved, but in a manner beyond nature, and
was acknowledged God in the Spirit, and Man in the flesh; and inasmuch as the Word existed
before the ages, from Thee, as was worthy of God, was born, and by power and miracles,
such as became the Maker of all, was testified that He was such, from the very fact that
He has freely imparted a complete healing and a perfect salvation to the whole human race.
Likewise, in the end and consummation of His dispensation on our behalf, and before His
saving Cross, He took bread into His pure and holy hands, and looked to Thee, O God the
Father; giving thanks, He blessed, sanctified, brake and gave to His disciples, the holy
Apostles, saying, "Take and eat from it and believe that it is my body, that same, which
for you and for many is broken and given, for the expiation of faults, the remission of
sins, and eternal life. P. "Amen. Pr.

"Likewise, in the same manner, over the cup also, which He mingled with wine and water, He
gave thanks, blessed, sanctified, and gave to the same disciples and holy apostles,
saying, ' Take, drink from it, all of you, and believe that this is My blood of the new
covenant, which is shed and given for you and for many, for the expiation of faults,
remission of sins, and eternal life.' "P. "Amen." Pr. "Himself also, through the same holy
Apostles, gave a precept to the whole company and congregation of the faithful, saying,
'This do to the memory of Me, and as oft as ye shall eat this bread and drink the
commixture which is in this cup, and shall celebrate this feast, ye shall perform a
commemoration of My death until I come.'" P. "Of Thy death, O Lord, we perform a
memorial." Pr. "Obeying, then, Thy sovereign precept, and celebrating a commemoration of
Thy death and resurrection, through this sacrifice in perpetual mystery, we await also Thy
second coming, the renovation of our race, and the vivification of our mortality. For, not
simply, but with glory worthy of God, in Spirit ineffable, Thou wilt terribly come, and
seated upon the lofty throne of Thy majesty, Thou wilt exact the acknowledgment of Thy
royal power, from all things created and made: and justly, Thou wilt take vengeance for
Thy image upon those who have corrupted it through evil passions. This sacrifice, here
celebrated, we commemorate to Thee, O Lord, and the sufferings which Thou didst endure on
the Cross for us. Be propitious, O Good, and Lover of men, in that hour full, of fear and
trembling, to this congregation of those adoring Thee, and to all sons of the holy Church,
bought by Thy precious blood. May coals of fire be kept from those who are tinged with Thy
blood, and sealed by Thy sacraments in Thy holy Name, as formerly the Babylonian flame
from the youths of the house of Hanania; for neither do we know others beside Thee, O God,
nor in other have we hope of attaining salvation, since indeed Thou art the Helper and
Saviour of our race; and on this account, our wise Church, through all our lips and
tongues, implores Thee, and through Thee, and with Thee, Thy Father, saying"----

P. "Have mercy. Pr. "We also. D. "How tremendous is this hour. (The Priest bending, says
the prayer of the invocation of the Holy Spirit. Pr. "I invoke Thee, O God the Father,
have mercy upon us, and wash away, through Thy grace, the uncleanness of my evil deeds;
destroy, through Thy mercy, what I have done, worthy of wrath; for I do not extend my
hands to Thee with presumption, for I am not able even to look to heaven on account of the
multitude of my iniquities and the filth of my wickedness. But, strengthening my mind, in
Thy loving-kindness, grace and long-suffering, I crave Thy holy Spirit, that Thou wouldst
send Him upon me, and upon these oblations, here set forth, and upon Thy faithful people.
Pr. "Hear me, O Lord. P. "Kyrie eleison," three times. Pr. "Through His alighting upon
them, and His overshadowing, may He make this bread indeed, living body, and procuring
life to our souls; body salutary----body celestial----body saving our souls and bodies----
body of our Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ----for remission of sins, and eternal life,
for those receiving it. P. "Amen. Pr. "And the commixture, which is in this cup, may He
make living blood, and procuring life to all our souls; blood salutary----blood celestial
----blood saving our souls and bodies----blood of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ,
for remission of sins to those receiving them. P. "Amen. Pr.

"Further, according to the tradition, and Divine recommendation of those, who were eye
witnesses of Thy mysteries, and interpreters of Thy wonderful acts, we offer this
Eucharist before Thee, O Lord, and through it we commemorate Thy charity towards us,- and
the universal dispensation of Thine Only-begotten One, in this world, that Thou wouldst
also be reminded through it of Thy mercy, cognate and natural to Thee, which, at all
hours, is shed upon Thy creatures, and wouldst snatch us from the wrath, reserved for the
wicked; and from the punishments of those who work iniquity; and from the cruel attack of
demons, who attack our souls, when we shall go hence; and wouldst make us worthy of Thy
kingdom, and the habitations of those who have kept Thy precepts; and we will render to
Thee, glory and the giving of thanks, &c. P. "Amen. Pr. (bending) "By Thy words, that
cannot lie, and by Thy most true teachings, Thou hast said, O Lord, that great is the joy
in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Rejoice then now, O Lord, in the conversion of
Thy servants, who stand here before Thee; add also, exultation over us, to the souls of
the pious and just Fathers ---- Patriarchs ---- Prophets ---- Apostles ----Preachers ----
Evangelists ---- Martyrs ---- Confessors ----Zealots" of Divine Worship----Benefactors----
Givers of Alms----of those who minister to the necessities of the poor----and from all,
may there be one act of praise to-day,, before Thee, at this holy Altar, and in the
heavenly Jerusalem.

(Elevating his voice) "And on account of these, and other things of the same kind, may Thy
holy Church, which is from one end of the earth to the other, be established, and
preserved in tranquillity and peace, in doctrines evangelical and apostolical, by Divine
Hierarchs, rightly dispensing the word of truth, and instructing, by the dogmas of true
religion: through holy Priests, who embrace the word of life, and carry themselves
illustriously in dispensing Thy celestial mysteries: through Deacons, who are modest, and
perform the pure and royal ministry without flaw, through true, faithful ones, who occupy
themselves in words and acts worthy of a Christian; through choirs of virgins of each sex,
bearing about in their members the life-giving mortification of Thy Only-begotten Son. And
from hence, in one troop, may we all be sent to that Church, the Jerusalem of the
firstborn, whose names are written in the heavens, and there let us spiritually glorify
Thee, O God the Father, and Thine Only-begotten Son, and Thy Holy Spirit. P. "Amen. Pr.
"Assist also, O Lord, all those who assist Thy Holy Church, by offerings----by tenths----
by ministry----and by oblations; and those also, who ask the prayers of our littleness,
give to them the object of those their prayers, O Lord, Lover of men. (Raising his voice)
"Send also perfect attention and full health to all those who have the charge of the poor,
who provide food for orphans and widows, and visit the infirm and afflicted.

Restore to them, here indeed abundance and goods, there also delights incorruptible,
because thou art Lord of each age, and distributor of immense reward. And to Thee beseems
beneficence, both here and there, and to Thine Only-begotten Son. P. "Amen. Pr. (bending)
"Restrain, O King of Kings, the wrath of kings, mitigate the fury of soldiers, take away
wars and seditions, cast down the pride of heretics, and the sentences pronounced against
us by Justice, may Thy love for mankind overcome, and turn into the gentleness of
benignity"; (raising his voice) "Tranquillity and Peace from Thee, concede to the earth
and all its inhabitants, visit it with Thy benefits and the care of Thy mercy, with a good
and temperate condition of atmosphere, copiousness of fruits, and abundance of crops, and
variety of flowers; preserve it from all pests of fury, and all unjust attacks of enemies,
both spiritual and sensible, that without any injury of passion, we may sing perpetual
hymns of praise, to Thee and to Thine Only-begotten Son. P. "Amen. Pr. (bending} "At this
altar, and at that more exalted one in heaven, may there be a good remembrance of all
those, who, out of the world, have pleased Thee----chiefly indeed of the Holy genitrix of
God, of John the Messenger, Baptist and Forerunner, of Peter and Paul, and of the holy
company of the Apostles, of Stephen also, and of the whole multitude of Martyrs, and of
all those, who, before them, with them and after them, have pleased, and do please Thee.

(Raising his voice) "And since indeed Thou art Omnipotent, to the company of those beloved
ones and to Thy family, join our weakness, O Lord, to that blessed congregation, to this
Divine part, that, through them may be received our oblations and prayers, before the
lofty throne of Thy Majesty, inasmuch as we are weak and infirm, and wanting in confidence
before Thee. Forsooth, our sin and our righteousness are as nothing in comparison with the
ocean, broad and immense, of Thy mercy. Looking then, into the hearts of each, send to
each one good returns for their petitions, that in all and in each may be adored and
praised, Thy Majesty, and that of Thine Only-begotten Son. P. "Amen. Pr. (bending)
"Remember, O Lord, all Bishops, Doctors and Prelates of Thy holy Church, those, who from
James, Apostle, Bishop and Martyr, to this present day, have pleased, and do please Thee.
(Raising his voice) "Engraft in us, O Lord, their true faith, and their zeal for the true
religion; their sincere chanty without defect; their morals without stain; in order that,
adhering to their footsteps, we may be partakers of their reward, and of the crowns of
victory which are prepared for them in Thy heavenly kingdom, and there, together with
them, we may sing to Thee, Glory unceasing, and to Thy Only-begotten Son. P. "Amen. Pr.
(bending) "Remember, O Lord, all those who are fallen asleep, who have laid themselves
down in Thy hope, in the true faith.

More especially, and by name, our Fathers, Brothers and Masters, and those, on behalf of
whom, and by favour of whom, this holy oblation is offered," (raising his voice) "join, O
Lord, their names, with the names of Thy Saints in the blessed habitation of those, who
feast and rejoice in Thee; not recalling against them the memory of their sins, nor
bringing to their memory the things which they have foolishly done. For no one is tied to
the flesh, and at the same time, innocent in Thy sight. For One alone has been seen on
earth without sin, Jesus Christ, Thine Only-begotten Son; Simplex , who came to
composition, through whom we also have hope of obtaining mercy. P. "Keep quiet. Pr.
(bending) "Remitting our and their voluntary sins, knowingly or ignorantly committed. Be
propitious, O Lord, Lover of men. (Raising his voice) "And grant to us a peaceful end,
departure with mercy, that we may stand without fault on the right hand; and, with open
face, and confidence, run to meet the arising of Thine Only-begotten Son, and His second
and glorious manifestation from heaven; and may hear from Him, that blessed voice, which
He shall pronounce at the last day to the Blessed. "Blessed of my Father receive the
inheritance of the heavenly kingdom," "that in this, as in all, may be glorified and
praised, Thy most venerated Name. P. "That, &c. Pr. "Peace. P. "And with thy spirit. The
Priest breaks the Host, and says the prayer, before "Our Father.

Pr, "Father of all, and Beginning, Which is above all things-----Light eternal, and
Fountain of Light, Which illuminates all natures endowed with reason; Who callest the poor
from the dust, and raisest the beggar from the dunghill; and hast called us, lost,
rejected, and infirm, to the liberty and household dignity of Thy sons, through Thy
beloved Son, grant to us, that we may appear in Thy sight, holy sons, and not unworthy of
the name; and may also perform all our ministry after a blameless manner; and with purity
of soul, and cleanness of intellect, and with a godly mind, whenever we invoke Thee, God
the Father Omnipotent, holy and heavenly, we pray and say, Our Father, which art in
heaven. P. "Hallowed be Thy Name, &c. Pr. "Free us, Thy servants and sons, from all
temptations, most difficult, and surpassing our forces; and from all griefs, which can
bring loss to our body or soul. Guard us, at the same time from the evil one, and from his
universal power, and from his most pernicious devices. For Thou art King of all, and to
Thee we render glory. P. "Amen. Pr. "Peace," P. "And with thy spirit. D. "Before" (Ante).
P. "Before Thee, O Lord. (Coram. Pr. "Look, O Lord, upon Thy faithful people, who bend
before Thee, and await Thy gift, and contemplate the deposit of the Sacraments of Thy
Only-begotten, O God the Father.

Take not away Thy grace from us, and cast us not away from Thy ministry, and from
participation in Thy sacraments, but prepare us, that we may be pure and without flaw, and
worthy of this feast; and that, with a conscience unblamable, we may ever enjoy His
precious body and blood; and in a life, glorious and endless, may recline in a spiritual
habitation, and may feast at the table of Thy kingdom, and may render to Thee glory and
praise. P. "Amen. Pr. "Peace. P. "And with thy spirit. D. "With fear. Pr. "Holy things to
holy persons. P. "One holy Father. D. "Let us stand becomingly. P. "Before Thee. Pr. "We
give thanks to Thee, O Lord, and with grateful mind we acknowledge Thy loving-kindness;
because, from nothing, Thou hast led us forth to that which we are, and hast made us
members of Thy household, and sons of Thy sacraments; and hast entrusted this religious
ministry to us, and hast made us worthy of this spiritual table. Preserve in us, O Lord,
the deposit of Thy Divine Mysteries, that we may frame and complete our life in Thy sight,
after the fashion of the angels; that we may be secured and inseparable through the
reception of Thy holy (mysteries);

performing Thy great and perfect will, and may be found ready for that last consummation,
and to stand before Thy Majesty, and may be made worthy of the pleasure of Thy kingdom,
through the grace, mercy and love towards man, of Thy Only-begotten Son, through Whom, and
with Whom, is due to Thee, glory, honour, &c. P. "Amen. Pr. "Peace. P. "And with thy
spirit. D. "After" (Post), P. "Before Thee, O Lord. Pr. "O Christ, the King of Glory, and
Father of the Age to come; Holy Sacrifice; heavenly Hierarch; Lamb of God, Who takest away
the sin of the world, spare the sins of Thy people, and dismiss the foolishness of Thy
flock. Preserve us, through, the communication of Thy Sacraments, from every sin, whether
it be committed by word, or thought, or deed; and from whatever makes us far from the
familiarity of Thy household, that our bodies may be guarded by Thy body, and our souls
renewed through Thy sacraments. And may Thy benediction, O Lord, be in our whole man,
within and without; and may Thou be glorified in us, and by us, and may Thy right hand
rest upon us, and that of Thy blessed Father, and of Thy most holy Spirit. P. "Amen. D.
"Bless, O Lord."

CANNES, Christmas, 1896.


THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
=============================

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY Boethius

c. AD 477–524

Boethius wrote this in prison about AD 524, waiting for his execution under Theodoric: a
dialogue with Lady Philosophy, in five books, in which prose and verse (the songs, or
<i>metra</i>) alternate. It asks why the wicked prosper, what true happiness is, and how
God’s foreknowledge fits with free will; the Middle Ages read it more than almost any
other book. Verse is shown with a slash between lines. The translator’s preface, proem,
footnotes and epilogue are left out.

BOOK I

Song I: Boethius' Complaint

Who wrought my studious numbers / Smoothly once in happier days, / Now perforce in tears
and sadness / Learn a mournful strain to raise. / Lo, the Muses, grief-dishevelled, /
Guide my pen and voice my woe; / Down their cheeks unfeigned the tear drops / To my sad
complainings flow! / These alone in danger's hour / Faithful found, have dared attend / On
the footsteps of the exile / To his lonely journey's end. / These that were the pride and
pleasure / Of my youth and high estate / Still remain the only solace / Of the old man's
mournful fate. / Old? Ah yes; swift, ere I knew it, / By these sorrows on me pressed / Age
hath come; lo, Grief hath bid me / Wear the garb that fits her best. / O'er my head
untimely sprinkled / These white hairs my woes proclaim, / And the skin hangs loose and
shrivelled / On this sorrow-shrunken frame. / Blest is death that intervenes not / In the
sweet, sweet years of peace, / But unto the broken-hearted, / When they call him, brings
release! / Yet Death passes by the wretched, / Shuts his ear and slumbers deep; / Will not
heed the cry of anguish, / Will not close the eyes that weep. / For, while yet inconstant
Fortune / Poured her gifts and all was bright, / Death's dark hour had all but whelmed me
/ In the gloom of endless night. / Now, because misfortune's shadow / Hath o'erclouded
that false face, / Cruel Life still halts and lingers, / Though I loathe his weary race. /
Friends, why did ye once so lightly / Vaunt me happy among men? / Surely he who so hath
fallen / Was not firmly founded then. /

Prose I

While I was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my sorrowful complainings
with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared above my head a woman of a countenance
exceeding venerable. Her eyes were bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her
complexion was lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her years were
right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time. Her stature was difficult to
judge. At one moment it exceeded not the common height, at another her forehead seemed to
strike the sky; and whenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the
very heavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. Her garments were of an
imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship;
and these, as her own lips afterwards assured me, she had herself woven with her own
hands. The beauty of this vesture had been somewhat tarnished by age and neglect, and wore
that dingy look which marble contracts from exposure. On the lower-most edge was inwoven
the Greek letter Π [Greek: P], on the topmost the letter θ [Greek: Th], and between the
two were to be seen steps, like a staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. This
robe, moreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had each snatched away
what he could clutch. Her right hand held a note-book; in her left she bore a staff.

And when she saw the Muses of Poesie standing by my bedside, dictating the words of my
lamentations, she was moved awhile to wrath, and her eyes flashed sternly. 'Who,' said
she, 'has allowed yon play-acting wantons to approach this sick man—these who, so far from
giving medicine to heal his malady, even feed it with sweet poison? These it is who kill
the rich crop of reason with the barren thorns of passion, who accustom men's minds to
disease, instead of setting them free. Now, were it some common man whom your allurements
were seducing, as is usually your way, I should be less indignant. On such a one I should
not have spent my pains for naught. But this is one nurtured in the Eleatic and Academic
philosophies. Nay, get ye gone, ye sirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my
muses to tend and heal!' At these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened
sadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame, dolefully left the
chamber.

But I, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and I could not tell who was this
woman of authority so commanding—I was dumfoundered, and, with my gaze fastened on the
earth, continued silently to await what she might do next. Then she drew near me and sat
on the edge of my couch, and, looking into my face all heavy with grief and fixed in
sadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words the disorder of my mind:

Song II: His Despondency

Alas! in what abyss his mind / Is plunged, how wildly tossed! / Still, still towards the
outer night / She sinks, her true light lost, / As oft as, lashed tumultuously / By earth-
born blasts, care's waves rise high. / Yet once he ranged the open heavens, / The sun's
bright pathway tracked; / Watched how the cold moon waxed and waned; / Nor rested, till
there lacked / To his wide ken no star that steers / Amid the maze of circling spheres. /
The causes why the blusterous winds / Vex ocean's tranquil face, / Whose hand doth turn
the stable globe, / Or why his even race / From out the ruddy east the sun / Unto the
western waves doth run: / What is it tempers cunningly / The placid hours of spring, / So
that it blossoms with the rose / For earth's engarlanding: / Who loads the year's maturer
prime / With clustered grapes in autumn time: / All this he knew—thus ever strove / Deep
Nature's lore to guess. / Now, reft of reason's light, he lies, / And bonds his neck
oppress; / While by the heavy load constrained, / His eyes to this dull earth are chained.
/

Prose II

'But the time,' said she, 'calls rather for healing than for lamentation.' Then, with her
eyes bent full upon me, 'Art thou that man,' she cries, 'who, erstwhile fed with the milk
and reared upon the nourishment which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of
a manly spirit? And yet I had bestowed such armour on thee as would have proved an
invincible defence, hadst thou not first cast it away. Dost thou know me? Why art thou
silent? Is it shame or amazement that hath struck thee dumb? Would it were shame; but, as
I see, a stupor hath seized upon thee.' Then, when she saw me not only answering nothing,
but mute and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with her hand, and
said: 'There is no danger; these are the symptoms of lethargy, the usual sickness of
deluded minds. For awhile he has forgotten himself; he will easily recover his memory, if
only he first recognises me. And that he may do so, let me now wipe his eyes that are
clouded with a mist of mortal things.' Thereat, with a fold of her robe, she dried my eyes
all swimming with tears.

Song III: The Mists dispelled

Then the gloom of night was scattered, / Sight returned unto mine eyes. / So, when haply
rainy Caurus / Rolls the storm-clouds through the skies, / Hidden is the sun; all heaven /
Is obscured in starless night. / But if, in wild onset sweeping, / Boreas frees day's
prisoned light, / All suddenly the radiant god outstreams, / And strikes our dazzled
eyesight with his beams. /

Prose III

Even so the clouds of my melancholy were broken up. I saw the clear sky, and regained the
power to recognise the face of my physician. Accordingly, when I had lifted my eyes and
fixed my gaze upon her, I beheld my nurse, Philosophy, whose halls I had frequented from
my youth up. 'Ah! why,' I cried, 'mistress of all excellence, hast thou come down from on
high, and entered the solitude of this my exile? Is it that thou, too, even as I, mayst be
persecuted with false accusations?' 'Could I desert thee, child,' said she, 'and not
lighten the burden which thou hast taken upon thee through the hatred of my name, by
sharing this trouble? Even forgetting that it were not lawful for Philosophy to leave
companionless the way of the innocent, should I, thinkest thou, fear to incur reproach, or
shrink from it, as though some strange new thing had befallen? Thinkest thou that now, for
the first time in an evil age, Wisdom hath been assailed by peril? Did I not often in days
of old, before my servant Plato lived, wage stern warfare with the rashness of folly? In
his lifetime, too, Socrates, his master, won with my aid the victory of an unjust death.
And when, one after the other, the Epicurean herd, the Stoic, and the rest, each of them
as far as in them lay, went about to seize the heritage he left, and were dragging me off
protesting and resisting, as their booty, they tore in pieces the garment which I had
woven with my own hands, and, clutching the torn pieces, went off, believing that the
whole of me had passed into their possession. And some of them, because some traces of my
vesture were seen upon them, were destroyed through the mistake of the lewd multitude, who
falsely deemed them to be my disciples. It may be thou knowest not of the banishment of
Anaxagoras, of the poison draught of Socrates, nor of Zeno's torturing, because these
things happened in a distant country;

yet mightest thou have learnt the fate of Arrius, of Seneca, of Soranus, whose stories are
neither old nor unknown to fame. These men were brought to destruction for no other reason
than that, settled as they were in my principles, their lives were a manifest contrast to
the ways of the wicked. So there is nothing thou shouldst wonder at, if on the seas of
this life we are tossed by storm-blasts, seeing that we have made it our chiefest aim to
refuse compliance with evil-doers. And though, maybe, the host of the wicked is many in
number, yet is it contemptible, since it is under no leadership, but is hurried hither and
thither at the blind driving of mad error. And if at times and seasons they set in array
against us, and fall on in overwhelming strength, our leader draws off her forces into the
citadel while they are busy plundering the useless baggage. But we from our vantage
ground, safe from all this wild work, laugh to see them making prize of the most valueless
of things, protected by a bulwark which aggressive folly may not aspire to reach.'

Song IV: Nothing can subdue Virtue

Whoso calm, serene, sedate, / Sets his foot on haughty fate; / Firm and steadfast, come
what will, / Keeps his mien unconquered still; / Him the rage of furious seas, / Tossing
high wild menaces, / Nor the flames from smoky forges / That Vesuvius disgorges, / Nor the
bolt that from the sky / Smites the tower, can terrify. / Why, then, shouldst thou feel
affright / At the tyrant's weakling might? / Dread him not, nor fear no harm, / And thou
shall his rage disarm; / But who to hope or fear gives way— / Lost his bosom's rightful
sway— / He hath cast away his shield, / Like a coward fled the field; / He hath forged all
unaware / Fetters his own neck must bear! /

Prose IV

'Dost thou understand?' she asks. Do my words sink into thy mind? Or art thou dull "as the
ass to the sound of the lyre"? Why dost thou weep? Why do tears stream from thy eyes?
'"Speak out, hide it not in thy heart." / If thou lookest for the physician's help, thou
must needs disclose thy wound.' Then I, gathering together what strength I could, began:
'Is there still need of telling? Is not the cruelty of fortune against me plain enough?
Doth not the very aspect of this place move thee? Is this the library, the room which thou
hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the place where we so often sat together
and held discourse of all things in heaven and earth? Was my garb and mien like this when
I explored with thee nature's hid secrets, and thou didst trace for me with thy wand the
courses of the stars, moulding the while my character and the whole conduct of my life
after the pattern of the celestial order? Is this the recompense of my obedience? Yet thou
hast enjoined by Plato's mouth the maxim, "that states would be happy, either if
philosophers ruled them, or if it should so befall that their rulers would turn
philosophers. By his mouth likewise thou didst point out this imperative reason why
philosophers should enter public life, to wit, lest, if the reins of government be left to
unprincipled and profligate citizens, trouble and destruction should come upon the good.
Following these precepts, I have tried to apply in the business of public administration
the principles which I learnt from thee in leisured seclusion. Thou art my witness and
that divinity who hath implanted thee in the hearts of the wise, that I brought to my
duties no aim but zeal for the public good.

For this cause I have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens
inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, I have had to think
nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice. How often have I
encountered and balked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How often
have I thwarted Trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even when his villainous
schemes were as good as accomplished? How often have I risked my position and influence to
protect poor wretches from the false charges innumerable with which they were for ever
being harassed by the greed and license of the barbarians? No one has ever drawn me aside
from justice to oppression. When ruin was overtaking the fortunes of the provincials
through the combined pressure of private rapine and public taxation, I grieved no less
than the sufferers. When at a season of grievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it
was unjustifiable, was proclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm Campania with starvation, I
embarked on a struggle with the prætorian prefect in the public interest, I fought the
case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded in preventing the enforcement of the sale.
I rescued the consular Paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in
their covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To save Albinus, who was
of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a prejudged charge, I exposed myself to
the hatred of Cyprian, the informer.

'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? Well, with the rest of
my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been assured, since my love of justice
had left me no hope of security at court. Yet who was it brought the charges by which I
have been struck down? Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed from
the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information against my name.
There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men who for many and various offences the king's
sentence had condemned to banishment; and when they declined to obey, and sought to save
themselves by taking sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they
did not depart from the city of Ravenna within a prescribed time, they should be branded
on the forehead and expelled. What would exceed the rigour of this severity? And yet on
that same day these very men lodged an information against me, and the information was
admitted. Just Heaven! had I deserved this by my way of life? Did it make them fit
accusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion? Has fortune no shame—if not at
the accusation of the innocent, at least for the vileness of the accusers? Perhaps thou
wonderest what is the sum of the charges laid against me? I wished, they say, to save the
senate. But how?

I am accused of hindering an informer from producing evidence to prove the senate guilty
of treason. Tell me, then, what is thy counsel, O my mistress. Shall I deny the charge,
lest I bring shame on thee? But I did wish it, and I shall never cease to wish it. Shall I
admit it? Then the work of thwarting the informer will come to an end. Shall I call the
wish for the preservation of that illustrious house a crime? Of a truth the senate, by its
decrees concerning me, has made it such! But blind folly, though it deceive itself with
false names, cannot alter the true merits of things, and, mindful of the precept of
Socrates, I do not think it right either to keep the truth concealed or allow falsehood to
pass. But this, however it may be, I leave to thy judgment and to the verdict of the
discerning. Moreover, lest the course of events and the true facts should be hidden from
posterity, I have myself committed to writing an account of the transaction.

'What need to speak of the forged letters by which an attempt is made to prove that I
hoped for the freedom of Rome? Their falsity would have been manifest, if I had been
allowed to use the confession of the informers themselves, evidence which has in all
matters the most convincing force. Why, what hope of freedom is left to us? Would there
were any! I should have answered with the epigram of Canius when Caligula declared him to
have been cognisant of a conspiracy against him. "If I had known," said he, "thou shouldst
never have known. Grief hath not so blunted my perceptions in this matter that I should
complain because impious wretches contrive their villainies against the virtuous, but at
their achievement of their hopes I do exceedingly marvel. For evil purposes are,
perchance, due to the imperfection of human nature; that it should be possible for
scoundrels to carry out their worst schemes against the innocent, while God beholdeth, is
verily monstrous. For this cause, not without reason, one of thy disciples asked, "If God
exists, whence comes evil? Yet whence comes good, if He exists not? However, it might well
be that wretches who seek the blood of all honest men and of the whole senate should wish
to destroy me also, whom they saw to be a bulwark of the senate and all honest men. But
did I deserve such a fate from the Fathers also?

Thou rememberest, methinks—since thou didst ever stand by my side to direct what I should
do or say—thou rememberest, I say, how at Verona, when the king, eager for the general
destruction, was bent on implicating the whole senatorial order in the charge of treason
brought against Albinus, with what indifference to my own peril I maintained the innocence
of its members, one and all. Thou knowest that what I say is the truth, and that I have
never boasted of my good deeds in a spirit of self-praise. For whenever a man by
proclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he diminishes in a measure the
secret reward of a good conscience. What issues have overtaken my innocency thou seest.
Instead of reaping the rewards of true virtue, I undergo the penalties of a guilt falsely
laid to my charge—nay, more than this; never did an open confession of guilt cause such
unanimous severity among the assessors, but that some consideration, either of the mere
frailty of human nature, or of fortune's universal instability, availed to soften the
verdict of some few. Had I been accused of a design to fire the temples, to slaughter the
priests with impious sword, of plotting the massacre of all honest men, I should yet have
been produced in court, and only punished on due confession or conviction. Now for my too
great zeal towards the senate I have been condemned to outlawry and death, unheard and
undefended, at a distance of near five hundred miles away.

Oh, my judges, well do ye deserve that no one should hereafter be convicted of a fault
like mine! 'Yet even my very accusers saw how honourable was the charge they brought
against me, and, in order to overlay it with some shadow of guilt, they falsely asserted
that in the pursuit of my ambition I had stained my conscience with sacrilegious acts. And
yet thy spirit, indwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of
earthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no place left for
sacrilege. For thou didst daily repeat in my ear and instil into my mind the Pythagorean
maxim, "Follow after God. It was not likely, then, that I should covet the assistance of
the vilest spirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should conform me
to the likeness of God. Again, the innocency of the inner sanctuary of my home, the
company of friends of the highest probity, a father-in-law revered at once for his pure
character and his active beneficence, shield me from the very suspicion of sacrilege.
Yet—atrocious as it is—they even draw credence for this charge from thee; I am like to be
thought implicated in wickedness on this very account, that I am imbued with thy teachings
and stablished in thy ways. So it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me
nothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which I have incurred.

Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part
look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has
crowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first
of all things to abandon the unfortunate. I remember with chagrin how perverse is popular
report, how various and discordant men's judgments. This only will I say, that the most
crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the
unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings. I, for my part, who have
been banished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in repute, am
punished for well-doing. 'And now methinks I see the villainous dens of the wicked surging
with joy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new crop of
lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger, every ruffian incited by
impunity to new daring and to success by the profits of audacity, the guiltless not only
robbed of their peace of mind, but even of all means of defence. Wherefore I would fain
cry out:

Song V: Boethius' Prayer

'Builder of yon starry dome, / Thou that whirlest, throned eternal, / Heaven's swift
globe, and, as they roam, / Guid'st the stars by laws supernal: / So in full-sphered
splendour dight / Cynthia dims the lamps of night, / But unto the orb fraternal / Closer
drawn, doth lose her light. / 'Who at fall of eventide, / Hesper, his cold radiance
showeth, / Lucifer his beams doth hide, / Paling as the sun's light groweth, / Brief,
while winter's frost holds sway, / By thy will the space of day; / Swift, when summer's
fervour gloweth, / Speed the hours of night away. / 'Thou dost rule the changing year: /
When rude Boreas oppresses, / Fall the leaves; they reappear, / Wooed by Zephyr's soft
caresses. / Fields that Sirius burns deep grown / By Arcturus' watch were sown: / Each the
reign of law confesses, / Keeps the place that is his own. / 'Sovereign Ruler, Lord of
all! / Can it be that Thou disdainest / Only man? 'Gainst him, poor thrall, / Wanton
Fortune plays her vainest. / Guilt's deserved punishment / Falleth on the innocent; / High
uplifted, the profanest / On the just their malice vent. / 'Virtue cowers in dark
retreats, / Crime's foul stain the righteous beareth, / Perjury and false deceits / Hurt
not him the wrong who dareth; / But whene'er the wicked trust / In ill strength to work
their lust, / Kings, whom nations' awe declareth / Mighty, grovel in the dust. / 'Look, oh
look upon this earth, / Thou who on law's sure foundation / Framedst all! Have we no
worth, / We poor men, of all creation? / Sore we toss on fortune's tide; / Master, bid the
waves subside! / And earth's ways with consummation / Of Thy heaven's order guide!' /

Prose V

When I had poured out my griefs in this long and unbroken strain of lamentation, she, with
calm countenance, and in no wise disturbed at my complainings, thus spake: 'When I saw
thee sorrowful, in tears, I straightway knew thee wretched and an exile. But how far
distant that exile I should not know, had not thine own speech revealed it. Yet how far
indeed from thy country hast thou, not been banished, but rather hast strayed; or, if thou
wilt have it banishment, hast banished thyself! For no one else could ever lawfully have
had this power over thee. Now, if thou wilt call to mind from what country thou art
sprung, it is not ruled, as once was the Athenian polity, by the sovereignty of the
multitude, but "one is its Ruler, one its King," who takes delight in the number of His
citizens, not in their banishment; to submit to whose governance and to obey whose
ordinances is perfect freedom. Art thou ignorant of that most ancient law of this thy
country, whereby it is decreed that no one whatsoever, who hath chosen to fix there his
dwelling, may be sent into exile? For truly there is no fear that one who is encompassed
by its ramparts and defences should deserve to be exiled. But he who has ceased to wish to
dwell therein, he likewise ceases to deserve to do so. And so it is not so much the aspect
of this place which moves me, as thy aspect;

not so much the library walls set off with glass and ivory which I miss, as the chamber of
thy mind, wherein I once placed, not books, but that which gives books their value, the
doctrines which my books contain. Now, what thou hast said of thy services to the
commonweal is true, only too little compared with the greatness of thy deservings. The
things laid to thy charge whereof thou hast spoken, whether such as redound to thy credit,
or mere false accusations, are publicly known. As for the crimes and deceits of the
informers, thou hast rightly deemed it fitting to pass them over lightly, because the
popular voice hath better and more fully pronounced upon them. Thou hast bitterly
complained of the injustice of the senate. Thou hast grieved over my calumniation, and
likewise hast lamented the damage to my good name. Finally, thine indignation blazed forth
against fortune; thou hast complained of the unfairness with which thy merits have been
recompensed. Last of all thy frantic muse framed a prayer that the peace which reigns in
heaven might rule earth also. But since a throng of tumultuous passions hath assailed thy
soul, since thou art distraught with anger, pain, and grief, strong remedies are not
proper for thee in this thy present mood. And so for a time I will use milder methods,
that the tumours which have grown hard through the influx of disturbing passion may be
softened by gentle treatment, till they can bear the force of sharper remedies.'

Song VI: All Things have their Needful Order

He who to th' unwilling furrows / Gives the generous grain, / When the Crab with baleful
fervours / Scorches all the plain; / He shall find his garner bare, / Acorns for his
scanty fare. / Go not forth to cull sweet violets / From the purpled steep, / While the
furious blasts of winter / Through the valleys sweep; / Nor the grape o'erhasty bring / To
the press in days of spring. / For to each thing God hath given / Its appointed time; / No
perplexing change permits He / In His plan sublime. / So who quits the order due / Shall a
luckless issue rue. /

Prose VI

'First, then, wilt thou suffer me by a few questions to make some attempt to test the
state of thy mind, that I may learn in what way to set about thy cure?' 'Ask what thou
wilt,' said I, 'for I will answer whatever questions thou choosest to put.' Then said she:
'This world of ours—thinkest thou it is governed haphazard and fortuitously, or believest
thou that there is in it any rational guidance?' 'Nay,' said I, 'in no wise may I deem
that such fixed motions can be determined by random hazard, but I know that God, the
Creator, presideth over His work, nor will the day ever come that shall drive me from
holding fast the truth of this belief.' 'Yes,' said she; 'thou didst even but now affirm
it in song, lamenting that men alone had no portion in the divine care. As to the rest,
thou wert unshaken in the belief that they were ruled by reason. Yet I marvel exceedingly
how, in spite of thy firm hold on this opinion, thou art fallen into sickness. But let us
probe more deeply: something or other is missing, I think. Now, tell me, since thou
doubtest not that God governs the world, dost thou perceive by what means He rules it?'

'I scarcely understand what thou meanest,' I said, 'much less can I answer thy question.'
'Did I not say truly that something is missing, whereby, as through a breach in the
ramparts, disease hath crept in to disturb thy mind? But, tell me, dost thou remember the
universal end towards which the aim of all nature is directed?' 'I once heard,' said I,
'but sorrow hath dulled my recollection.' 'And yet thou knowest whence all things have
proceeded.' 'Yes, that I know,' said I, 'and have answered that it is from God.' 'Yet how
is it possible that thou knowest not what is the end of existence, when thou dost
understand its source and origin? However, these disturbances of mind have force to shake
a man's position, but cannot pluck him up and root him altogether out of himself. But
answer this also, I pray thee: rememberest thou that thou art a man?'

'How should I not?' said I. 'Then, canst thou say what man is?' 'Is this thy question:
Whether I know myself for a being endowed with reason and subject to death? Surely I do
acknowledge myself such.' Then she: 'Dost know nothing else that thou art?' 'Nothing.'
'Now,' said she, 'I know another cause of thy disease, one, too, of grave moment. Thou
hast ceased to know thy own nature. So, then, I have made full discovery both of the
causes of thy sickness and the means of restoring thy health. It is because forgetfulness
of thyself hath bewildered thy mind that thou hast bewailed thee as an exile, as one
stripped of the blessings that were his; it is because thou knowest not the end of
existence that thou deemest abominable and wicked men to be happy and powerful; while,
because thou hast forgotten by what means the earth is governed, thou deemest that
fortune's changes ebb and flow without the restraint of a guiding hand. These are serious
enough to cause not sickness only, but even death; but, thanks be to the Author of our
health, the light of nature hath not yet left thee utterly. In thy true judgment
concerning the world's government, in that thou believest it subject, not to the random
drift of chance, but to divine reason, we have the divine spark from which thy recovery
may be hoped. Have, then, no fear; from these weak embers the vital heat shall once more
be kindled within thee. But seeing that it is not yet time for strong remedies, and that
the mind is manifestly so constituted that when it casts off true opinions it straightway
puts on false, wherefrom arises a cloud of confusion that disturbs its true vision, I will
now try and disperse these mists by mild and soothing application, that so the darkness of
misleading passion may be scattered, and thou mayst come to discern the splendour of the
true light.'

Song VII: The Perturbations of Passion

Stars shed no light / Through the black night, / When the clouds hide; / And the lashed
wave, / If the winds rave / O'er ocean's tide,— / Though once serene / As day's fair
sheen,— / Soon fouled and spoiled / By the storm's spite, / Shows to the sight / Turbid
and soiled. / Oft the fair rill, / Down the steep hill / Seaward that strays, / Some
tumbled block / Of fallen rock / Hinders and stays. / Then art thou fain / Clear and most
plain / Truth to discern, / In the right way / Firmly to stay, / Nor from it turn? / Joy,
hope and fear / Suffer not near, / Drive grief away: / Shackled and blind / And lost is
the mind / Where these have sway. / Summary CH. I. Philosophy reproves Boethius for the
foolishness of his complaints against Fortune. Her very nature is caprice.—CH. II.
Philosophy in Fortune's name replies to Boethius' reproaches, and proves that the gifts of
Fortune are hers to give and to take away.—CH. III. Boethius falls back upon his present
sense of misery. Philosophy reminds him of the brilliancy of his former fortunes.—CH. IV.
Boethius objects that the memory of past happiness is the bitterest portion of the lot of
the unhappy. Philosophy shows that much is still left for which he may be thankful. None
enjoy perfect satisfaction with their lot. But happiness depends not on anything which
Fortune can give. It is to be sought within.—CH. V. All the gifts of Fortune are external;
they can never truly be our own. Man cannot find his good in worldly possessions. Riches
bring anxiety and trouble.—CH. VI. High place without virtue is an evil, not a good. Power
is an empty name.—CH. VII. Fame is a thing of little account when compared with the
immensity of the Universe and the endlessness of Time.—CH. VIII. One service only can
Fortune do, when she reveals her own nature and distinguishes true friends from false.

BOOK II

Prose I

Thereafter for awhile she remained silent; and when she had restored my flagging attention
by a moderate pause in her discourse, she thus began: 'If I have thoroughly ascertained
the character and causes of thy sickness, thou art pining with regretful longing for thy
former fortune. It is the change, as thou deemest, of this fortune that hath so wrought
upon thy mind. Well do I understand that Siren's manifold wiles, the fatal charm of the
friendship she pretends for her victims, so long as she is scheming to entrap them—how she
unexpectedly abandons them and leaves them overwhelmed with insupportable grief. Bethink
thee of her nature, character, and deserts, and thou wilt soon acknowledge that in her
thou hast neither possessed, nor hast thou lost, aught of any worth. Methinks I need not
spend much pains in bringing this to thy mind, since, even when she was still with thee,
even while she was caressing thee, thou usedst to assail her in manly terms, to rebuke
her, with maxims drawn from my holy treasure-house. But all sudden changes of
circumstances bring inevitably a certain commotion of spirit. Thus it hath come to pass
that thou also for awhile hast been parted from thy mind's tranquillity. But it is time
for thee to take and drain a draught, soft and pleasant to the taste, which, as it
penetrates within, may prepare the way for stronger potions. Wherefore I call to my aid
the sweet persuasiveness of Rhetoric, who then only walketh in the right way when she
forsakes not my instructions, and Music, my handmaid, I bid to join with her singing, now
in lighter, now in graver strain.

'What is it, then, poor mortal, that hath cast thee into lamentation and mourning? Some
strange, unwonted sight, methinks, have thine eyes seen. Thou deemest Fortune to have
changed towards thee; thou mistakest. Such ever were her ways, ever such her nature.
Rather in her very mutability hath she preserved towards thee her true constancy. Such was
she when she loaded thee with caresses, when she deluded thee with the allurements of a
false happiness. Thou hast found out how changeful is the face of the blind goddess. She
who still veils herself from others hath fully discovered to thee her whole character. If
thou likest her, take her as she is, and do not complain. If thou abhorrest her perfidy,
turn from her in disdain, renounce her, for baneful are her delusions. The very thing
which is now the cause of thy great grief ought to have brought thee tranquillity. Thou
hast been forsaken by one of whom no one can be sure that she will not forsake him. Or
dost thou indeed set value on a happiness that is certain to depart? Again I ask, Is
Fortune's presence dear to thee if she cannot be trusted to stay, and though she will
bring sorrow when she is gone? Why, if she cannot be kept at pleasure, and if her flight
overwhelms with calamity, what is this fleeting visitant but a token of coming trouble?
Truly it is not enough to look only at what lies before the eyes;

wisdom gauges the issues of things, and this same mutability, with its two aspects, makes
the threats of Fortune void of terror, and her caresses little to be desired. Finally,
thou oughtest to bear with whatever takes place within the boundaries of Fortune's
demesne, when thou hast placed thy head beneath her yoke. But if thou wishest to impose a
law of staying and departing on her whom thou hast of thine own accord chosen for thy
mistress, art thou not acting wrongfully, art thou not embittering by impatience a lot
which thou canst not alter? Didst thou commit thy sails to the winds, thou wouldst voyage
not whither thy intention was to go, but whither the winds drave thee; didst thou entrust
thy seed to the fields, thou wouldst set off the fruitful years against the barren. Thou
hast resigned thyself to the sway of Fortune; thou must submit to thy mistress's caprices.
What! art thou verily striving to stay the swing of the revolving wheel? Oh, stupidest of
mortals, if it takes to standing still, it ceases to be the wheel of Fortune.'

Song I: Fortune's Malice

Mad Fortune sweeps along in wanton pride, / Uncertain as Euripus' surging tide; / Now
tramples mighty kings beneath her feet; / Now sets the conquered in the victor's seat. /
She heedeth not the wail of hapless woe, / But mocks the griefs that from her mischief
flow. / Such is her sport; so proveth she her power; / And great the marvel, when in one
brief hour / She shows her darling lifted high in bliss, / Then headlong plunged in
misery's abyss. /

Prose II

'Now I would fain also reason with thee a little in Fortune's own words. Do thou observe
whether her contentions be just. "Man," she might say, "why dost thou pursue me with thy
daily complainings? What wrong have I done thee? What goods of thine have I taken from
thee? Choose an thou wilt a judge, and let us dispute before him concerning the rightful
ownership of wealth and rank. If thou succeedest in showing that any one of these things
is the true property of mortal man, I freely grant those things to be thine which thou
claimest. When nature brought thee forth out of thy mother's womb, I took thee, naked and
destitute as thou wast, I cherished thee with my substance, and, in the partiality of my
favour for thee, I brought thee up somewhat too indulgently, and this it is which now
makes thee rebellious against me. I surrounded thee with a royal abundance of all those
things that are in my power. Now it is my pleasure to draw back my hand. Thou hast reason
to thank me for the use of what was not thine own; thou hast no right to complain, as if
thou hadst lost what was wholly thine. Why, then, dost bemoan thyself? I have done thee no
violence. Wealth, honour, and all such things are placed under my control. My handmaidens
know their mistress; with me they come, and at my going they depart.

I might boldly affirm that if those things the loss of which thou lamentest had been
thine, thou couldst never have lost them. Am I alone to be forbidden to do what I will
with my own? Unrebuked, the skies now reveal the brightness of day, now shroud the
daylight in the darkness of night; the year may now engarland the face of the earth with
flowers and fruits, now disfigure it with storms and cold. The sea is permitted to invite
with smooth and tranquil surface to-day, to-morrow to roughen with wave and storm. Shall
man's insatiate greed bind me to a constancy foreign to my character? This is my art, this
the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. I delight to see the high
come down and the low ascend. Mount up, if thou wilt, but only on condition that thou wilt
not think it a hardship to come down when the rules of my game require it. Wert thou
ignorant of my character? Didst not know how Crœsus, King of the Lydians, erstwhile the
dreaded rival of Cyrus, was afterwards pitiably consigned to the flame of the pyre, and
only saved by a shower sent from heaven? Has it 'scaped thee how Paullus paid a meed of
pious tears to the misfortunes of King Perseus, his prisoner? What else do tragedies make
such woeful outcry over save the overthrow of kingdoms by the indiscriminate strokes of
Fortune?

Didst thou not learn in thy childhood how there stand at the threshold of Zeus 'two jars,'
'the one full of blessings, the other of calamities'? How if thou hast drawn over-
liberally from the good jar? What if not even now have I departed wholly from thee? What
if this very mutability of mine is a just ground for hoping better things? But listen now,
and cease to let thy heart consume away with fretfulness, nor expect to live on thine own
terms in a realm that is common to all.'

Song II: Man's Covetousness

What though Plenty pour her gifts / With a lavish hand, / Numberless as are the stars, /
Countless as the sand, / Will the race of man, content, / Cease to murmur and lament? /
Nay, though God, all-bounteous, give / Gold at man's desire— / Honours, rank, and
fame—content / Not a whit is nigher; / But an all-devouring greed / Yawns with ever-
widening need. / Then what bounds can e'er restrain / This wild lust of having, / When
with each new bounty fed / Grows the frantic craving? / He is never rich whose fear / Sees
grim Want forever near. /

Prose III

'If Fortune should plead thus against thee, assuredly thou wouldst not have one word to
offer in reply; or, if thou canst find any justification of thy complainings, thou must
show what it is. I will give thee space to speak.' Then said I: 'Verily, thy pleas are
plausible—yea, steeped in the honeyed sweetness of music and rhetoric. But their charm
lasts only while they are sounding in the ear; the sense of his misfortunes lies deeper in
the heart of the wretched. So, when the sound ceases to vibrate upon the air, the heart's
indwelling sorrow is felt with renewed bitterness.' Then said she: 'It is indeed as thou
sayest, for we have not yet come to the curing of thy sickness; as yet these are but
lenitives conducing to the treatment of a malady hitherto obstinate. The remedies which go
deep I will apply in due season. Nevertheless, to deprecate thy determination to be
thought wretched, I ask thee, Hast thou forgotten the extent and bounds of thy felicity? I
say nothing of how, when orphaned and desolate, thou wast taken into the care of
illustrious men; how thou wast chosen for alliance with the highest in the state—and even
before thou wert bound to their house by marriage, wert already dear to their love—which
is the most precious of all ties. Did not all pronounce thee most happy in the virtues of
thy wife, the splendid honours of her father, and the blessing of male issue? I pass
over—for I care not to speak of blessings in which others also have shared—the
distinctions often denied to age which thou enjoyedst in thy youth. I choose rather to
come to the unparalleled culmination of thy good fortune. If the fruition of any earthly
success has weight in the scale of happiness, can the memory of that splendour be swept
away by any rising flood of troubles? That day when thou didst see thy two sons ride forth
from home joint consuls, followed by a train of senators, and welcomed by the good-will of
the people;

when these two sat in curule chairs in the Senate-house, and thou by thy panegyric on the
king didst earn the fame of eloquence and ability; when in the Circus, seated between the
two consuls, thou didst glut the multitude thronging around with the triumphal largesses
for which they looked—methinks thou didst cozen Fortune while she caressed thee, and made
thee her darling. Thou didst bear off a boon which she had never before granted to any
private person. Art thou, then, minded to cast up a reckoning with Fortune? Now for the
first time she has turned a jealous glance upon thee. If thou compare the extent and
bounds of thy blessings and misfortunes, thou canst not deny that thou art still
fortunate. Or if thou esteem not thyself favoured by Fortune in that thy then seeming
prosperity hath departed, deem not thyself wretched, since what thou now believest to be
calamitous passeth also. What! art thou but now come suddenly and a stranger to the scene
of this life? Thinkest thou there is any stability in human affairs, when man himself
vanishes away in the swift course of time? It is true that there is little trust that the
gifts of chance will abide; yet the last day of life is in a manner the death of all
remaining Fortune. What difference, then, thinkest thou, is there, whether thou leavest
her by dying, or she leave thee by fleeing away?'

Song III: All passes

When, in rosy chariot drawn, / Phœbus 'gins to light the dawn, / By his flaming beams
assailed, / Every glimmering star is paled. / When the grove, by Zephyrs fed, / With rose-
blossom blushes red;— / Doth rude Auster breathe thereon, / Bare it stands, its glory
gone. / Smooth and tranquil lies the deep / While the winds are hushed in sleep. / Soon,
when angry tempests lash, / Wild and high the billows dash. / Thus if Nature's changing
face / Holds not still a moment's space, / Fleeting deem man's fortunes; deem / Bliss as
transient as a dream. / One law only standeth fast: / Things created may not last. /

Prose IV

Then said I: 'True are thine admonishings, thou nurse of all excellence; nor can I deny
the wonder of my fortune's swift career. Yet it is this which chafes me the more cruelly
in the recalling. For truly in adverse fortune the worst sting of misery is to have been
happy.' 'Well,' said she, 'if thou art paying the penalty of a mistaken belief, thou canst
not rightly impute the fault to circumstances. If it is the felicity which Fortune gives
that moves thee—mere name though it be—come reckon up with me how rich thou art in the
number and weightiness of thy blessings. Then if, by the blessing of Providence, thou hast
still preserved unto thee safe and inviolate that which, howsoever thou mightest reckon
thy fortune, thou wouldst have thought thy most precious possession, what right hast thou
to talk of ill-fortune whilst keeping all Fortune's better gifts? Yet Symmachus, thy
wife's father—a man whose splendid character does honour to the human race—is safe and
unharmed; and while he bewails thy wrongs, this rare nature, in whom wisdom and virtue are
so nobly blended, is himself out of danger—a boon thou wouldst have been quick to purchase
at the price of life itself. Thy wife yet lives, with her gentle disposition, her peerless
modesty and virtue—this the epitome of all her graces, that she is the true daughter of
her sire—she lives, I say, and for thy sake only preserves the breath of life, though she
loathes it, and pines away in grief and tears for thy absence, wherein, if in naught else,
I would allow some marring of thy felicity. What shall I say of thy sons and their
consular dignity—how in them, so far as may be in youths of their age, the example of
their father's and grandfather's character shines out?

Since, then, the chief care of mortal man is to preserve his life, how happy art thou,
couldst thou but recognise thy blessings, who possessest even now what no one doubts to be
dearer than life! Wherefore, now dry thy tears. Fortune's hate hath not involved all thy
dear ones; the stress of the storm that has assailed thee is not beyond measure
intolerable, since there are anchors still holding firm which suffer thee not to lack
either consolation in the present or hope for the future.' 'I pray that they still may
hold. For while they still remain, however things may go, I shall ride out the storm. Yet
thou seest how much is shorn of the splendour of my fortunes.' 'We are gaining a little
ground,' said she, 'if there is something in thy lot wherewith thou art not yet altogether
discontented. But I cannot stomach thy daintiness when thou complainest with such violence
of grief and anxiety because thy happiness falls short of completeness. Why, who enjoys
such settled felicity as not to have some quarrel with the circumstances of his lot? A
troublous matter are the conditions of human bliss; either they are never realized in
full, or never stay permanently. One has abundant riches, but is shamed by his ignoble
birth. Another is conspicuous for his nobility, but through the embarrassments of poverty
would prefer to be obscure. A third, richly endowed with both, laments the loneliness of
an unwedded life. Another, though happily married, is doomed to childlessness, and nurses
his wealth for a stranger to inherit. Yet another, blest with children, mournfully bewails
the misdeeds of son or daughter. Wherefore, it is not easy for anyone to be at perfect
peace with the circumstances of his lot. There lurks in each several portion something
which they who experience it not know nothing of, but which makes the sufferer wince.
Besides, the more favoured a man is by Fortune, the more fastidiously sensitive is he;
and, unless all things answer to his whim, he is overwhelmed by the most trifling
misfortunes, because utterly unschooled in adversity. So petty are the trifles which rob
the most fortunate of perfect happiness!

How many are there, dost thou imagine, who would think themselves nigh heaven, if but a
small portion from the wreck of thy fortune should fall to them? This very place which
thou callest exile is to them that dwell therein their native land. So true is it that
nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so, and conversely every lot is happy if borne
with equanimity. Who is so blest by Fortune as not to wish to change his state, if once he
gives rein to a rebellious spirit? With how many bitternesses is the sweetness of human
felicity blent! And even if that sweetness seem to him to bring delight in the enjoying,
yet he cannot keep it from departing when it will. How manifestly wretched, then, is the
bliss of earthly fortune, which lasts not for ever with those whose temper is equable, and
can give no perfect satisfaction to the anxious-minded!

'Why, then, ye children of mortality, seek ye from without that happiness whose seat is
only within us? Error and ignorance bewilder you. I will show thee, in brief, the hinge on
which perfect happiness turns. Is there anything more precious to thee than thyself?
Nothing, thou wilt say. If, then, thou art master of thyself, thou wilt possess that which
thou wilt never be willing to lose, and which Fortune cannot take from thee. And that thou
mayst see that happiness cannot possibly consist in these things which are the sport of
chance, reflect that, if happiness is the highest good of a creature living in accordance
with reason, and if a thing which can in any wise be reft away is not the highest good,
since that which cannot be taken away is better than it, it is plain that Fortune cannot
aspire to bestow happiness by reason of its instability. And, besides, a man borne along
by this transitory felicity must either know or not know its unstability. If he knows not,
how poor is a happiness which depends on the blindness of ignorance! If he knows it, he
needs must fear to lose a happiness whose loss he believes to be possible. Wherefore, a
never-ceasing fear suffers him not to be happy. Or does he count the possibility of this
loss a trifling matter? Insignificant, then, must be the good whose loss can be borne so
equably.

And, further, I know thee to be one settled in the belief that the souls of men certainly
die not with them, and convinced thereof by numerous proofs; it is clear also that the
felicity which Fortune bestows is brought to an end with the death of the body: therefore,
it cannot be doubted but that, if happiness is conferred in this way, the whole human race
sinks into misery when death brings the close of all. But if we know that many have sought
the joy of happiness not through death only, but also through pain and suffering, how can
life make men happy by its presence when it makes them not wretched by its loss?'

Song IV: The Golden Mean

Who founded firm and sure / Would ever live secure, / In spite of storm and blast /
Immovable and fast; / Whoso would fain deride / The ocean's threatening tide;— / His
dwelling should not seek / On sands or mountain-peak. / Upon the mountain's height / The
storm-winds wreak their spite: / The shifting sands disdain / Their burden to sustain. /
Do thou these perils flee, / Fair though the prospect be, / And fix thy resting-place / On
some low rock's sure base. / Then, though the tempests roar, / Seas thunder on the shore,
/ Thou in thy stronghold blest / And undisturbed shalt rest; / Live all thy days serene, /
And mock the heavens' spleen. /

Prose V

'But since my reasonings begin to work a soothing effect within thy mind, methinks I may
resort to remedies somewhat stronger. Come, suppose, now, the gifts of Fortune were not
fleeting and transitory, what is there in them capable of ever becoming truly thine, or
which does not lose value when looked at steadily and fairly weighed in the balance? Are
riches, I pray thee, precious either through thy nature or in their own? What are they but
mere gold and heaps of money? Yet these fine things show their quality better in the
spending than in the hoarding; for I suppose 'tis plain that greed Alva's makes men
hateful, while liberality brings fame. But that which is transferred to another cannot
remain in one's own possession; and if that be so, then money is only precious when it is
given away, and, by being transferred to others, ceases to be one's own. Again, if all the
money in the world were heaped up in one man's possession, all others would be made poor.
Sound fills the ears of many at the same time without being broken into parts, but your
riches cannot pass to many without being lessened in the process. And when this happens,
they must needs impoverish those whom they leave. How poor and cramped a thing, then, is
riches, which more than one cannot possess as an unbroken whole, which falls not to any
one man's lot without the impoverishment of everyone else! Or is it the glitter of gems
that allures the eye?

Yet, how rarely excellent soever may be their splendour, remember the flashing light is in
the jewels, not in the man. Indeed, I greatly marvel at men's admiration of them; for what
can rightly seem beautiful to a being endowed with life and reason, if it lack the
movement and structure of life? And although such things do in the end take on them more
beauty from their Maker's care and their own brilliancy, still they in no wise merit your
admiration since their excellence is set at a lower grade than your own. 'Does the beauty
of the fields delight you? Surely, yes; it is a beautiful part of a right beautiful whole.
Fitly indeed do we at times enjoy the serene calm of the sea, admire the sky, the stars,
the moon, the sun. Yet is any of these thy concern? Dost thou venture to boast thyself of
the beauty of any one of them? Art thou decked with spring's flowers? is it thy fertility
that swelleth in the fruits of autumn? Why art thou moved with empty transports? why
embracest thou an alien excellence as thine own? Never will fortune make thine that which
the nature of things has excluded from thy ownership. Doubtless the fruits of the earth
are given for the sustenance of living creatures. But if thou art content to supply thy
wants so far as suffices nature, there is no need to resort to fortune's bounty. Nature is
content with few things, and with a very little of these. If thou art minded to force
superfluities upon her when she is satisfied, that which thou addest will prove either
unpleasant or harmful. But, now, thou thinkest it fine to shine in raiment of divers
colours; yet—if, indeed, there is any pleasure in the sight of such things—it is the
texture or the artist's skill which I shall admire.

'Or perhaps it is a long train of servants that makes thee happy? Why, if they behave
viciously, they are a ruinous burden to thy house, and exceeding dangerous to their own
master; while if they are honest, how canst thou count other men's virtue in the sum of
thy possessions? From all which 'tis plainly proved that not one of these things which
thou reckonest in the number of thy possessions is really thine. And if there is in them
no beauty to be desired, why shouldst thou either grieve for their loss or find joy in
their continued possession? While if they are beautiful in their own nature, what is that
to thee? They would have been not less pleasing in themselves, though never included among
thy possessions. For they derive not their preciousness from being counted in thy riches,
but rather thou hast chosen to count them in thy riches because they seemed to thee
precious.

'Then, what seek ye by all this noisy outcry about fortune? To chase away poverty, I ween,
by means of abundance. And yet ye find the result just contrary. Why, this varied array of
precious furniture needs more accessories for its protection; it is a true saying that
they want most who possess most, and, conversely, they want very little who measure their
abundance by nature's requirements, not by the superfluity of vain display. Have ye no
good of your own implanted within you, that ye seek your good in things external and
separate? Is the nature of things so reversed that a creature divine by right of reason
can in no other way be splendid in his own eyes save by the possession of lifeless
chattels? Yet, while other things are content with their own, ye who in your intellect are
God-like seek from the lowest of things adornment for a nature of supreme excellence, and
perceive not how great a wrong ye do your Maker. His will was that mankind should excel
all things on earth. Ye thrust down your worth beneath the lowest of things. For if that
in which each thing finds its good is plainly more precious than that whose good it is, by
your own estimation ye put yourselves below the vilest of things, when ye deem these vile
things to be your good: nor does this fall out undeservedly. Indeed, man is so constituted
that he then only excels other things when he knows himself;

but he is brought lower than the beasts if he lose this self-knowledge. For that other
creatures should be ignorant of themselves is natural; in man it shows as a defect. How
extravagant, then, is this error of yours, in thinking that anything can be embellished by
adornments not its own. It cannot be. For if such accessories add any lustre, it is the
accessories that get the praise, while that which they veil and cover remains in its
pristine ugliness. And again I say, That is no good, which injures its possessor. Is this
untrue? No, quite true, thou sayest. And yet riches have often hurt those that possessed
them, since the worst of men, who are all the more covetous by reason of their wickedness,
think none but themselves worthy to possess all the gold and gems the world contains. So
thou, who now dreadest pike and sword, mightest have trolled a carol "in the robber's
face," hadst thou entered the road of life with empty pockets. Oh, wondrous blessedness of
perishable wealth, whose acquisition robs thee of security!'

Song V: The Former Age

Too blest the former age, their life / Who in the fields contented led, / And still, by
luxury unspoiled, / On frugal acorns sparely fed. / No skill was theirs the luscious grape
/ With honey's sweetness to confuse; / Nor China's soft and sheeny silks / T' empurple
with brave Tyrian hues. / The grass their wholesome couch, their drink / The stream, their
roof the pine's tall shade; / Not theirs to cleave the deep, nor seek / In strange far
lands the spoils of trade. / The trump of war was heard not yet, / Nor soiled the fields
by bloodshed's stain; / For why should war's fierce madness arm / When strife brought
wound, but brought not gain? / Ah! would our hearts might still return / To following in
those ancient ways. / Alas! the greed of getting glows / More fierce than Etna's fiery
blaze. / Woe, woe for him, whoe'er it was, / Who first gold's hidden store revealed, /
And—perilous treasure-trove—dug out / The gems that fain would be concealed! /

Prose VI

'What now shall I say of rank and power, whereby, because ye know not true power and
dignity, ye hope to reach the sky? Yet, when rank and power have fallen to the worst of
men, did ever an Etna, belching forth flame and fiery deluge, work such mischief? Verily,
as I think, thou dost remember how thine ancestors sought to abolish the consular power,
which had been the foundation of their liberties, on account of the overweening pride of
the consuls, and how for that self-same pride they had already abolished the kingly title!
And if, as happens but rarely, these prerogatives are conferred on virtuous men, it is
only the virtue of those who exercise them that pleases. So it appears that honour cometh
not to virtue from rank, but to rank from virtue. Look, too, at the nature of that power
which ye find so attractive and glorious! Do ye never consider, ye creatures of earth,
what ye are, and over whom ye exercise your fancied lordship? Suppose, now, that in the
mouse tribe there should rise up one claiming rights and powers for himself above the
rest, would ye not laugh consumedly? Yet if thou lookest to his body alone, what creature
canst thou find more feeble than man, who oftentimes is killed by the bite of a fly, or by
some insect creeping into the inner passage of his system! Yet what rights can one
exercise over another, save only as regards the body, and that which is lower than the
body—I mean fortune? What!

wilt thou bind with thy mandates the free spirit? Canst thou force from its due
tranquillity the mind that is firmly composed by reason? A tyrant thought to drive a man
of free birth to reveal his accomplices in a conspiracy, but the prisoner bit off his
tongue and threw it into the furious tyrant's face; thus, the tortures which the tyrant
thought the instrument of his cruelty the sage made an opportunity for heroism. Moreover,
what is there that one man can do to another which he himself may not have to undergo in
his turn? We are told that Busiris, who used to kill his guests, was himself slain by his
guest, Hercules. Regulus had thrown into bonds many of the Carthaginians whom he had taken
in war; soon after he himself submitted his hands to the chains of the vanquished. Then,
thinkest thou that man hath any power who cannot prevent another's being able to do to him
what he himself can do to others?

'Besides, if there were any element of natural and proper good in rank and power, they
would never come to the utterly bad, since opposites are not wont to be associated. Nature
brooks not the union of contraries. So, seeing there is no doubt that wicked wretches are
oftentimes set in high places, it is also clear that things which suffer association with
the worst of men cannot be good in their own nature. Indeed, this judgment may with some
reason be passed concerning all the gifts of fortune which fall so plentifully to all the
most wicked. This ought also to be considered here, I think: No one doubts a man to be
brave in whom he has observed a brave spirit residing. It is plain that one who is endowed
with speed is swift-footed. So also music makes men musical, the healing art physicians,
rhetoric public speakers. For each of these has naturally its own proper working; there is
no confusion with the effects of contrary things—nay, even of itself it rejects what is
incompatible. And yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has power ever made
him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in indissoluble fetters; dignity
conferred on the wicked not only fails to make them worthy, but contrarily reveals and
displays their unworthiness. Why does it so happen? Because ye take pleasure in calling by
false names things whose nature is quite incongruous thereto—by names which are easily
proved false by the very effects of the things themselves; even so it is; these riches,
that power, this dignity, are none of them rightly so called. Finally, we may draw the
same conclusion concerning the whole sphere of Fortune, within which there is plainly
nothing to be truly desired, nothing of intrinsic excellence; for she neither always joins
herself to the good, nor does she make good men of those to whom she is united.'

Song VI: Neros' Infamy

We know what mischief dire he wrought— / Rome fired, the Fathers slain— / Whose hand with
brother's slaughter wet / A mother's blood did stain. / No pitying tear his cheek bedewed,
/ As on the corse he gazed; / That mother's beauty, once so fair, / A critic's voice
appraised. / Yet far and wide, from East to West, / His sway the nations own; / And
scorching South and icy North / Obey his will alone. / Did, then, high power a curb impose
/ On Nero's phrenzied will? / Ah, woe when to the evil heart / Is joined the sword to
kill! /

Prose VII

Then said I: 'Thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success hath but little
swayed me. Yet I have desired opportunity for action, lest virtue, in default of exercise,
should languish away.' Then she: 'This is that "last infirmity" which is able to allure
minds which, though of noble quality, have not yet been moulded to any exquisite
refinement by the perfecting of the virtues—I mean, the love of glory—and fame for high
services rendered to the commonweal. And yet consider with me how poor and unsubstantial a
thing this glory is! The whole of this earth's globe, as thou hast learnt from the
demonstration of astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is found no bigger than a
point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's sphere, it is held to
occupy absolutely no space at all. Now, of this so insignificant portion of the universe,
it is about a fourth part, as Ptolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by
living creatures known to us. If from this fourth part you take away in thought all that
is usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless desert, barely is an
exceeding narrow area left for human habitation. You, then, who are shut in and prisoned
in this merest fraction of a point's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your
fame, for the spreading abroad of your renown? Why, what amplitude or magnificence has
glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits?

'Besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling-place are inhabited by many nations
differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode of life; to many of these, from the
difficulty of travel, from diversities of speech, from want of commercial intercourse, the
fame not only of individual men, but even of cities, is unable to reach. Why, in Cicero's
days, as he himself somewhere points out, the fame of the Roman Republic had not yet
crossed the Caucasus, and yet by that time her name had grown formidable to the Parthians
and other nations of those parts. Seest thou, then, how narrow, how confined, is the glory
ye take pains to spread abroad and extend! Can the fame of a single Roman penetrate where
the glory of the Roman name fails to pass? Moreover, the customs and institutions of
different races agree not together, so that what is deemed praise worthy in one country is
thought punishable in another. Wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not
profit him to publish his name among many peoples. Then, each must be content to have the
range of his glory limited to his own people; the splendid immortality of fame must be
confined within the bounds of a single race.

'Once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in oblivion for want
of a record! Indeed, of what avail are written records even, which, with their authors,
are overtaken by the dimness of age after a somewhat longer time? But ye, when ye think on
future fame, fancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves. Why, if thou
scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left for rejoicing in the
durability of thy name? Verily, if a single moment's space be compared with ten thousand
years, it has a certain relative duration, however little, since each period is definite.
But this same number of years—ay, and a number many times as great—cannot even be compared
with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may in a sort be compared one with
another, but a finite and an infinite never. So it comes to pass that fame, though it
extend to ever so wide a space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity,
seems not short-lived merely, but altogether nothing. But as for you, ye know not how to
act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the empty applause of the
multitude—nay, ye abandon the superlative worth of conscience and virtue, and ask a
recompense from the poor words of others. Let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the
shallowness of this sort of arrogance.

A certain man assailed one who had put on the name of philosopher as a cloak to pride and
vain-glory, not for the practice of real virtue, and added: "Now shall I know if thou art
a philosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently. The other for awhile
affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused, cried out derisively: "Now, do
you see that I am a philosopher? The other, with biting sarcasm, retorted: "I should have
hadst thou held thy peace. Moreover, what concern have choice spirits—for it is of such
men we speak, men who seek glory by virtue—what concern, I say, have these with fame after
the dissolution of the body in death's last hour? For if men die wholly—which our
reasonings forbid us to believe—there is no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom
the glory is said to belong is altogether non-existent. But if the mind, conscious of its
own rectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free flight, doth
it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its deliverance from earthly bonds,
and enters upon the joys of heaven?'

Song VII: Glory may not last

Oh, let him, who pants for glory's guerdon, / Deeming glory all in all, / Look and see how
wide the heaven expandeth, / Earth's enclosing bounds how small! / Shame it is, if your
proud-swelling glory / May not fill this narrow room! / Why, then, strive so vainly, oh,
ye proud ones! / To escape your mortal doom? / Though your name, to distant regions
bruited, / O'er the earth be widely spread, / Though full many a lofty-sounding title / On
your house its lustre shed, / Death at all this pomp and glory spurneth / When his hour
draweth nigh, / Shrouds alike th' exalted and the humble, / Levels lowest and most high. /
Where are now the bones of stanch Fabricius? / Brutus, Cato—where are they? / Lingering
fame, with a few graven letters, / Doth their empty name display. / But to know the great
dead is not given / From a gilded name alone; / Nay, ye all alike must lie forgotten, /
'Tis not you that fame makes known. / Fondly do ye deem life's little hour / Lengthened by
fame's mortal breath; / There but waits you—when this, too, is taken— / At the last a
second death. /

Prose VIII

'But that thou mayst not think that I wage implacable warfare against Fortune, I own there
is a time when the deceitful goddess serves men well—I mean when she reveals herself,
uncovers her face, and confesses her true character. Perhaps thou dost not yet grasp my
meaning. Strange is the thing I am trying to express, and for this cause I can scarce find
words to make clear my thought. For truly I believe that Ill Fortune is of more use to men
than Good Fortune. For Good Fortune, when she wears the guise of happiness, and most seems
to caress, is always lying; Ill Fortune is always truthful, since, in changing, she shows
her inconstancy. The one deceives, the other teaches; the one enchains the minds of those
who enjoy her favour by the semblance of delusive good, the other delivers them by the
knowledge of the frail nature of happiness. Accordingly, thou mayst see the one fickle,
shifting as the breeze, and ever self-deceived; the other sober-minded, alert, and wary,
by reason of the very discipline of adversity. Finally, Good Fortune, by her allurements,
draws men far from the true good; Ill Fortune ofttimes draws men back to true good with
grappling-irons. Again, should it be esteemed a trifling boon, thinkest thou, that this
cruel, this odious Fortune hath discovered to thee the hearts of thy faithful friends—that
other hid from thee alike the faces of the true friends and of the false, but in departing
she hath taken away her friends, and left thee thine? What price wouldst thou not have
given for this service in the fulness of thy prosperity when thou seemedst to thyself
fortunate? Cease, then, to seek the wealth thou hast lost, since in true friends thou hast
found the most precious of all riches.'

Song VIII: Love is Lord of all

Why are Nature's changes bound / To a fixed and ordered round? / What to leaguèd peace
hath bent / Every warring element? / Wherefore doth the rosy morn / Rise on Phœbus' car
upborne? / Why should Phœbe rule the night, / Led by Hesper's guiding light? / What the
power that doth restrain / In his place the restless main, / That within fixed bounds he
keeps, / Nor o'er earth in deluge sweeps? / Love it is that holds the chains, / Love o'er
sea and earth that reigns; / Love—whom else but sovereign Love?— / Love, high lord in
heaven above! / Yet should he his care remit, / All that now so close is knit / In sweet
love and holy peace, / Would no more from conflict cease, / But with strife's rude shock
and jar / All the world's fair fabric mar. / Tribes and nations Love unites / By just
treaty's sacred rites; / Wedlock's bonds he sanctifies / By affection's softest ties. /
Love appointeth, as is due, / Faithful laws to comrades true— / Love, all-sovereign
Love!—oh, then, / Ye are blest, ye sons of men, / If the love that rules the sky / In your
hearts is throned on high! /

SUMMARY CH. I. Boethius beseeches Philosophy to continue. She promises to lead him to true
happiness.—CH. II. Happiness is the one end which all created beings seek. They aim
variously at (a) wealth, or (b) rank, or (c) sovereignty, or (d) glory, or (e) pleasure,
because they think thereby to attain either (a) contentment, (b) reverence, (c) power, (d)
renown, or (e) gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine
happiness to consist.—CH. III. Philosophy proceeds to consider whether happiness can
really be secured in any of these ways, (a) So far from bringing contentment, riches only
add to men's wants.—CH. IV. (b) High position cannot of itself win respect. Titles command
no reverence in distant and barbarous lands. They even fall into contempt through lapse of
time.—CH. V. (c) Sovereignty cannot even bestow safety. History tells of the downfall of
kings and their ministers. Tyrants go in fear of their lives. —CH. VI. (d) Fame conferred
on the unworthy is but disgrace. The splendour of noble birth is not a man's own, but his
ancestors'.—CH. VII. (e) Pleasure begins in the restlessness of desire, and ends in
repentance. Even the pure pleasures of home may turn to gall and bitterness.—CH. VIII. All
fail, then, to give what they promise. There is, moreover, some accompanying evil involved
in each of these aims. Beauty and bodily strength are likewise of little worth. In
strength man is surpassed by the brutes; beauty is but outward show.—CH. IX.

The source of men's error in following these phantoms of good is that they break up and
separate that which is in its nature one and indivisible. Contentment, power, reverence,
renown, and joy are essentially bound up one with the other, and, if they are to be
attained at all, must be attained together. True happiness, if it can be found, will
include them all. But it cannot be found among the perishable things hitherto
considered.—CH. X. Such a happiness necessarily exists. Its seat is in God. Nay, God is
very happiness, and in a manner, therefore, the happy man partakes also of the Divine
nature. All other ends are relative to this good, since they are all pursued only for the
sake of good; it is good which is the sole ultimate end. And since the sole end is also
happiness, it is plain that this good and happiness are in essence the same.—CH. XI. Unity
is another aspect of goodness. Now, all things subsist so long only as they preserve the
unity of their being; when they lose this unity, they perish. But the bent of nature
forces all things (plants and inanimate things, as well as animals) to strive to continue
in life. Therefore, all things desire unity, for unity is essential to life. But unity and
goodness were shown to be the same. Therefore, good is proved to be the end towards which
the whole universe tends.—CH. XII. Boethius acknowledges that he is but recollecting
truths he once knew.

Philosophy goes on to show that it is goodness also by which the whole world is governed.
Boethius professes compunction for his former folly. But the paradox of evil is
introduced, and he is once more perplexed.


THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
=============================

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY continued

BOOK III

Prose I

She ceased, but I stood fixed by the sweetness of the song in wonderment and eager
expectation, my ears still strained to listen. And then after a little I said: 'Thou
sovereign solace of the stricken soul, what refreshment hast thou brought me, no less by
the sweetness of thy singing than by the weightiness of thy discourse! Verily, I think not
that I shall hereafter be unequal to the blows of Fortune. Wherefore, I no longer dread
the remedies which thou saidst were something too severe for my strength; nay, rather, I
am eager to hear of them and call for them with all vehemence.' Then said she: 'I marked
thee fastening upon my words silently and intently, and I expected, or—to speak more
truly—I myself brought about in thee, this state of mind. What now remains is of such sort
that to the taste indeed it is biting, but when received within it turns to sweetness. But
whereas thou dost profess thyself desirous of hearing, with what ardour wouldst thou not
burn didst thou but perceive whither it is my task to lead thee!'

'Whither?' said I. 'To true felicity,' said she, 'which even now thy spirit sees in
dreams, but cannot behold in very truth, while thine eyes are engrossed with semblances.'
Then said I: 'I beseech thee, do thou show to me her true shape without a moment's loss.'
'Gladly will I, for thy sake,' said she. 'But first I will try to sketch in words, and
describe a cause which is more familiar to thee, that, when thou hast viewed this
carefully, thou mayst turn thy eyes the other way, and recognise the beauty of true
happiness.'

Song I: The Thorns of Error

Who fain would sow the fallow field, / And see the growing corn, / Must first remove the
useless weeds, / The bramble and the thorn. / After ill savour, honey's taste / Is to the
mouth more sweet; / After the storm, the twinkling stars / The eyes more cheerly greet. /
When night hath past, the bright dawn comes / In car of rosy hue; / So drive the false
bliss from thy mind, / And thou shall see the true. /

Prose II

For a little space she remained in a fixed gaze, withdrawn, as it were, into the august
chamber of her mind; then she thus began: 'All mortal creatures in those anxious aims
which find employment in so many varied pursuits, though they take many paths, yet strive
to reach one goal—the goal of happiness. Now, the good is that which, when a man hath got,
he can lack nothing further. This it is which is the supreme good of all, containing
within itself all particular good; so that if anything is still wanting thereto, this
cannot be the supreme good, since something would be left outside which might be desired.
'Tis clear, then, that happiness is a state perfected by the assembling together of all
good things. To this state, as we have said, all men try to attain, but by different
paths. For the desire of the true good is naturally implanted in the minds of men; only
error leads them aside out of the way in pursuit of the false. Some, deeming it the
highest good to want for nothing, spare no pains to attain affluence; others, judging the
good to be that to which respect is most worthily paid, strive to win the reverence of
their fellow-citizens by the attainment of official dignity. Some there are who fix the
chief good in supreme power; these either wish themselves to enjoy sovereignty, or try to
attach themselves to those who have it. Those, again, who think renown to be something of
supreme excellence are in haste to spread abroad the glory of their name either through
the arts of war or of peace.

A great many measure the attainment of good by joy and gladness of heart; these think it
the height of happiness to give themselves over to pleasure. Others there are, again, who
interchange the ends and means one with the other in their aims; for instance, some want
riches for the sake of pleasure and power, some covet power either for the sake of money
or in order to bring renown to their name. So it is on these ends, then, that the aim of
human acts and wishes is centred, and on others like to these—for instance, noble birth
and popularity, which seem to compass a certain renown; wife and children, which are
sought for the sweetness of their possession; while as for friendship, the most sacred
kind indeed is counted in the category of virtue, not of fortune; but other kinds are
entered upon for the sake of power or of enjoyment. And as for bodily excellences, it is
obvious that they are to be ranged with the above. For strength and stature surely
manifest power; beauty and fleetness of foot bring celebrity; health brings pleasure. It
is plain, then, that the only object sought for in all these ways is happiness. For that
which each seeks in preference to all else, that is in his judgment the supreme good. And
we have defined the supreme good to be happiness. Therefore, that state which each wishes
in preference to all others is in his judgment happy.

'Thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human happiness—wealth,
rank, power, glory, pleasure. Now Epicurus, from a sole regard to these considerations,
with some consistency concluded the highest good to be pleasure, because all the other
objects seem to bring some delight to the soul. But to return to human pursuits and aims:
man's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness of its
recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to return home. Think you
they are wrong who strive to escape want? Nay, truly there is nothing which can so well
complete happiness as a state abounding in all good things, needing nothing from outside,
but wholly self-sufficing. Do they fall into error who deem that which is best to be also
best deserving to receive the homage of reverence? Not at all. That cannot possibly be
vile and contemptible, to attain which the endeavours of nearly all mankind are directed.
Then, is power not to be reckoned in the category of good? Why, can that which is plainly
more efficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of strength? Or is
renown to be thought of no account? Nay, it cannot be ignored that the highest renown is
constantly associated with the highest excellence.

And what need is there to say that happiness is not haunted by care and gloom, nor exposed
to trouble and vexation, since that is a condition we ask of the very least of things,
from the possession and enjoyment of which we expect delight? So, then, these are the
blessings men wish to win; they want riches, rank, sovereignty, glory, pleasure, because
they believe that by these means they will secure independence, reverence, power, renown,
and joy of heart. Therefore, it is the good which men seek by such divers courses; and
herein is easily shown the might of Nature's power, since, although opinions are so
various and discordant, yet they agree in cherishing good as the end.'

Song II: The Bent of Nature

How the might of Nature sways / All the world in ordered ways, / How resistless laws
control / Each least portion of the whole— / Fain would I in sounding verse / On my pliant
strings rehearse. / Lo, the lion captive ta'en / Meekly wears his gilded chain; / Yet
though he by hand be fed, / Though a master's whip he dread, / If but once the taste of
gore / Whet his cruel lips once more, / Straight his slumbering fierceness wakes, / With
one roar his bonds he breaks, / And first wreaks his vengeful force / On his trainer's
mangled corse. / And the woodland songster, pent / In forlorn imprisonment, / Though a
mistress' lavish care / Store of honeyed sweets prepare; / Yet, if in his narrow cage, /
As he hops from bar to bar, / He should spy the woods afar, / Cool with sheltering
foliage, / All these dainties he will spurn, / To the woods his heart will turn; / Only
for the woods he longs, / Pipes the woods in all his songs. / To rude force the sapling
bends, / While the hand its pressure lends; / If the hand its pressure slack, / Straight
the supple wood springs back. / Phœbus in the western main / Sinks; but swift his car
again / By a secret path is borne / To the wonted gates of morn. / Thus are all things
seen to yearn / In due time for due return; / And no order fixed may stay, / Save which in
th' appointed way / Joins the end to the beginning / In a steady cycle spinning. /

Prose III

'Ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin, however faint, and
though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise, notwithstanding, ye discern the true
end of happiness, and so the aim of nature leads you thither—to that true good—while error
in many forms leads you astray therefrom. For reflect whether men are able to win
happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed end. Truly, if
either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them anything of such sort as seems to
have nothing wanting to it that is good, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by
the acquisition of these things. But if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and,
moreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them clearly discovered
to be a false show? Therefore do I first ask thee thyself, who but lately wert living in
affluence, amid all that abundance of wealth, was thy mind never troubled in consequence
of some wrong done to thee?'

'Nay,' said I, 'I cannot ever remember a time when my mind was so completely at peace as
not to feel the pang of some uneasiness.' 'Was it not because either something was absent
which thou wouldst not have absent, or present which thou wouldst have away?' 'Yes,' said
I. 'Then, thou didst want the presence of the one, the absence of the other?' 'Admitted.'
'But a man lacks that of which he is in want?' 'He does.' 'And he who lacks something is
not in all points self-sufficing?' 'No; certainly not,' said I. 'So wert thou, then, in
the plenitude of thy wealth, supporting this insufficiency?' 'I must have been.' 'Wealth,
then, cannot make its possessor independent and free from all want, yet this was what it
seemed to promise. Moreover, I think this also well deserves to be considered—that there
is nothing in the special nature of money to hinder its being taken away from those who
possess it against their will.'

'I admit it.' 'Why, of course, when every day the stronger wrests it from the weaker
without his consent. Else, whence come lawsuits, except in seeking to recover moneys which
have been taken away against their owner's will by force or fraud?' 'True,' said I. 'Then,
everyone will need some extraneous means of protection to keep his money safe.' 'Who can
venture to deny it?' 'Yet he would not, unless he possessed the money which it is possible
to lose.' 'No; he certainly would not.' 'Then, we have worked round to an opposite
conclusion: the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need
of further protection. How in the world, then, can want be driven away by riches? Cannot
the rich feel hunger? Cannot they thirst? Are not the limbs of the wealthy sensitive to
the winter's cold? "But," thou wilt say, "the rich have the wherewithal to sate their
hunger, the means to get rid of thirst and cold." True enough; want can thus be soothed by
riches, wholly removed it cannot be. For if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want is glutted
by wealth, it needs must be that the want itself which can be so glutted still remains. I
do not speak of how very little suffices for nature, and how for avarice nothing is
enough. Wherefore, if wealth cannot get rid of want, and makes new wants of its own, how
can ye believe that it bestows independence?'

Song III: The Insatiableness of Avarice

Though the covetous grown wealthy / See his piles of gold rise high; / Though he gather
store of treasure / That can never satisfy; / Though with pearls his gorget blazes, /
Rarest that the ocean yields; / Though a hundred head of oxen / Travail in his ample
fields; / Ne'er shall carking care forsake him / While he draws this vital breath, / And
his riches go not with him, / When his eyes are closed in death. /

Prose IV

'Well, but official dignity clothes him to whom it comes with honour and reverence! Have,
then, offices of state such power as to plant virtue in the minds of their possessors, and
drive out vice? Nay, they are rather wont to signalize iniquity than to chase it away, and
hence arises our indignation that honours so often fall to the most iniquitous of men.
Accordingly, Catullus calls Nonius an "ulcer-spot," though "sitting in the curule chair."
Dost not see what infamy high position brings upon the bad? Surely their unworthiness will
be less conspicuous if their rank does not draw upon them the public notice! In thy own
case, wouldst thou ever have been induced by all these perils to think of sharing office
with Decoratus, since thou hast discerned in him the spirit of a rascally parasite and
informer? No; we cannot deem men worthy of reverence on account of their office, whom we
deem unworthy of the office itself. But didst thou see a man endued with wisdom, couldst
thou suppose him not worthy of reverence, nor of that wisdom with which he was endued?'

'No; certainly not.' 'There is in Virtue a dignity of her own which she forthwith passes
over to those to whom she is united. And since public honours cannot do this, it is clear
that they do not possess the true beauty of dignity. And here this well deserves to be
noticed—that if a man is the more scorned in proportion as he is despised by a greater
number, high position not only fails to win reverence for the wicked, but even loads them
the more with contempt by drawing more attention to them. But not without retribution; for
the wicked pay back a return in kind to the dignities they put on by the pollution of
their touch. Perhaps, too, another consideration may teach thee to confess that true
reverence cannot come through these counterfeit dignities. It is this: If one who had been
many times consul chanced to visit barbaric lands, would his office win him the reverence
of the barbarians? And yet if reverence were the natural effect of dignities, they would
not forego their proper function in any part of the world, even as fire never anywhere
fails to give forth heat. But since this effect is not due to their own efficacy, but is
attached to them by the mistaken opinion of mankind, they disappear straightway when they
are set before those who do not esteem them dignities. Thus the case stands with foreign
peoples. But does their repute last for ever, even in the land of their origin?

Why, the prefecture, which was once a great power, is now an empty name—a burden merely on
the senator's fortune; the commissioner of the public corn supply was once a personage—now
what is more contemptible than this office? For, as we said just now, that which hath no
true comeliness of its own now receives, now loses, lustre at the caprice of those who
have to do with it. So, then, if dignities cannot win men reverence, if they are actually
sullied by the contamination of the wicked, if they lose their splendour through time's
changes, if they come into contempt merely for lack of public estimation, what precious
beauty have they in themselves, much less to give to others?'

Song IV: Disgrace of Honours conferred by a Tyrant

Though royal purple soothes his pride, / And snowy pearls his neck adorn, / Nero in all
his riot lives / The mark of universal scorn. / Yet he on reverend heads conferred / Th'
inglorious honours of the state. / Shall we, then, deem them truly blessed / Whom such
preferment hath made great? /

Prose V

'Well, then, does sovereignty and the intimacy of kings prove able to confer power? Why,
surely does not the happiness of kings endure for ever? And yet antiquity is full of
examples, and these days also, of kings whose happiness has turned into calamity. How
glorious a power, which is not even found effectual for its own preservation! But if
happiness has its source in sovereign power, is not happiness diminished, and misery
inflicted in its stead, in so far as that power falls short of completeness? Yet, however
widely human sovereignty be extended, there must still be more peoples left, over whom
each several king holds no sway. Now, at whatever point the power on which happiness
depends ceases, here powerlessness steals in and makes wretchedness; so, by this way of
reckoning, there must needs be a balance of wretchedness in the lot of the king. The
tyrant who had made trial of the perils of his condition figured the fears that haunt a
throne under the image of a sword hanging over a man's head. What sort of power, then, is
this which cannot drive away the gnawings of anxiety, or shun the stings of terror? Fain
would they themselves have lived secure, but they cannot; then they boast about their
power! Dost thou count him to possess power whom thou seest to wish what he cannot bring
to pass?

Dost thou count him to possess power who encompasses himself with a body-guard, who fears
those he terrifies more than they fear him, who, to keep up the semblance of power, is
himself at the mercy of his slaves? Need I say anything of the friends of kings, when I
show royal dominion itself so utterly and miserably weak—why ofttimes the royal power in
its plenitude brings them low, ofttimes involves them in its fall? Nero drove his friend
and preceptor, Seneca, to the choice of the manner of his death. Antoninus exposed
Papinianus, who was long powerful at court, to the swords of the soldiery. Yet each of
these was willing to renounce his power. Seneca tried to surrender his wealth also to
Nero, and go into retirement; but neither achieved his purpose. When they tottered, their
very greatness dragged them down. What manner of thing, then, is this power which keeps
men in fear while they possess it—which when thou art fain to keep, thou art not safe, and
when thou desirest to lay it aside thou canst not rid thyself of? Are friends any
protection who have been attached by fortune, not by virtue? Nay; him whom good fortune
has made a friend, ill fortune will make an enemy. And what plague is more effectual to do
hurt than a foe of one's own household?'

Song V: Self-mastery

Who on power sets his aim, / First must his own spirit tame; / He must shun his neck to
thrust / 'Neath th' unholy yoke of lust. / For, though India's far-off land / Bow before
his wide command, / Utmost Thule homage pay— / If he cannot drive away / Haunting care and
black distress, / In his power, he's powerless. /

Prose VI

'Again, how misleading, how base, a thing ofttimes is glory! Well does the tragic poet
exclaim: '"Oh, fond Repute, how many a time and oft / Hast them raised high in pride the
base-born churl!" / For many have won a great name through the mistaken beliefs of the
multitude—and what can be imagined more shameful than that? Nay, they who are praised
falsely must needs themselves blush at their own praises! And even when praise is won by
merit, still, how does it add to the good conscience of the wise man who measures his good
not by popular repute, but by the truth of inner conviction? And if at all it does seem a
fair thing to get this same renown spread abroad, it follows that any failure so to spread
it is held foul. But if, as I set forth but now, there must needs be many tribes and
peoples whom the fame of any single man cannot reach, it follows that he whom thou
esteemest glorious seems all inglorious in a neighbouring quarter of the globe. As to
popular favour, I do not think it even worthy of mention in this place, since it never
cometh of judgment, and never lasteth steadily.

'Then, again, who does not see how empty, how foolish, is the fame of noble birth? Why, if
the nobility is based on renown, the renown is another's! For, truly, nobility seems to be
a sort of reputation coming from the merits of ancestors. But if it is the praise which
brings renown, of necessity it is they who are praised that are famous. Wherefore, the
fame of another clothes thee not with splendour if thou hast none of thine own. So, if
there is any excellence in nobility of birth, methinks it is this alone—that it would seem
to impose upon the nobly born the obligation not to degenerate from the virtue of their
ancestors.'

Song VI: True Nobility

All men are of one kindred stock, though scattered far and wide; / For one is Father of us
all—one doth for all provide. / He gave the sun his golden beams, the moon her silver
horn; / He set mankind upon the earth, as stars the heavens adorn. / He shut a soul—a
heaven-born soul—within the body's frame; / The noble origin he gave each mortal wight may
claim. / Why boast ye, then, so loud of race and high ancestral line? / If ye behold your
being's source, and God's supreme design, / None is degenerate, none base, unless by taint
of sin / And cherished vice he foully stain his heavenly origin. /

Prose VII

'Then, what shall I say of the pleasures of the body? The lust thereof is full of
uneasiness; the sating, of repentance. What sicknesses, what intolerable pains, are they
wont to bring on the bodies of those who enjoy them—the fruits of iniquity, as it were!
Now, what sweetness the stimulus of pleasure may have I do not know. But that the issues
of pleasure are painful everyone may understand who chooses to recall the memory of his
own fleshly lusts. Nay, if these can make happiness, there is no reason why the beasts
also should not be happy, since all their efforts are eagerly set upon satisfying the
bodily wants. I know, indeed, that the sweetness of wife and children should be right
comely, yet only too true to nature is what was said of one—that he found in his sons his
tormentors. And how galling such a contingency would be, I must needs put thee in mind,
since thou hast never in any wise suffered such experiences, nor art thou now under any
uneasiness. In such a case, I agree with my servant Euripides, who said that a man without
children was fortunate in his misfortune.'

Song VII: Pleasure's Sting

This is the way of Pleasure: / She stings them that despoil her; / And, like the wingéd
toiler / Who's lost her honeyed treasure, / She flies, but leaves her smart / Deep-
rankling in the heart. /

Prose VIII

'It is beyond doubt, then, that these paths do not lead to happiness; they cannot guide
anyone to the promised goal. Now, I will very briefly show what serious evils are involved
in following them. Just consider. Is it thy endeavour to heap up money? Why, thou must
wrest it from its present possessor! Art thou minded to put on the splendour of official
dignity? Thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who covetest to outvie
others in honour must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition. Dost thou long for
power? Thou must face perils, for thou wilt be at the mercy of thy subjects' plots. Is
glory thy aim? Thou art lured on through all manner of hardships, and there is an end to
thy peace of mind. Art fain to lead a life of pleasure? Yet who does not scorn and contemn
one who is the slave of the weakest and vilest of things—the body? Again, on how slight
and perishable a possession do they rely who set before themselves bodily excellences! Can
ye ever surpass the elephant in bulk or the bull in strength? Can ye excel the tiger in
swiftness? Look upon the infinitude, the solidity, the swift motion, of the heavens, and
for once cease to admire things mean and worthless. And yet the heavens are not so much to
be admired on this account as for the reason which guides them. Then, how transient is the
lustre of beauty!

how soon gone!—more fleeting than the fading bloom of spring flowers. And yet if, as
Aristotle says, men should see with the eyes of Lynceus, so that their sight might pierce
through obstructions, would not that body of Alcibiades, so gloriously fair in outward
seeming, appear altogether loathsome when all its inward parts lay open to the view?
Therefore, it is not thy own nature that makes thee seem beautiful, but the weakness of
the eyes that see thee. Yet prize as unduly as ye will that body's excellences; so long as
ye know that this that ye admire, whatever its worth, can be dissolved away by the feeble
flame of a three days' fever. From all which considerations we may conclude as a whole,
that these things which cannot make good the advantages they promise, which are never made
perfect by the assemblage of all good things—these neither lead as by-ways to happiness,
nor themselves make men completely happy.'

Song VIII: Human Folly

Alas! how wide astray / Doth Ignorance these wretched mortals lead / From Truth's own way!
/ For not on leafy stems / Do ye within the green wood look for gold, / Nor strip the vine
for gems; / Your nets ye do not spread / Upon the hill-tops, that the groaning board /
With fish be furnishèd; / If ye are fain to chase / The bounding goat, ye sweep not in
vain search / The ocean's ruffled face. / The sea's far depths they know, / Each hidden
nook, wherein the waves o'erwash / The pearl as white as snow; / Where lurks the Tyrian
shell, / Where fish and prickly urchins do abound, / All this they know full well. / But
not to know or care / Where hidden lies the good all hearts desire— / This blindness they
can bear; / With gaze on earth low-bent, / They seek for that which reacheth far beyond /
The starry firmament. / What curse shall I call down / On hearts so dull? May they the
race still run / For wealth and high renown! / And when with much ado / The false good
they have grasped—ah, then too late!— / May they discern the true! /

Prose IX

'This much may well suffice to set forth the form of false happiness; if this is now clear
to thine eyes, the next step is to show what true happiness is.' 'Indeed,' said I, 'I see
clearly enough that neither is independence to be found in wealth, nor power in
sovereignty, nor reverence in dignities, nor fame in glory, nor true joy in pleasures.'
'Hast thou discerned also the causes why this is so?' 'I seem to have some inkling, but I
should like to learn more at large from thee.' 'Why, truly the reason is hard at hand.
That which is simple and indivisible by nature human error separates, and transforms from
the true and perfect to the false and imperfect. Dost thou imagine that which lacketh
nothing can want power?' 'Certainly not.' 'Right; for if there is any feebleness of
strength in anything, in this there must necessarily be need of external protection.'

'That is so.' 'Accordingly, the nature of independence and power is one and the same.' 'It
seems so.' 'Well, but dost think that anything of such a nature as this can be looked upon
with contempt, or is it rather of all things most worthy of veneration?' 'Nay; there can
be no doubt as to that.' 'Let us, then, add reverence to independence and power, and
conclude these three to be one.' 'We must if we will acknowledge the truth.' 'Thinkest
thou, then, this combination of qualities to be obscure and without distinction, or rather
famous in all renown? Just consider: can that want renown which has been agreed to be
lacking in nothing, to be supreme in power, and right worthy of honour, for the reason
that it cannot bestow this upon itself, and so comes to appear somewhat poor in esteem?'
'I cannot but acknowledge that, being what it is, this union of qualities is also right
famous.'

'It follows, then, that we must admit that renown is not different from the other three.'
'It does,' said I. 'That, then, which needs nothing outside itself, which can accomplish
all things in its own strength, which enjoys fame and compels reverence, must not this
evidently be also fully crowned with joy?' 'In sooth, I cannot conceive,' said I, 'how any
sadness can find entrance into such a state; wherefore I must needs acknowledge it full of
joy—at least, if our former conclusions are to hold.' 'Then, for the same reasons, this
also is necessary—that independence, power, renown, reverence, and sweetness of delight,
are different only in name, but in substance differ no wise one from the other.' 'It is,'
said I. 'This, then, which is one, and simple by nature, human perversity separates, and,
in trying to win a part of that which has no parts, fails to attain not only that portion
(since there are no portions), but also the whole, to which it does not dream of
aspiring.'

'How so?' said I. 'He who, to escape want, seeks riches, gives himself no concern about
power; he prefers a mean and low estate, and also denies himself many pleasures dear to
nature to avoid losing the money which he has gained. But at this rate he does not even
attain to independence—a weakling void of strength, vexed by distresses, mean and
despised, and buried in obscurity. He, again, who thirsts alone for power squanders his
wealth, despises pleasure, and thinks fame and rank alike worthless without power. But
thou seest in how many ways his state also is defective. Sometimes it happens that he
lacks necessaries, that he is gnawed by anxieties, and, since he cannot rid himself of
these inconveniences, even ceases to have that power which was his whole end and aim. In
like manner may we cast up the reckoning in case of rank, of glory, or of pleasure. For
since each one of these severally is identical with the rest, whosoever seeks any one of
them without the others does not even lay hold of that one which he makes his aim.'

'Well,' said I, 'what then?' 'Suppose anyone desire to obtain them together, he does
indeed wish for happiness as a whole; but will he find it in these things which, as we
have proved, are unable to bestow what they promise?' 'Nay; by no means,' said I. 'Then,
happiness must certainly not be sought in these things which severally are believed to
afford some one of the blessings most to be desired.' 'They must not, I admit. No
conclusion could be more true.' 'So, then, the form and the causes of false happiness are
set before thine eyes. Now turn thy gaze to the other side; there thou wilt straightway
see the true happiness I promised.' 'Yea, indeed, 'tis plain to the blind.' said I. 'Thou
didst point it out even now in seeking to unfold the causes of the false. For, unless I am
mistaken, that is true and perfect happiness which crowns one with the union of
independence, power, reverence, renown, and joy. And to prove to thee with how deep an
insight I have listened—since all these are the same—that which can truly bestow one of
them I know to be without doubt full and complete happiness.'

'Happy art thou, my scholar, in this thy conviction; only one thing shouldst thou add.'
'What is that?' said I. 'Is there aught, thinkest thou, amid these mortal and perishable
things which can produce a state such as this?' 'Nay, surely not; and this thou hast so
amply demonstrated that no word more is needed.' 'Well, then, these things seem to give to
mortals shadows of the true good, or some kind of imperfect good; but the true and perfect
good they cannot bestow.' 'Even so,' said I. 'Since, then, thou hast learnt what that true
happiness is, and what men falsely call happiness, it now remains that thou shouldst learn
from what source to seek this.' 'Yes; to this I have long been eagerly looking forward.'
'Well, since, as Plato maintains in the "Timæus," we ought even in the most trivial
matters to implore the Divine protection, what thinkest thou should we now do in order to
deserve to find the seat of that highest good?'

'We must invoke the Father of all things,' said I; 'for without this no enterprise sets
out from a right beginning.' 'Thou sayest well,' said she; and forthwith lifted up her
voice and sang:

Song IX: Invocation

Maker of earth and sky, from age to age / Who rul'st the world by reason; at whose word /
Time issues from Eternity's abyss: / To all that moves the source of movement, fixed /
Thyself and moveless. Thee no cause impelled / Extrinsic this proportioned frame to shape
/ From shapeless matter; but, deep-set within / Thy inmost being, the form of perfect
good, / From envy free; and Thou didst mould the whole / To that supernal pattern.
Beauteous / The world in Thee thus imaged, being Thyself / Most beautiful. So Thou the
work didst fashion / In that fair likeness, bidding it put on / Perfection through the
exquisite perfectness / Of every part's contrivance. Thou dost bind / The elements in
balanced harmony, / So that the hot and cold, the moist and dry, / Contend not; nor the
pure fire leaping up / Escape, or weight of waters whelm the earth. / Thou joinest and
diffusest through the whole, / Linking accordantly its several parts, / A soul of
threefold nature, moving all. / This, cleft in twain, and in two circles gathered, /
Speeds in a path that on itself returns, / Encompassing mind's limits, and conforms / The
heavens to her true semblance. Lesser souls / And lesser lives by a like ordinance / Thou
sendest forth, each to its starry car / Affixing, and dost strew them far and wide / O'er
earth and heaven.

These by a law benign / Thou biddest turn again, and render back / To thee their fires.
Oh, grant, almighty Father, / Grant us on reason's wing to soar aloft / To heaven's
exalted height; grant us to see / The fount of good; grant us, the true light found, / To
fix our steadfast eyes in vision clear / On Thee. Disperse the heavy mists of earth, / And
shine in Thine own splendour. For Thou art / The true serenity and perfect rest / Of every
pious soul—to see Thy face, / The end and the beginning—One the guide, / The traveller,
the pathway, and the goal. /

Prose X

'Since now thou hast seen what is the form of the imperfect good, and what the form of the
perfect also, methinks I should next show in what manner this perfection of felicity is
built up. And here I conceive it proper to inquire, first, whether any excellence, such as
thou hast lately defined, can exist in the nature of things, lest we be deceived by an
empty fiction of thought to which no true reality answers. But it cannot be denied that
such does exist, and is, as it were, the source of all things good. For everything which
is called imperfect is spoken of as imperfect by reason of the privation of some
perfection; so it comes to pass that, whenever imperfection is found in any particular,
there must necessarily be a perfection in respect of that particular also. For were there
no such perfection, it is utterly inconceivable how that so-called imperfection should
come into existence. Nature does not make a beginning with things mutilated and imperfect;
she starts with what is whole and perfect, and falls away later to these feeble and
inferior productions. So if there is, as we showed before, a happiness of a frail and
imperfect kind, it cannot be doubted but there is also a happiness substantial and
perfect.'

'Most true is thy conclusion, and most sure,' said I. 'Next to consider where the
dwelling-place of this happiness may be. The common belief of all mankind agrees that God,
the supreme of all things, is good. For since nothing can be imagined better than God, how
can we doubt Him to be good than whom there is nothing better? Now, reason shows God to be
good in such wise as to prove that in Him is perfect good. For were it not so, He would
not be supreme of all things; for there would be something else more excellent, possessed
of perfect good, which would seem to have the advantage in priority and dignity, since it
has clearly appeared that all perfect things are prior to those less complete. Wherefore,
lest we fall into an infinite regression, we must acknowledge the supreme God to be full
of supreme and perfect good. But we have determined that true happiness is the perfect
good; therefore true happiness must dwell in the supreme Deity.'

'I accept thy reasonings,' said I; 'they cannot in any wise be disputed.' 'But, come, see
how strictly and incontrovertibly thou mayst prove this our assertion that the supreme
Godhead hath fullest possession of the highest good.' 'In what way, pray?' said I. 'Do not
rashly suppose that He who is the Father of all things hath received that highest good of
which He is said to be possessed either from some external source, or hath it as a natural
endowment in such sort that thou mightest consider the essence of the happiness possessed,
and of the God who possesses it, distinct and different. For if thou deemest it received
from without, thou mayst esteem that which gives more excellent than that which has
received. But Him we most worthily acknowledge to be the most supremely excellent of all
things. If, however, it is in Him by nature, yet is logically distinct, the thought is
inconceivable, since we are speaking of God, who is supreme of all things. Who was there
to join these distinct essences? Finally, when one thing is different from another, the
things so conceived as distinct cannot be identical. Therefore that which of its own
nature is distinct from the highest good is not itself the highest good—an impious thought
of Him than whom, 'tis plain, nothing can be more excellent. For universally nothing can
be better in nature than the source from which it has come; therefore on most true grounds
of reason would I conclude that which is the source of all things to be in its own essence
the highest good.'

'And most justly,' said I. 'But the highest good has been admitted to be happiness.'
'Yes.' 'Then,' said she, 'it is necessary to acknowledge that God is very happiness.'
'Yes,' said I; 'I cannot gainsay my former admissions, and I see clearly that this is a
necessary inference therefrom.' 'Reflect, also,' said she, 'whether the same conclusion is
not further confirmed by considering that there cannot be two supreme goods distinct one
from the other. For the goods which are different clearly cannot be severally each what
the other is: wherefore neither of the two can be perfect, since to either the other is
wanting; but since it is not perfect, it cannot manifestly be the supreme good. By no
means, then, can goods which are supreme be different one from the other. But we have
concluded that both happiness and God are the supreme good; wherefore that which is
highest Divinity must also itself necessarily be supreme happiness.'

'No conclusion,' said I, 'could be truer to fact, nor more soundly reasoned out, nor more
worthy of God.' 'Then, further,' said she, 'just as geometricians are wont to draw
inferences from their demonstrations to which they give the name "deductions," so will I
add here a sort of corollary. For since men become happy by the acquisition of happiness,
while happiness is very Godship, it is manifest that they become happy by the acquisition
of Godship. But as by the acquisition of justice men become just, and wise by the
acquisition of wisdom, so by parity of reasoning by acquiring Godship they must of
necessity become gods. So every man who is happy is a god; and though in nature God is One
only, yet there is nothing to hinder that very many should be gods by participation in
that nature.' 'A fair conclusion, and a precious,' said I, 'deduction or corollary, by
whichever name thou wilt call it.'

'And yet,' said she, 'not one whit fairer than this which reason persuades us to add.'
'Why, what?' said I. 'Why, seeing happiness has many particulars included under it, should
all these be regarded as forming one body of happiness, as it were, made up of various
parts, or is there some one of them which forms the full essence of happiness, while all
the rest are relative to this?' 'I would thou wouldst unfold the whole matter to me at
large.' 'We judge happiness to be good, do we not?' 'Yea, the supreme good.' 'And this
superlative applies to all; for this same happiness is adjudged to be the completest
independence, the highest power, reverence, renown, and pleasure.' 'What then?' 'Are all
these goods—independence, power, and the rest—to be deemed members of happiness, as it
were, or are they all relative to good as to their summit and crown?'

'I understand the problem, but I desire to hear how thou wouldst solve it.' 'Well, then,
listen to the determination of the matter. Were all these members composing happiness,
they would differ severally one from the other. For this is the nature of parts—that by
their difference they compose one body. All these, however, have been proved to be the
same; therefore they cannot possibly be members, otherwise happiness will seem to be built
up out of one member, which cannot be.' 'There can be no doubt as to that,' said I; 'but I
am impatient to hear what remains.' 'Why, it is manifest that all the others are relative
to the good. For the very reason why independence is sought is that it is judged good, and
so power also, because it is believed to be good. The same, too, may be supposed of
reverence, of renown, and of pleasant delight. Good, then, is the sum and source of all
desirable things. That which has not in itself any good, either in reality or in
semblance, can in no wise be desired. Contrariwise, even things which by nature are not
good are desired as if they were truly good, if they seem to be so. Whereby it comes to
pass that goodness is rightly believed to be the sum and hinge and cause of all things
desirable. Now, that for the sake of which anything is desired itself seems to be most
wished for. For instance, if anyone wishes to ride for the sake of health, he does not so
much wish for the exercise of riding as the benefit of his health. Since, then, all things
are sought for the sake of the good, it is not these so much as good itself that is sought
by all. But that on account of which all other things are wished for was, we agreed,
happiness; wherefore thus also it appears that it is happiness alone which is sought. From
all which it is transparently clear that the essence of absolute good and of happiness is
one and the same.'

'I cannot see how anyone can dissent from these conclusions.' 'But we have also proved
that God and true happiness are one and the same.' 'Yes,' said I. 'Then we can safely
conclude, also, that God's essence is seated in absolute good, and nowhere else.'

Song X: The True Light

Hither come, all ye whose minds / Lust with rosy fetters binds— / Lust to bondage hard
compelling / Th' earthy souls that are his dwelling— / Here shall be your labour's close;
/ Here your haven of repose. / Come, to your one refuge press; / Wide it stands to all
distress! / Not the glint of yellow gold / Down bright Hermus' current rolled; / Not the
Tagus' precious sands, / Nor in far-off scorching lands / All the radiant gems that hide /
Under Indus' storied tide— / Emerald green and glistering white— / Can illume our feeble
sight; / But they rather leave the mind / In its native darkness blind. / For the fairest
beams they shed / In earth's lowest depths were fed; / But the splendour that supplies /
Strength and vigour to the skies, / And the universe controls, / Shunneth dark and ruined
souls. / He who once hath seen this light / Will not call the sunbeam bright. /

Prose XI

'I quite agree,' said I, 'truly all thy reasonings hold admirably together.' Then said
she: 'What value wouldst thou put upon the boon shouldst thou come to the knowledge of the
absolute good?' 'Oh, an infinite,' said I, 'if only I were so blest as to learn to know
God also who is the good.' 'Yet this will I make clear to thee on truest grounds of
reason, if only our recent conclusions stand fast.' 'They will.' 'Have we not shown that
those things which most men desire are not true and perfect good precisely for this
cause—that they differ severally one from another, and, seeing that one is wanting to
another, they cannot bestow full and absolute good; but that they become the true good
when they are gathered, as it were, into one form and agency, so that that which is
independence is likewise power, reverence, renown, and pleasant delight, and unless they
are all one and the same, they have no claim to be counted among things desirable?'

'Yes; this was clearly proved, and cannot in any wise be doubted.' 'Now, when things are
far from being good while they are different, but become good as soon as they are one, is
it not true that these become good by acquiring unity?' 'It seems so,' said I. 'But dost
not thou allow that all which is good is good by participation in goodness?' 'It is.'
'Then, thou must on similar grounds admit that unity and goodness are the same; for when
the effects of things in their natural working differ not, their essence is one and the
same.' 'There is no denying it.' 'Now, dost thou know,' said she, 'that all which is
abides and subsists so long as it continues one, but so soon as it ceases to be one it
perishes and falls to pieces?' 'In what way?' 'Why, take animals, for example. When soul
and body come together, and continue in one, this is, we say, a living creature; but when
this unity is broken by the separation of these two, the creature dies, and is clearly no
longer living. The body also, while it remains in one form by the joining together of its
members, presents a human appearance; but if the separation and dispersal of the parts
break up the body's unity, it ceases to be what it was. And if we extend our survey to all
other things, without doubt it will manifestly appear that each several thing subsists
while it is one, but when it ceases to be one perishes.'

'Yes; when I consider further, I see it to be even as thou sayest.' 'Well, is there
aught,' said she, 'which, in so far as it acts conformably to nature, abandons the wish
for life, and desires to come to death and corruption?' 'Looking to living creatures,
which have some faults of choice, I find none that, without external compulsion, forego
the will to live, and of their own accord hasten to destruction. For every creature
diligently pursues the end of self-preservation, and shuns death and destruction! As to
herbs and trees, and inanimate things generally, I am altogether in doubt what to think.'
'And yet there is no possibility of question about this either, since thou seest how herbs
and trees grow in places suitable for them, where, as far as their nature admits, they
cannot quickly wither and die. Some spring up in the plains, others in the mountains; some
grow in marshes, others cling to rocks; and others, again, find a fertile soil in the
barren sands; and if you try to transplant these elsewhere, they wither away. Nature gives
to each the soil that suits it, and uses her diligence to prevent any of them dying, so
long as it is possible for them to continue alive. Why do they all draw their nourishment
from roots as from a mouth dipped into the earth, and distribute the strong bark over the
pith? Why are all the softer parts like the pith deeply encased within, while the external
parts have the strong texture of wood, and outside of all is the bark to resist the
weather's inclemency, like a champion stout in endurance? Again, how great is nature's
diligence to secure universal propagation by multiplying seed! Who does not know all these
to be contrivances, not only for the present maintenance of a species, but for its lasting
continuance, generation after generation, for ever? And do not also the things believed
inanimate on like grounds of reason seek each what is proper to itself?

Why do the flames shoot lightly upward, while the earth presses downward with its weight,
if it is not that these motions and situations are suitable to their respective natures?
Moreover, each several thing is preserved by that which is agreeable to its nature, even
as it is destroyed by things inimical. Things solid like stones resist disintegration by
the close adhesion of their parts. Things fluid like air and water yield easily to what
divides them, but swiftly flow back and mingle with those parts from which they have been
severed, while fire, again, refuses to be cut at all. And we are not now treating of the
voluntary motions of an intelligent soul, but of the drift of nature. Even so is it that
we digest our food without thinking about it, and draw our breath unconsciously in sleep;
nay, even in living creatures the love of life cometh not of conscious will, but from the
principles of nature. For oftentimes in the stress of circumstances will chooses the death
which nature shrinks from; and contrarily, in spite of natural appetite, will restrains
that work of reproduction by which alone the persistence of perishable creatures is
maintained. So entirely does this love of self come from drift of nature, not from animal
impulse. Providence has furnished things with this most cogent reason for continuance:
they must desire life, so long as it is naturally possible for them to continue living.

Wherefore in no way mayst thou doubt but that things naturally aim at continuance of
existence, and shun destruction.' 'I confess,' said I, 'that what I lately thought
uncertain, I now perceive to be indubitably clear.' 'Now, that which seeks to subsist and
continue desires to be one; for if its oneness be gone, its very existence cannot
continue.' 'True,' said I. 'All things, then, desire to be one.' 'I agree.' 'But we have
proved that one is the very same thing as good.' 'We have.' 'All things, then, seek the
good; indeed, you may express the fact by defining good as that which all desire.'
'Nothing could be more truly thought out. Either there is no single end to which all
things are relative, or else the end to which all things universally hasten must be the
highest good of all.' Then she: 'Exceedingly do I rejoice, dear pupil; thine eye is now
fixed on the very central mark of truth. Moreover, herein is revealed that of which thou
didst erstwhile profess thyself ignorant.'

'What is that?' said I. 'The end and aim of the whole universe. Surely it is that which is
desired of all; and, since we have concluded the good to be such, we ought to acknowledge
the end and aim of the whole universe to be "the good."'

Song XI: Reminiscence

Who truth pursues, who from false ways / His heedful steps would keep, / By inward light
must search within / In meditation deep; / All outward bent he must repress / His soul's
true treasure to possess. / Then all that error's mists obscured / Shall shine more clear
than light, / This fleshly frame's oblivious weight / Hath quenched not reason quite; /
The germs of truth still lie within, / Whence we by learning all may win. / Else how could
ye the answer due / Untaught to questions give, / Were't not that deep within the soul /
Truth's secret sparks do live? / If Plato's teaching erreth not, / We learn but that we
have forgot. /

Prose XII

Then said I: 'With all my heart I agree with Plato; indeed, this is now the second time
that these things have been brought back to my mind—first I lost them through the clogging
contact of the body; then after through the stress of heavy grief.' Then she continued:
'If thou wilt reflect upon thy former admissions, it will not be long before thou dost
also recollect that of which erstwhile thou didst confess thyself ignorant.' 'What is
that?' said I. 'The principles of the world's government,' said she. 'Yes; I remember my
confession, and, although I now anticipate what thou intendest, I have a desire to hear
the argument plainly set forth.' 'Awhile ago thou deemedst it beyond all doubt that God
doth govern the world.' 'I do not think it doubtful now, nor shall I ever; and by what
reasons I am brought to this assurance I will briefly set forth. This world could never
have taken shape as a single system out of parts so diverse and opposite were it not that
there is One who joins together these so diverse things. And when it had once come
together, the very diversity of natures would have dissevered it and torn it asunder in
universal discord were there not One who keeps together what He has joined. Nor would the
order of nature proceed so regularly, nor could its course exhibit motions so fixed in
respect of position, time, range, efficacy, and character, unless there were One who,
Himself abiding, disposed these various vicissitudes of change. This power, whatsoever it
be, whereby they remain as they were created, and are kept in motion, I call by the name
which all recognise—God.'

Then said she: 'Seeing that such is thy belief, it will cost me little trouble, I think,
to enable thee to win happiness, and return in safety to thy own country. But let us give
our attention to the task that we have set before ourselves. Have we not counted
independence in the category of happiness, and agreed that God is absolute happiness?'
'Truly, we have.' 'Then, He will need no external assistance for the ruling of the world.
Otherwise, if He stands in need of aught, He will not possess complete independence.'
'That is necessarily so,' said I. 'Then, by His own power alone He disposes all things.'
'It cannot be denied.' 'Now, God was proved to be absolute good.' 'Yes; I remember.'
'Then, He disposes all things by the agency of good, if it be true that He rules all
things by His own power whom we have agreed to be good; and He is, as it were, the rudder
and helm by which the world's mechanism is kept steady and in order.'

'Heartily do I agree; and, indeed, I anticipated what thou wouldst say, though it may be
in feeble surmise only.' 'I well believe it,' said she; 'for, as I think, thou now
bringest to the search eyes quicker in discerning truth; but what I shall say next is no
less plain and easy to see.' 'What is it?' said I. 'Why,' said she, 'since God is rightly
believed to govern all things with the rudder of goodness, and since all things do
likewise, as I have taught, haste towards good by the very aim of nature, can it be
doubted that His governance is willingly accepted, and that all submit themselves to the
sway of the Disposer as conformed and attempered to His rule?' 'Necessarily so,' said I;
'no rule would seem happy if it were a yoke imposed on reluctant wills, and not the safe-
keeping of obedient subjects.' 'There is nothing, then, which, while it follows nature,
endeavours to resist good.'

'No; nothing.' 'But if anything should, will it have the least success against Him whom we
rightly agreed to be supreme Lord of happiness?' 'It would be utterly impotent.' 'There is
nothing, then, which has either the will or the power to oppose this supreme good.' 'No; I
think not.' 'So, then,' said she, 'it is the supreme good which rules in strength, and
graciously disposes all things.' Then said I: 'How delighted am I at thy reasonings, and
the conclusion to which thou hast brought them, but most of all at these very words which
thou usest! I am now at last ashamed of the folly that so sorely vexed me.' 'Thou hast
heard the story of the giants assailing heaven; but a beneficent strength disposed of them
also, as they deserved. But shall we submit our arguments to the shock of mutual
collision?—it may be from the impact some fair spark of truth may be struck out.'

'If it be thy good pleasure,' said I. 'No one can doubt that God is all-powerful.' 'No one
at all can question it who thinks consistently.' 'Now, there is nothing which One who is
all-powerful cannot do.' 'Nothing.' 'But can God do evil, then?' 'Nay; by no means.'
'Then, evil is nothing,' said she, 'since He to whom nothing is impossible is unable to do
evil.' 'Art thou mocking me,' said I, 'weaving a labyrinth of tangled arguments, now
seeming to begin where thou didst end, and now to end where thou didst begin, or dost thou
build up some wondrous circle of Divine simplicity? For, truly, a little before thou didst
begin with happiness, and say it was the supreme good, and didst declare it to be seated
in the supreme Godhead. God Himself, too, thou didst affirm to be supreme good and all-
complete happiness; and from this thou didst go on to add, as by the way, the proof that
no one would be happy unless he were likewise God. Again, thou didst say that the very
form of good was the essence both of God and of happiness, and didst teach that the
absolute One was the absolute good which was sought by universal nature. Thou didst
maintain, also, that God rules the universe by the governance of goodness, that all things
obey Him willingly, and that evil has no existence in nature. And all this thou didst
unfold without the help of assumptions from without, but by inherent and proper proofs,
drawing credence one from the other.'

Then answered she: 'Far is it from me to mock thee; nay, by the blessing of God, whom we
lately addressed in prayer, we have achieved the most important of all objects. For such
is the form of the Divine essence, that neither can it pass into things external, nor take
up anything external into itself; but, as Parmenides says of it, '"In body like to a
sphere on all sides perfectly rounded," / it rolls the restless orb of the universe,
keeping itself motionless the while. And if I have also employed reasonings not drawn from
without, but lying within the compass of our subject, there is no cause for thee to
marvel, since thou hast learnt on Plato's authority that words ought to be akin to the
matter of which they treat.'

Song XII: Orpheus and Eurydice

Blest he whose feet have stood / Beside the fount of good; / Blest he whose will could
break / Earth's chains for wisdom's sake! / The Thracian bard, 'tis said, / Mourned his
dear consort dead; / To hear the plaintive strain / The woods moved in his train, / And
the stream ceased to flow, / Held by so soft a woe; / The deer without dismay / Beside the
lion lay; / The hound, by song subdued, / No more the hare pursued, / But the pang
unassuaged / In his own bosom raged. / The music that could calm / All else brought him no
balm. / Chiding the powers immortal, / He came unto Hell's portal; / There breathed all
tender things / Upon his sounding strings, / Each rhapsody high-wrought / His goddess-
mother taught— / All he from grief could borrow / And love redoubling sorrow, / Till, as
the echoes waken, / All Tænarus is shaken; / Whilst he to ruth persuades / The monarch of
the shades / With dulcet prayer. Spell-bound, / The triple-headed hound / At sounds so
strangely sweet / Falls crouching at his feet. / The dread Avengers, too, / That guilty
minds pursue / With ever-haunting fears, / Are all dissolved in tears. / Ixion, on his
wheel, / A respite brief doth feel; / For, lo!

the wheel stands still. / And, while those sad notes thrill, / Thirst-maddened Tantalus /
Listens, oblivious / Of the stream's mockery / And his long agony. / The vulture, too,
doth spare / Some little while to tear / At Tityus' rent side, / Sated and pacified. / At
length the shadowy king, / His sorrows pitying, / 'He hath prevailèd!' cried; / 'We give
him back his bride! / To him she shall belong, / As guerdon of his song. / One sole
condition yet / Upon the boon is set: / Let him not turn his eyes / To view his hard-won
prize, / Till they securely pass / The gates of Hell.' Alas! / What law can lovers move? /
A higher law is love! / For Orpheus—woe is me!— / On his Eurydice— / Day's threshold all
but won— / Looked, lost, and was undone! / Ye who the light pursue, / This story is for
you, / Who seek to find a way / Unto the clearer day. / If on the darkness past / One
backward look ye cast, / Your weak and wandering eyes / Have lost the matchless prize. /

SUMMARY. CH. I. The mystery of the seeming moral confusion. Philosophy engages to make
this plain, and to fulfil her former promise to the full.—CH. II. Accordingly, (a) she
first expounds the paradox that the good alone have power, the bad are altogether
powerless.—CH. III. (b) The righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked their
punishment.—CH. IV. (c) The wicked are more unhappy when they accomplish their desires
than when they fail to attain them. (d) Evil-doers are more fortunate when they expiate
their crimes by suffering punishment than when they escape unpunished. (e) The wrong-doer
is more wretched than he who suffers injury.—CH. V. Boethius still cannot understand why
the distribution of happiness and misery to the righteous and the wicked seems the result
of chance. Philosophy replies that this only seems so because we do not understand the
principles of God's moral governance.—CH. VI. The distinction of Fate and Providence. The
apparent moral confusion is due to our ignorance of the secret counsels of God's
providence. If we possessed the key, we should see how all things are guided to good.—CH.
VII. Thus all fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or
punishes, and so is either useful or just.


THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
=============================

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY continued

BOOK IV

Prose I

Softly and sweetly Philosophy sang these verses to the end without losing aught of the
dignity of her expression or the seriousness of her tones; then, forasmuch as I was as yet
unable to forget my deeply-seated sorrow, just as she was about to say something further,
I broke in and cried: 'O thou guide into the way of true light, all that thy voice hath
uttered from the beginning even unto now has manifestly seemed to me at once divine
contemplated in itself, and by the force of thy arguments placed beyond the possibility of
overthrow. Moreover, these truths have not been altogether unfamiliar to me heretofore,
though because of indignation at my wrongs they have for a time been forgotten. But, lo!
herein is the very chiefest cause of my grief—that, while there exists a good ruler of the
universe, it is possible that evil should be at all, still more that it should go
unpunished. Surely thou must see how deservedly this of itself provokes astonishment. But
a yet greater marvel follows: While wickedness reigns and flourishes, virtue not only
lacks its reward, but is even thrust down and trampled under the feet of the wicked, and
suffers punishment in the place of crime. That this should happen under the rule of a God
who knows all things and can do all things, but wills only the good, cannot be
sufficiently wondered at nor sufficiently lamented.'

Then said she: 'It would indeed be infinitely astounding, and of all monstrous things most
horrible, if, as thou esteemest, in the well-ordered home of so great a householder, the
base vessels should be held in honour, the precious left to neglect. But it is not so. For
if we hold unshaken those conclusions which we lately reached, thou shall learn that, by
the will of Him of whose realm we are speaking, the good are always strong, the bad always
weak and impotent; that vices never go unpunished, nor virtues unrewarded; that good
fortune ever befalls the good, and ill fortune the bad, and much more of the sort, which
shall hush thy murmurings, and stablish thee in the strong assurance of conviction. And
since by my late instructions thou hast seen the form of happiness, hast learnt, too, the
seat where it is to be found, all due preliminaries being discharged, I will now show thee
the road which will lead thee home. Wings, also, will I fasten to thy mind wherewith thou
mayst soar aloft, that so, all disturbing doubts removed, thou mayst return safe to thy
country, under my guidance, in the path I will show thee, and by the means which I
furnish.'

Song I: The Soul's Flight

Wings are mine; above the pole / Far aloft I soar. / Clothed with these, my nimble soul /
Scorns earth's hated shore, / Cleaves the skies upon the wind, / Sees the clouds left far
behind. / Soon the glowing point she nears, / Where the heavens rotate, / Follows through
the starry spheres / Phœbus' course, or straight / Takes for comrade 'mid the stars /
Saturn cold or glittering Mars; / Thus each circling orb explores / Through Night's stole
that peers; / Then, when all are numbered, soars / Far beyond the spheres, / Mounting
heaven's supremest height / To the very Fount of light. / There the Sovereign of the world
/ His calm sway maintains; / As the globe is onward whirled / Guides the chariot reins, /
And in splendour glittering / Reigns the universal King. / Hither if thy wandering feet /
Find at last a way, / Here thy long-lost home thou'lt greet: / 'Dear lost land,' thou'lt
say, / 'Though from thee I've wandered wide, / Hence I came, here will abide.' / Yet if
ever thou art fain / Visitant to be / Of earth's gloomy night again, / Surely thou wilt
see / Tyrants whom the nations fear / Dwell in hapless exile here. /

Prose II

Then said I: 'Verily, wondrous great are thy promises; yet I do not doubt but thou canst
make them good: only keep me not in suspense after raising such hopes.' 'Learn, then,
first,' said she, 'how that power ever waits upon the good, while the bad are left wholly
destitute of strength. Of these truths the one proves the other; for since good and evil
are contraries, if it is made plain that good is power, the feebleness of evil is clearly
seen, and, conversely, if the frail nature of evil is made manifest, the strength of good
is thereby known. However, to win ampler credence for my conclusion, I will pursue both
paths, and draw confirmation for my statements first in one way and then in the other.
'The carrying out of any human action depends upon two things—to wit, will and power; if
either be wanting, nothing can be accomplished. For if the will be lacking, no attempt at
all is made to do what is not willed; whereas if there be no power, the will is all in
vain. And so, if thou seest any man wishing to attain some end, yet utterly failing to
attain it, thou canst not doubt that he lacked the power of getting what he wished for.'

'Why, certainly not; there is no denying it.' 'Canst thou, then, doubt that he whom thou
seest to have accomplished what he willed had also the power to accomplish it?' 'Of course
not.' 'Then, in respect of what he can accomplish a man is to be reckoned strong, in
respect of what he cannot accomplish weak?' 'Granted,' said I. 'Then, dost thou remember
that, by our former reasonings, it was concluded that the whole aim of man's will, though
the means of pursuit vary, is set intently upon happiness?' 'I do remember that this, too,
was proved.' 'Dost thou also call to mind how happiness is absolute good, and therefore
that, when happiness is sought, it is good which is in all cases the object of desire?'
'Nay, I do not so much call to mind as keep it fixed in my memory.' 'Then, all men, good
and bad alike, with one indistinguishable purpose strive to reach good?'

'Yes, that follows.' 'But it is certain that by the attainment of good men become good?'
'It is.' 'Then, do the good attain their object?' 'It seems so.' 'But if the bad were to
attain the good which is their object, they could not be bad?' 'No.' 'Then, since both
seek good, but while the one sort attain it, the other attain it not, is there any doubt
that the good are endued with power, while they who are bad are weak?' 'If any doubt it,
he is incapable of reflecting on the nature of things, or the consequences involved in
reasoning.' 'Again, supposing there are two things to which the same function is
prescribed in the course of nature, and one of these successfully accomplishes the
function by natural action, the other is altogether incapable of that natural action,
instead of which, in a way other than is agreeable to its nature, it—I will not say
fulfils its function, but feigns to fulfil it: which of these two would in thy view be the
stronger?'

'I guess thy meaning, but I pray thee let me hear thee more at large.' 'Walking is man's
natural motion, is it not?' 'Certainly.' 'Thou dost not doubt, I suppose, that it is
natural for the feet to discharge this function?' 'No; surely I do not.' 'Now, if one man
who is able to use his feet walks, and another to whom the natural use of his feet is
wanting tries to walk on his hands, which of the two wouldst thou rightly esteem the
stronger?' 'Go on,' said I; 'no one can question but that he who has the natural capacity
has more strength than he who has it not.' 'Now, the supreme good is set up as the end
alike for the bad and for the good; but the good seek it through the natural action of the
virtues, whereas the bad try to attain this same good through all manner of concupiscence,
which is not the natural way of attaining good. Or dost thou think otherwise?'

'Nay; rather, one further consequence is clear to me: for from my admissions it must needs
follow that the good have power, and the bad are impotent.' 'Thou anticipatest rightly,
and that as physicians reckon is a sign that nature is set working, and is throwing off
the disease. But, since I see thee so ready at understanding, I will heap proof on proof.
Look how manifest is the extremity of vicious men's weakness; they cannot even reach that
goal to which the aim of nature leads and almost constrains them. What if they were left
without this mighty, this well-nigh irresistible help of nature's guidance! Consider also
how momentous is the powerlessness which incapacitates the wicked. Not light or trivial
are the prizes which they contend for, but which they cannot win or hold; nay, their
failure concerns the very sum and crown of things. Poor wretches! they fail to compass
even that for which they toil day and night. Herein also the strength of the good
conspicuously appears. For just as thou wouldst judge him to be the strongest walker whose
legs could carry him to a point beyond which no further advance was possible, so must thou
needs account him strong in power who so attains the end of his desires that nothing
further to be desired lies beyond. Whence follows the obvious conclusion that they who are
wicked are seen likewise to be wholly destitute of strength. For why do they forsake
virtue and follow vice? Is it from ignorance of what is good? Well, what is more weak and
feeble than the blindness of ignorance? Do they know what they ought to follow, but lust
drives them aside out of the way?

If it be so, they are still frail by reason of their incontinence, for they cannot fight
against vice. Or do they knowingly and wilfully forsake the good and turn aside to vice?
Why, at this rate, they not only cease to have power, but cease to be at all. For they who
forsake the common end of all things that are, they likewise also cease to be at all. Now,
to some it may seem strange that we should assert that the bad, who form the greater part
of mankind, do not exist. But the fact is so. I do not, indeed, deny that they who are bad
are bad, but that they are in an unqualified and absolute sense I deny. Just as we call a
corpse a dead man, but cannot call it simply "man," so I would allow the vicious to be
bad, but that they are in an absolute sense I cannot allow. That only is which maintains
its place and keeps its nature; whatever falls away from this forsakes the existence which
is essential to its nature. "But," thou wilt say, "the bad have an ability. Nor do I wish
to deny it; only this ability of theirs comes not from strength, but from impotence. For
their ability is to do evil, which would have had no efficacy at all if they could have
continued in the performance of good. So this ability of theirs proves them still more
plainly to have no power.

For if, as we concluded just now, evil is nothing, 'tis clear that the wicked can effect
nothing, since they are only able to do evil.' ''Tis evident.' 'And that thou mayst
understand what is the precise force of this power, we determined, did we not, awhile
back, that nothing has more power than supreme good?' 'We did,' said I. 'But that same
highest good cannot do evil?' 'Certainly not.' 'Is there anyone, then, who thinks that men
are able to do all things?' 'None but a madman.' 'Yet they are able to do evil?' 'Ay;
would they could not!' 'Since, then, he who can do only good is omnipotent, while they who
can do evil also are not omnipotent, it is manifest that they who can do evil have less
power. There is this also: we have shown that all power is to be reckoned among things
desirable, and that all desirable things are referred to good as to a kind of consummation
of their nature. But the ability to commit crime cannot be referred to the good; therefore
it is not a thing to be desired. And yet all power is desirable; it is clear, then, that
ability to do evil is not power. From all which considerations appeareth the power of the
good, and the indubitable weakness of the bad, and it is clear that Plato's judgment was
true; the wise alone are able to do what they would, while the wicked follow their own
hearts' lust, but can not accomplish what they would. For they go on in their wilfulness
fancying they will attain what they wish for in the paths of delight; but they are very
far from its attainment, since shameful deeds lead not to happiness.'

Song II: The Bondage of Passion

When high-enthroned the monarch sits, resplendent in the pride / Of purple robes, while
flashing steel guards him on every side; / When baleful terrors on his brow with frowning
menace lower, / And Passion shakes his labouring breast—how dreadful seems his power! /
But if the vesture of his state from such a one thou tear, / Thou'lt see what load of
secret bonds this lord of earth doth wear. / Lust's poison rankles; o'er his mind rage
sweeps in tempest rude; / Sorrow his spirit vexes sore, and empty hopes delude. / Then
thou'lt confess: one hapless wretch, whom many lords oppress, / Does never what he would,
but lives in thraldom's helplessness. /

Prose III

'Thou seest, then, in what foulness unrighteous deeds are sunk, with what splendour
righteousness shines. Whereby it is manifest that goodness never lacks its reward, nor
crime its punishment. For, verily, in all manner of transactions that for the sake of
which the particular action is done may justly be accounted the reward of that action,
even as the wreath for the sake of which the race is run is the reward offered for
running. Now, we have shown happiness to be that very good for the sake of which all
things are done. Absolute good, then, is offered as the common prize, as it were, of all
human actions. But, truly, this is a reward from which it is impossible to separate the
good man, for one who is without good cannot properly be called good at all; wherefore
righteous dealing never misses its reward. Rage the wicked, then, never so violently, the
crown shall not fall from the head of the wise, nor wither. Verily, other men's
unrighteousness cannot pluck from righteous souls their proper glory. Were the reward in
which the soul of the righteous delighteth received from without, then might it be taken
away by him who gave it, or some other; but since it is conferred by his own
righteousness, then only will he lose his prize when he has ceased to be righteous.
Lastly, since every prize is desired because it is believed to be good, who can account
him who possesses good to be without reward?

And what a prize, the fairest and grandest of all! For remember the corollary which I
chiefly insisted on a little while back, and reason thus: Since absolute good is
happiness, 'tis clear that all the good must be happy for the very reason that they are
good. But it was agreed that those who are happy are gods. So, then, the prize of the good
is one which no time may impair, no man's power lessen, no man's unrighteousness tarnish;
'tis very Godship. And this being so, the wise man cannot doubt that punishment is
inseparable from the bad. For since good and bad, and likewise reward and punishment, are
contraries, it necessarily follows that, corresponding to all that we see accrue as reward
of the good, there is some penalty attached as punishment of evil. As, then, righteousness
itself is the reward of the righteous, so wickedness itself is the punishment of the
unrighteous. Now, no one who is visited with punishment doubts that he is visited with
evil. Accordingly, if they were but willing to weigh their own case, could they think
themselves free from punishment whom wickedness, worst of all evils, has not only touched,
but deeply tainted?

'See, also, from the opposite standpoint—the standpoint of the good—what a penalty attends
upon the wicked. Thou didst learn a little since that whatever is is one, and that unity
itself is good. Accordingly, by this way of reckoning, whatever falls away from goodness
ceases to be; whence it comes to pass that the bad cease to be what they were, while only
the outward aspect is still left to show they have been men. Wherefore, by their
perversion to badness, they have lost their true human nature. Further, since
righteousness alone can raise men above the level of humanity, it must needs be that
unrighteousness degrades below man's level those whom it has cast out of man's estate. It
results, then, that thou canst not consider him human whom thou seest transformed by vice.
The violent despoiler of other men's goods, enflamed with covetousness, surely resembles a
wolf. A bold and restless spirit, ever wrangling in law-courts, is like some yelping cur.
The secret schemer, taking pleasure in fraud and stealth, is own brother to the fox. The
passionate man, phrenzied with rage, we might believe to be animated with the soul of a
lion. The coward and runaway, afraid where no fear is, may be likened to the timid deer.
He who is sunk in ignorance and stupidity lives like a dull ass. He who is light and
inconstant, never holding long to one thing, is for all the world like a bird. He who
wallows in foul and unclean lusts is sunk in the pleasures of a filthy hog. So it comes to
pass that he who by forsaking righteousness ceases to be a man cannot pass into a Godlike
condition, but actually turns into a brute beast.'

Song III: Circe's Cup

Th' Ithacan discreet, / And all his storm-tossed fleet, / Far o'er the ocean wave / The
winds of heaven drave— / Drave to the mystic isle, / Where dwelleth in her guile / That
fair and faithless one, / The daughter of the Sun. / There for the stranger crew / With
cunning spells she knew / To mix th' enchanted cup. / For whoso drinks it up, / Must
suffer hideous change / To monstrous shapes and strange. / One like a boar appears; / This
his huge form uprears, / Mighty in bulk and limb— / An Afric lion—grim / With claw and
fang. Confessed / A wolf, this, sore distressed / When he would weep, doth howl; / And,
strangely tame, these prowl / The Indian tiger's mates. / And though in such sore straits,
/ The pity of the god / Who bears the mystic rod / Had power the chieftain brave / From
her fell arts to save; / His comrades, unrestrained, / The fatal goblet drained. / All now
with low-bent head, / Like swine, on acorns fed; / Man's speech and form were reft, / No
human feature left; / But steadfast still, the mind, / Unaltered, unresigned, / The
monstrous change bewailed. / How little, then, availed / The potencies of ill! / These
herbs, this baneful skill, / May change each outward part, / But cannot touch the heart. /
In its true home, deep-set, / Man's spirit liveth yet. / Those poisons are more fell, /
More potent to expel / Man from his high estate, / Which subtly penetrate, / And leave the
body whole, / But deep infect the soul. /

Prose IV

Then said I: 'This is very true. I see that the vicious, though they keep the outward form
of man, are rightly said to be changed into beasts in respect of their spiritual nature;
but, inasmuch as their cruel and polluted minds vent their rage in the destruction of the
good, I would this license were not permitted to them.' 'Nor is it,' said she, 'as shall
be shown in the fitting place. Yet if that license which thou believest to be permitted to
them were taken away, the punishment of the wicked would be in great part remitted. For
verily, incredible as it may seem to some, it needs must be that the bad are more
unfortunate when they have accomplished their desires than if they are unable to get them
fulfilled. If it is wretched to will evil, to have been able to accomplish evil is more
wretched; for without the power the wretched will would fail of effect. Accordingly, those
whom thou seest to will, to be able to accomplish, and to accomplish crime, must needs be
the victims of a threefold wretchedness, since each one of these states has its own
measure of wretchedness.'

'Yes,' said I; 'yet I earnestly wish they might speedily be quit of this misfortune by
losing the ability to accomplish crime.' 'They will lose it,' said she, 'sooner than
perchance thou wishest, or they themselves think likely; since, verily, within the narrow
bounds of our brief life there is nothing so late in coming that anyone, least of all an
immortal spirit, should deem it long to wait for. Their great expectations, the lofty
fabric of their crimes, is oft overthrown by a sudden and unlooked-for ending, and this
but sets a limit to their misery. For if wickedness makes men wretched, he is necessarily
more wretched who is wicked for a longer time; and were it not that death, at all events,
puts an end to the evil doings of the wicked, I should account them wretched to the last
degree. Indeed, if we have formed true conclusions about the ill fortune of wickedness,
that wretchedness is plainly infinite which is doomed to be eternal.'

Then said I: 'A wonderful inference, and difficult to grant; but I see that it agrees
entirely with our previous conclusions.' 'Thou art right,' said she; 'but if anyone finds
it hard to admit the conclusion, he ought in fairness either to prove some falsity in the
premises, or to show that the combination of propositions does not adequately enforce the
necessity of the conclusion; otherwise, if the premises be granted, nothing whatever can
be said against the inference of the conclusion. And here is another statement which seems
not less wonderful, but on the premises assumed is equally necessary.' 'What is that?'
'The wicked are happier in undergoing punishment than if no penalty of justice chasten
them. And I am not now meaning what might occur to anyone—that bad character is amended by
retribution, and is brought into the right path by the terror of punishment, or that it
serves as an example to warn others to avoid transgression; but I believe that in another
way the wicked are more unfortunate when they go unpunished, even though no account be
taken of amendment, and no regard be paid to example.'

'Why, what other way is there beside these?' said I. Then said she: 'Have we not agreed
that the good are happy, and the evil wretched?' 'Yes,' said I. 'Now, if,' said she, 'to
one in affliction there be given along with his misery some good thing, is he not happier
than one whose misery is misery pure and simple without admixture of any good?' 'It would
seem so.' 'But if to one thus wretched, one destitute of all good, some further evil be
added besides those which make him wretched, is he not to be judged far more unhappy than
he whose ill fortune is alleviated by some share of good?' 'It could scarcely be
otherwise.' 'Surely, then, the wicked, when they are punished, have a good thing added to
them—to wit, the punishment which by the law of justice is good; and likewise, when they
escape punishment, a new evil attaches to them in that very freedom from punishment which
thou hast rightly acknowledged to be an evil in the case of the unrighteous.'

'I cannot deny it.' 'Then, the wicked are far more unhappy when indulged with an unjust
freedom from punishment than when punished by a just retribution. Now, it is manifest that
it is just for the wicked to be punished, and for them to escape unpunished is unjust.'
'Why, who would venture to deny it?' 'This, too, no one can possibly deny—that all which
is just is good, and, conversely, all which is unjust is bad.' Then I answered: 'These
inferences do indeed follow from what we lately concluded; but tell me,' said I, 'dost
thou take no account of the punishment of the soul after the death of the body?' 'Nay,
truly,' said she, 'great are these penalties, some of them inflicted, I imagine, in the
severity of retribution, others in the mercy of purification. But it is not my present
purpose to speak of these. So far, my aim hath been to make thee recognise that the power
of the bad which shocked thee so exceedingly is no power; to make thee see that those of
whose freedom from punishment thou didst complain are never without the proper penalties
of their unrighteousness; to teach thee that the license which thou prayedst might soon
come to an end is not long-enduring; that it would be more unhappy if it lasted longer,
most unhappy of all if it lasted for ever; thereafter that the unrighteous are more
wretched if unjustly let go without punishment than if punished by a just retribution—from
which point of view it follows that the wicked are afflicted with more severe penalties
just when they are supposed to escape punishment.'

Then said I: 'While I follow thy reasonings, I am deeply impressed with their truth; but
if I turn to the common convictions of men, I find few who will even listen to such
arguments, let alone admit them to be credible.' 'True,' said she; 'they cannot lift eyes
accustomed to darkness to the light of clear truth, and are like those birds whose vision
night illumines and day blinds; for while they regard, not the order of the universe, but
their own dispositions of mind, they think the license to commit crime, and the escape
from punishment, to be fortunate. But mark the ordinance of eternal law. Hast thou
fashioned thy soul to the likeness of the better, thou hast no need of a judge to award
the prize—by thine own act hast thou raised thyself in the scale of excellence; hast thou
perverted thy affections to baser things, look not for punishment from one without
thee—thine own act hath degraded thee, and thrust thee down. Even so, if alternately thou
turn thy gaze upon the vile earth and upon the heavens, though all without thee stand
still, by the mere laws of sight thou seemest now sunk in the mire, now soaring among the
stars. But the common herd regards not these things. What, then? Shall we go over to those
whom we have shown to be like brute beasts? Why, suppose, now, one who had quite lost his
sight should likewise forget that he had ever possessed the faculty of vision, and should
imagine that nothing was wanting in him to human perfection, should we deem those who saw
as well as ever blind? Why, they will not even assent to this, either—that they who do
wrong are more wretched than those who suffer wrong, though the proof of this rests on
grounds of reason no less strong.'

'Let me hear these same reasons,' said I. 'Wouldst thou deny that every wicked man
deserves punishment?' 'I would not, certainly.' 'And that those who are wicked are unhappy
is clear in manifold ways?' 'Yes,' I replied. 'Thou dost not doubt, then, that those who
deserve punishment are wretched?' 'Agreed,' said I. 'So, then, if thou wert sitting in
judgment, on whom wouldst thou decree the infliction of punishment—on him who had done the
wrong, or on him who had suffered it?' 'Without doubt, I would compensate the sufferer at
the cost of the doer of the wrong.' 'Then, the injurer would seem more wretched than the
injured?' 'Yes; it follows. And so for this and other reasons resting on the same ground,
inasmuch as baseness of its own nature makes men wretched, it is plain that a wrong
involves the misery of the doer, not of the sufferer.' 'And yet,' says she, 'the practice
of the law-courts is just the opposite: advocates try to arouse the commiseration of the
judges for those who have endured some grievous and cruel wrong; whereas pity is rather
due to the criminal, who ought to be brought to the judgment-seat by his accusers in a
spirit not of anger, but of compassion and kindness, as a sick man to the physician, to
have the ulcer of his fault cut away by punishment. Whereby the business of the advocate
would either wholly come to a standstill, or, did men prefer to make it serviceable to
mankind, would be restricted to the practice of accusation. The wicked themselves also, if
through some chink or cranny they were permitted to behold the virtue they have forsaken,
and were to see that by the pains of punishment they would rid themselves of the
uncleanness of their vices, and win in exchange the recompense of righteousness, they
would no longer think these sufferings pains; they would refuse the help of advocates, and
would commit themselves wholly into the hands of their accusers and judges. Whence it
comes to pass that for the wise no place is left for hatred; only the most foolish would
hate the good, and to hate the bad is unreasonable. For if vicious propensity is, as it
were, a disease of the soul like bodily sickness, even as we account the sick in body by
no means deserving of hate, but rather of pity, so, and much more, should they be pitied
whose minds are assailed by wickedness, which is more frightful than any sickness.'

Song IV: The Unreasonableness of Hatred

Why all this furious strife? Oh, why / With rash and wilful hand provoke death's destined
day? / If death ye seek—lo! Death is nigh, / Not of their master's will those coursers
swift delay! / The wild beasts vent on man their rage, / Yet 'gainst their brothers' lives
men point the murderous steel; / Unjust and cruel wars they wage, / And haste with flying
darts the death to meet or deal. / No right nor reason can they show; / 'Tis but because
their lands and laws are not the same. / Wouldst thou give each his due; then know / Thy
love the good must have, the bad thy pity claim. /

Prose V

On this I said: 'I see how there is a happiness and misery founded on the actual deserts
of the righteous and the wicked. Nevertheless, I wonder in myself whether there is not
some good and evil in fortune as the vulgar understand it. Surely, no sensible man would
rather be exiled, poor and disgraced, than dwell prosperously in his own country,
powerful, wealthy, and high in honour. Indeed, the work of wisdom is more clear and
manifest in its operation when the happiness of rulers is somehow passed on to the people
around them, especially considering that the prison, the law, and the other pains of legal
punishment are properly due only to mischievous citizens on whose account they were
originally instituted. Accordingly, I do exceedingly marvel why all this is completely
reversed—why the good are harassed with the penalties due to crime, and the bad carry off
the rewards of virtue; and I long to hear from thee what reason may be found for so unjust
a state of disorder. For assuredly I should wonder less if I could believe that all things
are the confused result of chance. But now my belief in God's governance doth add
amazement to amazement. For, seeing that He sometimes assigns fair fortune to the good and
harsh fortune to the bad, and then again deals harshly with the good, and grants to the
bad their hearts' desire, how does this differ from chance, unless some reason is
discovered for it all?'

'Nay; it is not wonderful,' said she, 'if all should be thought random and confused when
the principle of order is not known. And though thou knowest not the causes on which this
great system depends, yet forasmuch as a good ruler governs the world, doubt not for thy
part that all is rightly done.'

Song V: Wonder and Ignorance

Who knoweth not how near the pole / Bootes' course doth go, / Must marvel by what heavenly
law / He moves his Wain so slow; / Why late he plunges 'neath the main, / And swiftly
lights his beams again. / When the full-orbèd moon grows pale / In the mid course of
night, / And suddenly the stars shine forth / That languished in her light, / Th' astonied
nations stand at gaze, / And beat the air in wild amaze. / None marvels why upon the shore
/ The storm-lashed breakers beat, / Nor why the frost-bound glaciers melt / At summer's
fervent heat; / For here the cause seems plain and clear, / Only what's dark and hid we
fear. / Weak-minded folly magnifies / All that is rare and strange, / And the dull herd's
o'erwhelmed with awe / At unexpected change. / But wonder leaves enlightened minds, / When
ignorance no longer blinds. /

Prose VI

'True,' said I; 'but, since it is thy office to unfold the hidden cause of things, and
explain principles veiled in darkness, inform me, I pray thee, of thine own conclusions in
this matter, since the marvel of it is what more than aught else disturbs my mind.' A
smile played one moment upon her lips as she replied: 'Thou callest me to the greatest of
all subjects of inquiry, a task for which the most exhaustive treatment barely suffices.
Such is its nature that, as fast as one doubt is cut away, innumerable others spring up
like Hydra's heads, nor could we set any limit to their renewal did we not apply the
mind's living fire to suppress them. For there come within its scope the questions of the
essential simplicity of providence, of the order of fate, of unforeseen chance, of the
Divine knowledge and predestination, and of the freedom of the will. How heavy is the
weight of all this thou canst judge for thyself. But, inasmuch as to know these things
also is part of the treatment of thy malady, we will try to give them some consideration,
despite the restrictions of the narrow limits of our time. Moreover, thou must for a time
dispense with the pleasures of music and song, if so be that thou findest any delight
therein, whilst I weave together the connected train of reasons in proper order.'

'As thou wilt,' said I. Then, as if making a new beginning, she thus discoursed: 'The
coming into being of all things, the whole course of development in things that change,
every sort of thing that moves in any wise, receives its due cause, order, and form from
the steadfastness of the Divine mind. This mind, calm in the citadel of its own essential
simplicity, has decreed that the method of its rule shall be manifold. Viewed in the very
purity of the Divine intelligence, this method is called providence; but viewed in regard
to those things which it moves and disposes, it is what the ancients called fate. That
these two are different will easily be clear to anyone who passes in review their
respective efficacies. Providence is the Divine reason itself, seated in the Supreme
Being, which disposes all things; fate is the disposition inherent in all things which
move, through which providence joins all things in their proper order. Providence embraces
all things, however different, however infinite; fate sets in motion separately individual
things, and assigns to them severally their position, form, and time.

'So the unfolding of this temporal order unified into the foreview of the Divine mind is
providence, while the same unity broken up and unfolded in time is fate. And although
these are different, yet is there a dependence between them; for the order of destiny
issues from the essential simplicity of providence. For as the artificer, forming in his
mind beforehand the idea of the thing to be made, carries out his design, and develops
from moment to moment what he had before seen in a single instant as a whole, so God in
His providence ordains all things as parts of a single unchanging whole, but carries out
these very ordinances by fate in a time of manifold unity. So whether fate is accomplished
by Divine spirits as the ministers of providence, or by a soul, or by the service of all
nature—whether by the celestial motion of the stars, by the efficacy of angels, or by the
many-sided cunning of demons—whether by all or by some of these the destined series is
woven, this, at least, is manifest: that providence is the fixed and simple form of
destined events, fate their shifting series in order of time, as by the disposal of the
Divine simplicity they are to take place. Whereby it is that all things which are under
fate are subjected also to providence, on which fate itself is dependent;

whereas certain things which are set under providence are above the chain of fate—viz.,
those things which by their nearness to the primal Divinity are steadfastly fixed, and lie
outside the order of fate's movements. For as the innermost of several circles revolving
round the same centre approaches the simplicity of the midmost point, and is, as it were,
a pivot round which the exterior circles turn, while the outermost, whirled in ampler
orbit, takes in a wider and wider sweep of space in proportion to its departure from the
indivisible unity of the centre—while, further, whatever joins and allies itself to the
centre is narrowed to a like simplicity, and no longer expands vaguely into space—even so
whatsoever departs widely from primal mind is involved more deeply in the meshes of fate,
and things are free from fate in proportion as they seek to come nearer to that central
pivot; while if aught cleaves close to supreme mind in its absolute fixity, this, too,
being free from movement, rises above fate's necessity. Therefore, as is reasoning to pure
intelligence, as that which is generated to that which is, time to eternity, a circle to
its centre, so is the shifting series of fate to the steadfastness and simplicity of
providence.

'It is this causal series which moves heaven and the stars, attempers the elements to
mutual accord, and again in turn transforms them into new combinations; this which renews
the series of all things that are born and die through like successions of germ and birth;
it is its operation which binds the destinies of men by an indissoluble nexus of
causality, and, since it issues in the beginning from unalterable providence, these
destinies also must of necessity be immutable. Accordingly, the world is ruled for the
best if this unity abiding in the Divine mind puts forth an inflexible order of causes.
And this order, by its intrinsic immutability, restricts things mutable which otherwise
would ebb and flow at random. And so it happens that, although to you, who are not
altogether capable of understanding this order, all things seem confused and disordered,
nevertheless there is everywhere an appointed limit which guides all things to good.
Verily, nothing can be done for the sake of evil even by the wicked themselves; for, as we
abundantly proved, they seek good, but are drawn out of the way by perverse error; far
less can this order which sets out from the supreme centre of good turn aside anywhither
from the way in which it began.

'"Yet what confusion," thou wilt say, "can be more unrighteous than that prosperity and
adversity should indifferently befall the good, what they like and what they loathe come
alternately to the bad!" Yes; but have men in real life such soundness of mind that their
judgments of righteousness and wickedness must necessarily correspond with facts? Why, on
this very point their verdicts conflict, and those whom some deem worthy of reward, others
deem worthy of punishment. Yet granted there were one who could rightly distinguish the
good and bad, yet would he be able to look into the soul's inmost constitution, as it
were, if we may borrow an expression used of the body? The marvel here is not unlike that
which astonishes one who does not know why in health sweet things suit some constitutions,
and bitter others, or why some sick men are best alleviated by mild remedies, others by
severe. But the physician who distinguishes the precise conditions and characteristics of
health and sickness does not marvel. Now, the health of the soul is nothing but
righteousness, and vice is its sickness. God, the guide and physician of the mind, it is
who preserves the good and banishes the bad. And He looks forth from the lofty watch-tower
of His providence, perceives what is suited to each, and assigns what He knows to be
suitable.

'This, then, is what that extraordinary mystery of the order of destiny comes to—that
something is done by one who knows, whereat the ignorant are astonished. But let us
consider a few instances whereby appears what is the competency of human reason to fathom
the Divine unsearchableness. Here is one whom thou deemest the perfection of justice and
scrupulous integrity; to all-knowing Providence it seems far otherwise. We all know our
Lucan's admonition that it was the winning cause that found favour with the gods, the
beaten cause with Cato. So, shouldst thou see anything in this world happening differently
from thy expectation, doubt not but events are rightly ordered; it is in thy judgment that
there is perverse confusion. 'Grant, however, there be somewhere found one of so happy a
character that God and man alike agree in their judgments about him; yet is he somewhat
infirm in strength of mind. It may be, if he fall into adversity, he will cease to
practise that innocency which has failed to secure his fortune. Therefore, God's wise
dispensation spares him whom adversity might make worse, will not let him suffer who is
ill fitted for endurance. Another there is perfect in all virtue, so holy and nigh to God
that providence judges it unlawful that aught untoward should befall him; nay, doth not
even permit him to be afflicted with bodily disease. As one more excellent than I hath
said:

'"The very body of the holy saint / Is built of purest ether." / Often it happens that the
governance is given to the good that a restraint may be put upon superfluity of
wickedness. To others providence assigns some mixed lot suited to their spiritual nature;
some it will plague lest they grow rank through long prosperity; others it will suffer to
be vexed with sore afflictions to confirm their virtues by the exercise and practice of
patience. Some fear overmuch what they have strength to bear; others despise overmuch that
to which their strength is unequal. All these it brings to the test of their true self
through misfortune. Some also have bought a name revered to future ages at the price of a
glorious death; some by invincible constancy under their sufferings have afforded an
example to others that virtue cannot be overcome by calamity—all which things, without
doubt, come to pass rightly and in due order, and to the benefit of those to whom they are
seen to happen.

'As to the other side of the marvel, that the bad now meet with affliction, now get their
hearts' desire, this, too, springs from the same causes. As to the afflictions, of course
no one marvels, because all hold the wicked to be ill deserving. The truth is, their
punishments both frighten others from crime, and amend those on whom they are inflicted;
while their prosperity is a powerful sermon to the good, what judgments they ought to pass
on good fortune of this kind, which often attends the wicked so assiduously. 'There is
another object which may, I believe, be attained in such cases: there is one, perhaps,
whose nature is so reckless and violent that poverty would drive him more desperately into
crime. His disorder providence relieves by allowing him to amass money. Such a one, in the
uneasiness of a conscience stained with guilt, while he contrasts his character with his
fortune, perchance grows alarmed lest he should come to mourn the loss of that whose
possession is so pleasant to him. He will, then, reform his ways, and through the fear of
losing his fortune he forsakes his iniquity. Some, through a prosperity unworthily borne,
have been hurled headlong to ruin; to some the power of the sword has been committed, to
the end that the good may be tried by discipline, and the bad punished. For while there
can be no peace between the righteous and the wicked, neither can the wicked agree among
themselves. How should they, when each is at variance with himself, because his vices rend
his conscience, and ofttimes they do things which, when they are done, they judge ought
not to have been done. Hence it is that this supreme providence brings to pass this
notable marvel—that the bad make the bad good. For some, when they see the injustice which
they themselves suffer at the hands of evil-doers, are inflamed with detestation of the
offenders, and, in the endeavour to be unlike those whom they hate, return to the ways of
virtue. It is the Divine power alone to which things evil are also good, in that, by
putting them to suitable use, it bringeth them in the end to some good issue. For order in
some way or other embraceth all things, so that even that which has departed from the
appointed laws of the order, nevertheless falleth within an order, though another order,
that nothing in the realm of providence may be left to haphazard. But

'"Hard were the task, as a god, to recount all, nothing omitting." Nor, truly, is it
lawful for man to compass in thought all the mechanism of the Divine work, or set it forth
in speech. Let us be content to have apprehended this only—that God, the creator of
universal nature, likewise disposeth all things, and guides them to good; and while He
studies to preserve in likeness to Himself all that He has created, He banishes all evil
from the borders of His commonweal through the links of fatal necessity. Whereby it comes
to pass that, if thou look to disposing providence, thou wilt nowhere find the evils which
are believed so to abound on earth. 'But I see thou hast long been burdened with the
weight of the subject, and fatigued with the prolixity of the argument, and now lookest
for some refreshment of sweet poesy. Listen, then, and may the draught so restore thee
that thou wilt bend thy mind more resolutely to what remains.'

Song VI: The Universal Aim

Wouldst thou with unclouded mind / View the laws by God designed, / Lift thy steadfast
gaze on high / To the starry canopy; / See in rightful league of love / All the
constellations move. / Fiery Sol, in full career, / Ne'er obstructs cold Phoebe's sphere;
/ When the Bear, at heaven's height, / Wheels his coursers' rapid flight, / Though he sees
the starry train / Sinking in the western main, / He repines not, nor desires / In the
flood to quench his fires. / In true sequence, as decreed, / Daily morn and eve succeed; /
Vesper brings the shades of night, / Lucifer the morning light. / Love, in alternation
due, / Still the cycle doth renew, / And discordant strife is driven / From the starry
realm of heaven. / Thus, in wondrous amity, / Warring elements agree; / Hot and cold, and
moist and dry, / Lay their ancient quarrel by; / High the flickering flame ascends, /
Downward earth for ever tends. / So the year in spring's mild hours / Loads the air with
scent of flowers; / Summer paints the golden grain; / Then, when autumn comes again, /
Bright with fruit the orchards glow; / Winter brings the rain and snow. / Thus the
seasons' fixed progression, / Tempered in a due succession, / Nourishes and brings to
birth / All that lives and breathes on earth. / Then, soon run life's little day, / All it
brought it takes away. / But One sits and guides the reins, / He who made and all
sustains; / King and Lord and Fountain-head, / Judge most holy, Law most dread; / Now
impels and now keeps back, / Holds each waverer in the track. / Else, were once the power
withheld / That the circling spheres compelled / In their orbits to revolve, / This
world's order would dissolve, / And th' harmonious whole would all / In one hideous ruin
fall. / But through this connected frame / Runs one universal aim; / Towards the Good do
all things tend, / Many paths, but one the end. / For naught lasts, unless it turns /
Backward in its course, and yearns / To that Source to flow again / Whence its being first
was ta'en. /

Prose VII

'Dost thou, then, see the consequence of all that we have said?' 'Nay; what consequence?'
'That absolutely every fortune is good fortune.' 'And how can that be?' said I. 'Attend,'
said she. 'Since every fortune, welcome and unwelcome alike, has for its object the reward
or trial of the good, and the punishing or amending of the bad, every fortune must be
good, since it is either just or useful.' 'The reasoning is exceeding true,' said I, 'the
conclusion, so long as I reflect upon the providence and fate of which thou hast taught
me, based on a strong foundation. Yet, with thy leave, we will count it among those which
just now thou didst set down as paradoxical.' 'And why so?' said she. 'Because ordinary
speech is apt to assert, and that frequently, that some men's fortune is bad.' 'Shall we,
then, for awhile approach more nearly to the language of the vulgar, that we may not seem
to have departed too far from the usages of men?'

'At thy good pleasure,' said I. 'That which advantageth thou callest good, dost thou not?'
'Certainly.' 'And that which either tries or amends advantageth?' 'Granted.' 'Is good,
then?' 'Of course.' 'Well, this is their case who have attained virtue and wage war with
adversity, or turn from vice and lay hold on the path of virtue.' 'I cannot deny it.'
'What of the good fortune which is given as reward of the good—do the vulgar adjudge it
bad?' 'Anything but that; they deem it to be the best, as indeed it is.' 'What, then, of
that which remains, which, though it is harsh, puts the restraint of just punishment on
the bad—does popular opinion deem it good?' 'Nay; of all that can be imagined, it is
accounted the most miserable.' 'Observe, then, if, in following popular opinion, we have
not ended in a conclusion quite paradoxical.' 'How so?' said I.

'Why, it results from our admissions that of all who have attained, or are advancing in,
or are aiming at virtue, the fortune is in every case good, while for those who remain in
their wickedness fortune is always utterly bad.' 'It is true,' said I; 'yet no one dare
acknowledge it.' 'Wherefore,' said she, 'the wise man ought not to take it ill, if ever he
is involved in one of fortune's conflicts, any more than it becomes a brave soldier to be
offended when at any time the trumpet sounds for battle. The time of trial is the express
opportunity for the one to win glory, for the other to perfect his wisdom. Hence, indeed,
virtue gets its name, because, relying on its own efficacy, it yieldeth not to adversity.
And ye who have taken your stand on virtue's steep ascent, it is not for you to be
dissolved in delights or enfeebled by pleasure; ye close in conflict—yea, in conflict most
sharp—with all fortune's vicissitudes, lest ye suffer foul fortune to overwhelm or fair
fortune to corrupt you. Hold the mean with all your strength. Whatever falls short of
this, or goes beyond, is fraught with scorn of happiness, and misses the reward of toil.
It rests with you to make your fortune what you will. Verily, every harsh-seeming fortune,
unless it either disciplines or amends, is punishment.'

Song VII: The Hero's Path

Ten years a tedious warfare raged, / Ere Ilium's smoking ruins paid / For wedlock stained
and faith betrayed, / And great Atrides' wrath assuaged. / But when heaven's anger asked a
life, / And baffling winds his course withstood, / The king put off his fatherhood, / And
slew his child with priestly knife. / When by the cavern's glimmering light / His comrades
dear Odysseus saw / In the huge Cyclops' hideous maw / Engulfed, he wept the piteous
sight. / But blinded soon, and wild with pain— / In bitter tears and sore annoy— / For
that foul feast's unholy joy / Grim Polyphemus paid again. / His labours for Alcides win /
A name of glory far and wide; / He tamed the Centaur's haughty pride, / And from the lion
reft his skin. / The foul birds with sure darts he slew; / The golden fruit he stole—in
vain / The dragon's watch; with triple chain / From hell's depths Cerberus he drew. / With
their fierce lord's own flesh he fed / The wild steeds; Hydra overcame / With fire. 'Neath
his own waves in shame / Maimed Achelous hid his head. / Huge Cacus for his crimes was
slain; / On Libya's sands Antæus hurled; / The shoulders that upheld the world / The great
boar's dribbled spume did stain. / Last toil of all—his might sustained / The ball of
heaven, nor did he bend / Beneath; this toil, his labour's end, / The prize of heaven's
high glory gained. / Brave hearts, press on! Lo, heavenward lead / These bright examples!
From the fight / Turn not your backs in coward flight; / Earth's conflict won, the stars
your meed! /

SUMMARY. CH. I. Boethius asks if there is really any such thing as chance. Philosophy
answers, in conformity with Aristotle's definition (Phys., II. iv.), that chance is merely
relative to human purpose, and that what seems fortuitous really depends on a more subtle
form of causation.—CH. II. Has man, then, any freedom, if the reign of law is thus
absolute? Freedom of choice, replies Philosophy, is a necessary attribute of reason. Man
has a measure of freedom, though a less perfect freedom than divine natures.—CH. III. But
how can man's freedom be reconciled with God's absolute foreknowledge? If God's
foreknowledge be certain, it seems to exclude the possibility of man's free will. But if
man has no freedom of choice, it follows that rewards and punishments are unjust as well
as useless; that merit and demerit are mere names; that God is the cause of men's
wickednesses; that prayer is meaningless.—CH. IV. The explanation is that man's reasoning
faculties are not adequate to the apprehension of the ways of God's foreknowledge. If we
could know, as He knows, all that is most perplexing in this problem would be made plain.
For knowledge depends not on the nature of the thing known, but on the faculty of the
knower.—CH. V. Now, where our senses conflict with our reason, we defer the judgment of
the lower faculty to the judgment of the higher. Our present perplexity arises from our
viewing God's foreknowledge from the standpoint of human reason. We must try and rise to
the higher standpoint of God's immediate intuition.—CH. VI.

To understand this higher form of cognition, we must consider God's nature. God is
eternal. Eternity is more than mere everlasting duration. Accordingly, His knowledge
surveys past and future in the timelessness of an eternal present. His foreseeing is
seeing. Yet this foreseeing does not in itself impose necessity, any more than our seeing
things happen makes their happening necessary. We may, however, if we please, distinguish
two necessities—one absolute, the other conditional on knowledge. In this conditional
sense alone do the things which God foresees necessarily come to pass. But this kind of
necessity affects not the nature of things. It leaves the reality of free will unimpaired,
and the evils feared do not ensue. Our responsibility is great, since all that we do is
done in the sight of all-seeing Providence.


THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
=============================

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY continued

BOOK V

Prose I

She ceased, and was about to pass on in her discourse to the exposition of other matters,
when I break in and say: 'Excellent is thine exhortation, and such as well beseemeth thy
high authority; but I am even now experiencing one of the many difficulties which, as thou
saidst but now, beset the question of providence. I want to know whether thou deemest that
there is any such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what it is.' Then she made answer:
'I am anxious to fulfil my promise completely, and open to thee a way of return to thy
native land. As for these matters, though very useful to know, they are yet a little
removed from the path of our design, and I fear lest digressions should fatigue thee, and
thou shouldst find thyself unequal to completing the direct journey to our goal.' 'Have no
fear for that,' said I. 'It is rest to me to learn, where learning brings delight so
exquisite, especially when thy argument has been built up on all sides with undoubted
conviction, and no place is left for uncertainty in what follows.'

She made answer: 'I will accede to thy request;' and forthwith she thus began: 'If chance
be defined as a result produced by random movement without any link of causal connection,
I roundly affirm that there is no such thing as chance at all, and consider the word to be
altogether without meaning, except as a symbol of the thing designated. What place can be
left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order? For "ex nihilo nihil"
is sound doctrine which none of the ancients gainsaid, although they used it of material
substance, not of the efficient principle; this they laid down as a kind of basis for all
their reasonings concerning nature. Now, if a thing arise without causes, it will appear
to have arisen from nothing. But if this cannot be, neither is it possible for there to be
chance in accordance with the definition just given.'

'Well,' said I, 'is there, then, nothing which can properly be called chance or accident,
or is there something to which these names are appropriate, though its nature is dark to
the vulgar?' 'Our good Aristotle,' says she, 'has defined it concisely in his "Physics,"
and closely in accordance with the truth.' 'How, pray?' said I. 'Thus,' says she:
'Whenever something is done for the sake of a particular end, and for certain reasons some
other result than that designed ensues, this is called chance; for instance, if a man is
digging the earth for tillage, and finds a mass of buried gold. Now, such a find is
regarded as accidental; yet it is not "ex nihilo," for it has its proper causes, the
unforeseen and unexpected concurrence of which has brought the chance about. For had not
the cultivator been digging, had not the man who hid the money buried it in that precise
spot, the gold would not have been found. These, then, are the reasons why the find is a
chance one, in that it results from causes which met together and concurred, not from any
intention on the part of the discoverer. Since neither he who buried the gold nor he who
worked in the field intended that the money should be found, but, as I said, it happened
by coincidence that one dug where the other buried the treasure. We may, then, define
chance as being an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where the
several factors had some definite end. But the meeting and concurrence of these causes
arises from that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountain-head of
Providence, disposes all things in their due time and place.'

Song I: Chance

In the rugged Persian highlands, / Where the masters of the bow / Skill to feign a flight,
and, fleeing, / Hurl their darts and pierce the foe; / There the Tigris and Euphrates / At
one source their waters blend, / Soon to draw apart, and plainward / Each its separate way
to wend. / When once more their waters mingle / In a channel deep and wide, / All the
flotsam comes together / That is borne upon the tide: / Ships, and trunks of trees,
uprooted / In the torrent's wild career, / Meet, as 'mid the swirling waters / Chance
their random way may steer. / Yet the shelving of the channel / And the flowing water's
force / Guides each movement, and determines / Every floating fragment's course. / Thus,
where'er the drift of hazard / Seems most unrestrained to flow, / Chance herself is reined
and bitted, / And the curb of law doth know. /

Prose II

'I am following needfully,' said I, 'and I agree that it is as thou sayest. But in this
series of linked causes is there any freedom left to our will, or does the chain of fate
bind also the very motions of our souls?' 'There is freedom,' said she; 'nor, indeed, can
any creature be rational, unless he be endowed with free will. For that which hath the
natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of itself
distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone seeks what he judges
desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be shunned. Wherefore, beings endowed with
reason possess also the faculty of free choice and refusal. But I suppose this faculty not
equal alike in all. The higher Divine essences possess a clear-sighted judgment, an
uncorrupt will, and an effective power of accomplishing their wishes. Human souls must
needs be comparatively free while they abide in the contemplation of the Divine mind, less
free when they pass into bodily form, and still less, again, when they are enwrapped in
earthly members. But when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of
their proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. For when they let their
gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the lower world where darkness reigns, soon
ignorance blinds their vision; they are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and
assenting to which they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and are in
a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. Yet He who seeth all things from
eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of His providence, and assigneth to each
what is predestined for it by its merits:

'"All things surveying, all things overhearing."'

Song II: The True Sun

Homer with mellifluous tongue / Phœbus' glorious light hath sung, / Hymning high his
praise; / Yet his feeble rays / Ocean's hollows may not brighten, / Nor earth's central
gloom enlighten. / But the might of Him, who skilled / This great universe to build, / Is
not thus confined; / Not earth's solid rind, / Nor night's blackest canopy, / Baffle His
all-seeing eye. / All that is, hath been, shall be, / In one glance's compass, He /
Limitless descries; / And, save His, no eyes / All the world survey—no, none! / Him, then,
truly name the Sun. /

Prose III

Then said I: 'But now I am once more perplexed by a problem yet more difficult.' 'And what
is that?' said she; 'yet, in truth, I can guess what it is that troubles you.' 'It seems,'
said I, 'too much of a paradox and a contradiction that God should know all things, and
yet there should be free will. For if God foresees everything, and can in no wise be
deceived, that which providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to
pass. Wherefore, if from eternity He foreknows not only what men will do, but also their
designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will, seeing that nothing can be
done, nor can any sort of purpose be entertained, save such as a Divine providence,
incapable of being deceived, has perceived beforehand. For if the issues can be turned
aside to some other end than that foreseen by providence, there will not then be any sure
foreknowledge of the future, but uncertain conjecture instead, and to think this of God I
deem impiety.

'Moreover, I do not approve the reasoning by which some think to solve this puzzle. For
they say that it is not because God has foreseen the coming of an event that therefore it
is sure to come to pass, but, conversely, because something is about to come to pass, it
cannot be hidden from Divine providence; and accordingly the necessity passes to the
opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily come to pass, but that
what is about to come to pass must necessarily be foreseen. But this is just as if the
matter in debate were, which is cause and which effect—whether foreknowledge of the future
cause of the necessity, or the necessity of the future of the foreknowledge. But we need
not be at the pains of demonstrating that, whatsoever be the order of the causal sequence,
the occurrence of things foreseen is necessary, even though the foreknowledge of future
events does not in itself impose upon them the necessity of their occurrence. For example,
if a man be seated, the supposition of his being seated is necessarily true; and,
conversely, if the supposition of his being seated is true, because he is really seated,
he must necessarily be sitting. So, in either case, there is some necessity involved—in
this latter case, the necessity of the fact; in the former, of the truth of the statement.

But in both cases the sitter is not therefore seated because the opinion is true, but
rather the opinion is true because antecedently he was sitting as a matter of fact. Thus,
though the cause of the truth of the opinion comes from the other side, yet there is a
necessity on both sides alike. We can obviously reason similarly in the case of providence
and the future. Even if future events are foreseen because they are about to happen, and
do not come to pass because they are foreseen, still, all the same, there is a necessity,
both that they should be foreseen by God as about to come to pass, and that when they are
foreseen they should happen, and this is sufficient for the destruction of free will.
However, it is preposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause of
eternal foreknowledge. And yet if we believe that God foresees future events because they
are about to come to pass, what is it but to think that the occurrence of events is the
cause of His supreme providence? Further, just as when I know that anything is, that thing
necessarily is, so when I know that anything will be, it will necessarily be. It follows,
then, that things foreknown come to pass inevitably.

'Lastly, to think of a thing as being in any way other than what it is, is not only not
knowledge, but it is false opinion widely different from the truth of knowledge.
Consequently, if anything is about to be, and yet its occurrence is not certain and
necessary, how can anyone foreknow that it will occur? For just as knowledge itself is
free from all admixture of falsity, so any conception drawn from knowledge cannot be other
than as it is conceived. For this, indeed, is the cause why knowledge is free from
falsehood, because of necessity each thing must correspond exactly with the knowledge
which grasps its nature. In what way, then, are we to suppose that God foreknows these
uncertainties as about to come to pass? For if He thinks of events which possibly may not
happen at all as inevitably destined to come to pass, He is deceived; and this it is not
only impious to believe, but even so much as to express in words. If, on the other hand,
He sees them in the future as they are in such a sense as to know that they may equally
come to pass or not, what sort of foreknowledge is this which comprehends nothing certain
nor fixed? What better is this than the absurd vaticination of Teiresias?

'"Whate'er I say / Shall either come to pass—or not." / In that case, too, in what would
Divine providence surpass human opinion if it holds for uncertain things the occurrence of
which is uncertain, even as men do? But if at that perfectly sure Fountain-head of all
things no shadow of uncertainty can possibly be found, then the occurrence of those things
which He has surely foreknown as coming is certain. Wherefore there can be no freedom in
human actions and designs; but the Divine mind, which foresees all things without
possibility of mistake, ties and binds them down to one only issue. But this admission
once made, what an upset of human affairs manifestly ensues! Vainly are rewards and
punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and voluntary motion of the will
has deserved either one or the other; nay, the punishment of the wicked and the reward of
the righteous, which is now esteemed the perfection of justice, will seem the most
flagrant injustice, since men are determined either way not by their own proper volition,
but by the necessity of what must surely be. And therefore neither virtue nor vice is
anything, but rather good and ill desert are confounded together without distinction.
Moreover, seeing that the whole course of events is deduced from providence, and nothing
is left free to human design, it comes to pass that our vices also are referred to the
Author of all good—a thought than which none more abominable can possibly be conceived.

Again, no ground is left for hope or prayer, since how can we hope for blessings, or pray
for mercy, when every object of desire depends upon the links of an unalterable chain of
causation? Gone, then, is the one means of intercourse between God and man—the communion
of hope and prayer—if it be true that we ever earn the inestimable recompense of the
Divine favour at the price of a due humility; for this is the one way whereby men seem
able to hold communion with God, and are joined to that unapproachable light by the very
act of supplication, even before they obtain their petitions. Then, since these things can
scarcely be believed to have any efficacy, if the necessity of future events be admitted,
what means will there be whereby we may be brought near and cleave to Him who is the
supreme Head of all? Wherefore it needs must be that the human race, even as thou didst
erstwhile declare in song, parted and dissevered from its Source, should fall to ruin.'

Song III: Truth's Paradoxes

Why does a strange discordance break / The ordered scheme's fair harmony? / Hath God
decreed 'twixt truth and truth / There may such lasting warfare be, / That truths, each
severally plain, / We strive to reconcile in vain? / Or is the discord not in truth, /
Since truth is self consistent ever? / But, close in fleshly wrappings held, / The blinded
mind of man can never / Discern—so faint her taper shines— / The subtle chain that all
combines? / Ah! then why burns man's restless mind / Truth's hidden portals to unclose? /
Knows he already what he seeks? / Why toil to seek it, if he knows? / Yet, haply if he
knoweth not, / Why blindly seek he knows not what? / Who for a good he knows not sighs? /
Who can an unknown end pursue? / How find? How e'en when haply found / Hail that strange
form he never knew? / Or is it that man's inmost soul / Once knew each part and knew the
whole? / Now, though by fleshly vapours dimmed, / Not all forgot her visions past; / For
while the several parts are lost, / To the one whole she cleaveth fast; / Whence he who
yearns the truth to find / Is neither sound of sight nor blind. / For neither does he know
in full, / Nor is he reft of knowledge quite; / But, holding still to what is left, / He
gropes in the uncertain light, / And by the part that still survives / To win back all he
bravely strives. /

Prose IV

Then said she: 'This debate about providence is an old one, and is vigorously discussed by
Cicero in his "Divination"; thou also hast long and earnestly pondered the problem, yet no
one has had diligence and perseverance enough to find a solution. And the reason of this
obscurity is that the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity of the
Divine foreknowledge; for if a conception of its nature could in any wise be framed, no
shadow of uncertainty would remain. With a view of making this at last clear and plain, I
will begin by considering the arguments by which thou art swayed. First, I inquire into
the reasons why thou art dissatisfied with the solution proposed, which is to the effect
that, seeing the fact of foreknowledge is not thought the cause of the necessity of future
events, foreknowledge is not to be deemed any hindrance to the freedom of the will. Now,
surely the sole ground on which thou arguest the necessity of the future is that things
which are foreknown cannot fail to come to pass. But if, as thou wert ready to acknowledge
just now, the fact of foreknowledge imposes no necessity on things future, what reason is
there for supposing the results of voluntary action constrained to a fixed issue? Suppose,
for the sake of argument, and to see what follows, we assume that there is no
foreknowledge. Are willed actions, then, tied down to any necessity in this case?'

'Certainly not.' 'Let us assume foreknowledge again, but without its involving any actual
necessity; the freedom of the will, I imagine, will remain in complete integrity. But thou
wilt say that, even although the foreknowledge is not the necessity of the future event's
occurrence, yet it is a sign that it will necessarily happen. Granted; but in this case it
is plain that, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the issues would have been
inevitably certain. For a sign only indicates something which is, does not bring to pass
that of which it is the sign. We require to show beforehand that all things, without
exception, happen of necessity in order that a preconception may be a sign of this
necessity. Otherwise, if there is no such universal necessity, neither can any
preconception be a sign of a necessity which exists not. Manifestly, too, a proof
established on firm grounds of reason must be drawn not from signs and loose general
arguments, but from suitable and necessary causes. But how can it be that things foreseen
should ever fail to come to pass? Why, this is to suppose us to believe that the events
which providence foresees to be coming were not about to happen, instead of our supposing
that, although they should come to pass, yet there was no necessity involved in their own
nature compelling their occurrence. Take an illustration that will help to convey my
meaning. There are many things which we see taking place before our eyes—the movements of
charioteers, for instance, in guiding and turning their cars, and so on. Now, is any one
of these movements compelled by any necessity?'

'No; certainly not. There would be no efficacy in skill if all motions took place
perforce.' 'Then, things which in taking place are free from any necessity as to their
being in the present must also, before they take place, be about to happen without
necessity. Wherefore there are things which will come to pass, the occurrence of which is
perfectly free from necessity. At all events, I imagine that no one will deny that things
now taking place were about to come to pass before they were actually happening. Such
things, however much foreknown, are in their occurrence free. For even as knowledge of
things present imports no necessity into things that are taking place, so foreknowledge of
the future imports none into things that are about to come. But this, thou wilt say, is
the very point in dispute—whether any foreknowing is possible of things whose occurrence
is not necessary. For here there seems to thee a contradiction, and, if they are foreseen,
their necessity follows; whereas if there is no necessity, they can by no means be
foreknown; and thou thinkest that nothing can be grasped as known unless it is certain,
but if things whose occurrence is uncertain are foreknown as certain, this is the very
mist of opinion, not the truth of knowledge. For to think of things otherwise than as they
are, thou believest to be incompatible with the soundness of knowledge.

'Now, the cause of the mistake is this—that men think that all knowledge is cognized
purely by the nature and efficacy of the thing known. Whereas the case is the very
reverse: all that is known is grasped not conformably to its own efficacy, but rather
conformably to the faculty of the knower. An example will make this clear: the roundness
of a body is recognised in one way by sight, in another by touch. Sight looks upon it from
a distance as a whole by a simultaneous reflection of rays; touch grasps the roundness
piecemeal, by contact and attachment to the surface, and by actual movement round the
periphery itself. Man himself, likewise, is viewed in one way by Sense, in another by
Imagination, in another way, again, by Thought, in another by pure Intelligence. Sense
judges figure clothed in material substance, Imagination figure alone without matter.
Thought transcends this again, and by its contemplation of universals considers the type
itself which is contained in the individual. The eye of Intelligence is yet more exalted;
for overpassing the sphere of the universal, it will behold absolute form itself by the
pure force of the mind's vision. Wherein the main point to be considered is this: the
higher faculty of comprehension embraces the lower, while the lower cannot rise to the
higher. For Sense has no efficacy beyond matter, nor can Imagination behold universal
ideas, nor Thought embrace pure form;

but Intelligence, looking down, as it were, from its higher standpoint in its intuition of
form, discriminates also the several elements which underlie it; but it comprehends them
in the same way as it comprehends that form itself, which could be cognized by no other
than itself. For it cognizes the universal of Thought, the figure of Imagination, and the
matter of Sense, without employing Thought, Imagination, or Sense, but surveying all
things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash of intuition. Thought
also, in considering the universal, embraces images and sense-impressions without
resorting to Imagination or Sense. For it is Thought which has thus defined the universal
from its conceptual point of view: "Man is a two-legged animal endowed with reason. This
is indeed a universal notion, yet no one is ignorant that the thing is imaginable and
presentable to Sense, because Thought considers it not by Imagination or Sense, but by
means of rational conception. Imagination, too, though its faculty of viewing and forming
representations is founded upon the senses, nevertheless surveys sense-impressions without
calling in Sense, not in the way of Sense-perception, but of Imagination. See'st thou,
then, how all things in cognizing use rather their own faculty than the faculty of the
things which they cognize? Nor is this strange; for since every judgment is the act of the
judge, it is necessary that each should accomplish its task by its own, not by another's
power.'

Song IV: A Psychological Fallacy

From the Porch's murky depths / Comes a doctrine sage, / That doth liken living mind / To
a written page; / Since all knowledge comes through / Sense, / Graven by Experience. /
'As,' say they, 'the pen its marks / Curiously doth trace / On the smooth unsullied white
/ Of the paper's face, / So do outer things impress / Images on consciousness.' / But if
verily the mind / Thus all passive lies; / If no living power within / Its own force
supplies; / If it but reflect again, / Like a glass, things false and vain— / Whence the
wondrous faculty / That perceives and knows, / That in one fair ordered scheme / Doth the
world dispose; / Grasps each whole that Sense presents, / Or breaks into elements? / So
divides and recombines, / And in changeful wise / Now to low descends, and now / To the
height doth rise; / Last in inward swift review / Strictly sifts the false and true? / Of
these ample potencies / Fitter cause, I ween, / Were Mind's self than marks impressed / By
the outer scene. / Yet the body through the sense / Stirs the soul's intelligence. / When
light flashes on the eye, / Or sound strikes the ear, / Mind aroused to due response /
Makes the message clear; / And the dumb external signs / With the hidden forms combines. /

Prose V

'Now, although in the case of bodies endowed with sentiency the qualities of external
objects affect the sense-organs, and the activity of mind is preceded by a bodily
affection which calls forth the mind's action upon itself, and stimulates the forms till
that moment lying inactive within, yet, I say, if in these bodies endowed with sentiency
the mind is not inscribed by mere passive affection, but of its own efficacy discriminates
the impressions furnished to the body, how much more do intelligences free from all bodily
affections employ in their discrimination their own mental activities instead of
conforming to external objects? So on these principles various modes of cognition belong
to distinct and different substances. For to creatures void of motive power—shell-fish and
other such creatures which cling to rocks and grow there—belongs Sense alone, void of all
other modes of gaining knowledge; to beasts endowed with movement, in whom some capacity
of seeking and shunning seems to have arisen, Imagination also. Thought pertains only to
the human race, as Intelligence to Divinity alone; hence it follows that that form of
knowledge exceeds the rest which of its own nature cognizes not only its proper object,
but the objects of the other forms of knowledge also. But what if Sense and Imagination
were to gainsay Thought, and declare that universal which Thought deems itself to behold
to be nothing? For the object of Sense and Imagination cannot be universal;

so that either the judgment of Reason is true and there is no sense-object, or, since they
know full well that many objects are presented to Sense and Imagination, the conception of
Reason, which looks on that which is perceived by Sense and particular as if it were a
something "universal," is empty of content. Suppose, further, that Reason maintains in
reply that it does indeed contemplate the object of both Sense and Imagination under the
form of universality, while Sense and Imagination cannot aspire to the knowledge of the
universal, since their cognizance cannot go beyond bodily figures, and that in the
cognition of reality we ought rather to trust the stronger and more perfect faculty of
judgment. In a dispute of this sort, should not we, in whom is planted the faculty of
reasoning as well as of imagining and perceiving, espouse the cause of Reason? 'In like
manner is it that human reason thinks that Divine Intelligence cannot see the future
except after the fashion in which its own knowledge is obtained. For thy contention is, if
events do not appear to involve certain and necessary issues, they cannot be foreseen as
certainly about to come to pass. There is, then, no foreknowledge of such events; or, if
we can ever bring ourselves to believe that there is, there can be nothing which does not
happen of necessity. If, however, we could have some part in the judgment of the Divine
mind, even as we participate in Reason, we should think it perfectly just that human
Reason should submit itself to the Divine mind, no less than we judged that Imagination
and Sense ought to yield to Reason. Wherefore let us soar, if we can, to the heights of
that Supreme Intelligence; for there Reason will see what in itself it cannot look upon;
and that is in what way things whose occurrence is not certain may yet be seen in a sure
and definite foreknowledge; and that this foreknowledge is not conjecture, but rather
knowledge in its supreme simplicity, free of all limits and restrictions.'

Song V: The Upward Look

In what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small / Over wide earth's
teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl! / Some with elongated body sweep the
ground, and, as they move, / Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous
groove; / Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide, / And through
heaven's ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide; / These earth's solid surface
pressing, with firm paces onward rove, / Ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in
the woodland grove. / Great and wondrous is their variance! Yet in all the head low-bent /
Dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different. / Man alone, erect,
aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies, / And in upright posture steadfast seems
earth's baseness to despise. / If with earth not all besotted, to this parable give ear, /
Thou whose gaze is fixed on heaven, who thy face on high dost rear: / Lift thy soul, too,
heavenward; haply lest it stain its heavenly worth, / And thine eyes alone look upward,
while thy mind cleaves to the earth! /

Prose VI

'Since, then, as we lately proved, everything that is known is cognized not in accordance
with its own nature, but in accordance with the nature of the faculty that comprehends it,
let us now contemplate, as far as lawful, the character of the Divine essence, that we may
be able to understand also the nature of its knowledge. 'God is eternal; in this judgment
all rational beings agree. Let us, then, consider what eternity is. For this word carries
with it a revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now, eternity
is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment. What this is
becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison with things temporal. For whatever lives
in time is a present proceeding from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in
time which can embrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow's state it grasps
not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the life of to-day ye live no
longer than one brief transitory moment. Whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition
of time, although, as Aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or
end, and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet is not such
as rightly to be thought eternal. For it does not include and embrace the whole space of
infinite life at once, but has no present hold on things to come, not yet accomplished.
Accordingly, that which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once,
from which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped, this is rightly
called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present to itself in full self-possession,
and hold the infinity of movable time in an abiding present.

Wherefore they deem not rightly who imagine that on Plato's principles the created world
is made co-eternal with the Creator, because they are told that he believed the world to
have had no beginning in time, and to be destined never to come to an end. For it is one
thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged, which was what Plato ascribed to the world,
another for the whole of an endless life to be embraced in the present, which is
manifestly a property peculiar to the Divine mind. Nor need God appear earlier in mere
duration of time to created things, but only prior in the unique simplicity of His nature.
For the infinite progression of things in time copies this immediate existence in the
present of the changeless life, and when it cannot succeed in equalling it, declines from
movelessness into motion, and falls away from the simplicity of a perpetual present to the
infinite duration of the future and the past; and since it cannot possess the whole
fulness of its life together, for the very reason that in a manner it never ceases to be,
it seems, up to a certain point, to rival that which it cannot complete and express by
attaching itself indifferently to any present moment of time, however swift and brief; and
since this bears some resemblance to that ever-abiding present, it bestows on everything
to which it is assigned the semblance of existence.

But since it cannot abide, it hurries along the infinite path of time, and the result has
been that it continues by ceaseless movement the life the completeness of which it could
not embrace while it stood still. So, if we are minded to give things their right names,
we shall follow Plato in saying that God indeed is eternal, but the world everlasting.
'Since, then, every mode of judgment comprehends its objects conformably to its own
nature, and since God abides for ever in an eternal present, His knowledge, also
transcending all movement of time, dwells in the simplicity of its own changeless present,
and, embracing the whole infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all
that falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. And therefore, if
thou wilt carefully consider that immediate presentment whereby it discriminates all
things, thou wilt more rightly deem it not foreknowledge as of something future, but
knowledge of a moment that never passes. For this cause the name chosen to describe it is
not prevision, but providence, because, since utterly removed in nature from things mean
and trivial, its outlook embraces all things as from some lofty height. Why, then, dost
thou insist that the things which are surveyed by the Divine eye are involved in
necessity, whereas clearly men impose no necessity on things which they see? Does the act
of vision add any necessity to the things which thou seest before thy eyes?'

'Assuredly not.' 'And yet, if we may without unfitness compare God's present and man's,
just as ye see certain things in this your temporary present, so does He see all things in
His eternal present. Wherefore this Divine anticipation changes not the natures and
properties of things, and it beholds things present before it, just as they will hereafter
come to pass in time. Nor does it confound things in its judgment, but in the one mental
view distinguishes alike what will come necessarily and what without necessity. For even
as ye, when at one and the same time ye see a man walking on the earth and the sun rising
in the sky, distinguish between the two, though one glance embraces both, and judge the
former voluntary, the latter necessary action: so also the Divine vision in its universal
range of view does in no wise confuse the characters of the things which are present to
its regard, though future in respect of time. Whence it follows that when it perceives
that something will come into existence, and yet is perfectly aware that this is unbound
by any necessity, its apprehension is not opinion, but rather knowledge based on truth.

And if to this thou sayest that what God sees to be about to come to pass cannot fail to
come to pass, and that what cannot fail to come to pass happens of necessity, and wilt tie
me down to this word necessity, I will acknowledge that thou affirmest a most solid truth,
but one which scarcely anyone can approach to who has not made the Divine his special
study. For my answer would be that the same future event is necessary from the standpoint
of Divine knowledge, but when considered in its own nature it seems absolutely free and
unfettered. So, then, there are two necessities—one simple, as that men are necessarily
mortal; the other conditioned, as that, if you know that someone is walking, he must
necessarily be walking. For that which is known cannot indeed be otherwise than as it is
known to be, and yet this fact by no means carries with it that other simple necessity.
For the former necessity is not imposed by the thing's own proper nature, but by the
addition of a condition. No necessity compels one who is voluntarily walking to go
forward, although it is necessary for him to go forward at the moment of walking. In the
same way, then, if Providence sees anything as present, that must necessarily be, though
it is bound by no necessity of nature. Now, God views as present those coming events which
happen of free will.

These, accordingly, from the standpoint of the Divine vision are made necessary
conditionally on the Divine cognizance; viewed, however, in themselves, they desist not
from the absolute freedom naturally theirs. Accordingly, without doubt, all things will
come to pass which God foreknows as about to happen, but of these certain proceed of free
will; and though these happen, yet by the fact of their existence they do not lose their
proper nature, in virtue of which before they happened it was really possible that they
might not have come to pass. 'What difference, then, does the denial of necessity make,
since, through their being conditioned by Divine knowledge, they come to pass as if they
were in all respects under the compulsion of necessity? This difference, surely, which we
saw in the case of the instances I formerly took, the sun's rising and the man's walking;
which at the moment of their occurrence could not but be taking place, and yet one of them
before it took place was necessarily obliged to be, while the other was not so at all. So
likewise the things which to God are present without doubt exist, but some of them come
from the necessity of things, others from the power of the agent. Quite rightly, then,
have we said that these things are necessary if viewed from the standpoint of the Divine
knowledge; but if they are considered in themselves, they are free from the bonds of
necessity, even as everything which is accessible to sense, regarded from the standpoint
of Thought, is universal, but viewed in its own nature particular. "But," thou wilt say,
"if it is in my power to change my purpose, I shall make void providence, since I shall
perchance change something which comes within its foreknowledge." My answer is: Thou canst
indeed turn aside thy purpose; but since the truth of providence is ever at hand to see
that thou canst, and whether thou dost, and whither thou turnest thyself, thou canst not
avoid the Divine foreknowledge, even as thou canst not escape the sight of a present
spectator, although of thy free will thou turn thyself to various actions. Wilt thou,
then, say: "Shall the Divine knowledge be changed at my discretion, so that, when I will
this or that, providence changes its knowledge correspondingly?"

'Surely not.' 'True, for the Divine vision anticipates all that is coming, and transforms
and reduces it to the form of its own present knowledge, and varies not, as thou deemest,
in its foreknowledge, alternating to this or that, but in a single flash it forestalls and
includes thy mutations without altering. And this ever-present comprehension and survey of
all things God has received, not from the issue of future events, but from the simplicity
of His own nature. Hereby also is resolved the objection which a little while ago gave
thee offence—that our doings in the future were spoken of as if supplying the cause of
God's knowledge. For this faculty of knowledge, embracing all things in its immediate
cognizance, has itself fixed the bounds of all things, yet itself owes nothing to what
comes after. 'And all this being so, the freedom of man's will stands unshaken, and laws
are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments are held forth to wills unbound
by any necessity. God, who foreknoweth all things, still looks down from above, and the
ever-present eternity of His vision concurs with the future character of all our acts, and
dispenseth to the good rewards, to the bad punishments. Our hopes and prayers also are not
fixed on God in vain, and when they are rightly directed cannot fail of effect. Therefore,
withstand vice, practise virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers
to Heaven. Great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will not hide it
from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done before the eyes of a Judge who
seeth all things.'


INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF GILDAS
===================================

INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF GILDAS Gildas the Wise

c. AD 500–570

This is the introduction that Hugh Williams wrote for his edition and translation of the
works of Gildas, published for the Cymmrodorion Society. It sets out what is known of
Gildas and of the manuscripts of his writings.

INTRODUCTION

Cymmrodorion Record Series, No. 3.

Gildas.

PART I. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION, BY DAVID NUTT, 270,
271, STRAND. ------ 1899. To be completed in Three Parts, Price 21s. THE HONOURABLE
SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION. President:---- The Most Honorable Marquess of Bute, K.T. THE
HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION, originally founded under Royal patronage in 1751, was
revived in 1873, with the object of bringing into closer contact Welshmen, particularly
those resident out of Wales, who are anxious to advance the welfare of their country; and
of enabling them to unite their efforts for that purpose. Its especial aims are the
improvement of Education, and the promotion of intellectual culture by the encouragement
of Literature, Science, and Art, as connected with Wales. Meetings of the Society are held
in London during the Spring and Summer months, for the Reading of Papers on Literary,
Scientific, and Artistic subjects, and for the discussion of practical questions within
the scope of the Society's aims. A Series of Meetings is annually held in Wales in
connection with the National Eisteddfod, under the name of "THE CYMMRODORION SECTION," to
promote the consideration of Educational, Literary, and Social Questions affecting the
Principality. It was from these meetings that the "NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD ASSOCIATION," the
"SOCIETY OF WELSH MUSICIANS," and the "SOCIETY FOR UTILISING THE WELSH LANGUAGE" sprang:
the latter being the outcome of the inquiries instituted by this Society of Cymmrodorion
in 1884 and 1885.

The Society's collection of books, formed by the bequests of the late Joseph Edwards and
the late Henry Davies, and by subsequent donations and purchases, is open to the use of
Members as a Lending Library. Subscription to the Society, entitling to copies of all its
publications, and admission to all meetings:----One Guinea per annum. Applications for
membership should be addressed to the Secretary, E. Vincent Evans, New Stone Buildings,
64, Chancery Lane, London, W.C. LIST OF THE SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS. Y Cymmrodor, Vols. ii,
iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii, 10s. 6d per volume. [Vols. i and iii are out of
print.] The History of the Cymmrodorion. Out of Print. A Dictionary in Englyshe and
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Gododin of Aneurin Gwawdrydd, by Thomas Stephens, Author of The Literature of the Kymry. 6
parts, 2s. 6d. each. An Essay on Pennillion Singing (Hanes ac Hanafiaeth Canu Gyda'r
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1568). 1 part, 2s. 6d. The Blessednes of Brytaine, by Maurice Kyffin (1587). 1 part, 1s.
6d. Gerald the Welshman, by Henry;Owen, B.C.L. Oxon., F.S.A. Demy 8vo., vellum, cloth,
gilt, 10s. The Description of Pembrokeshire, by George Owen of Henllys. Edited by Henry
Owen, B.C. L.Oxon., F.S.A. Being No. 1 of the Cymmrodorion Record Series. 2 parts, 21 s.
Issued free to Members of the Society, by the Editor. The Court Rolls of the Lordship of
Ruthin or Dyffryn-Clwyd, of the Reign of King Edward the First, preserved in the Public
Record Office. Edited, with Translations. Notes, etc., by R. Arthur Roberts, of H.M.
Public Record Office. Being No. 2 of the Cymmrodorion Record Series. Price 21 s. Issued
free to Members of the Society. Gildae, De Excidio Britanniae, Fragmenta, Liber de
Paenitentia, Accedit et Lorica Gildae. (Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, Fragments from Lost
Letters, The Penitential, together with the Lorica of Gildas.) Edited by Hugh Williams,
M.A., Professor of Church History at the Theological College, Bala. The Transactions of
the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (Sessions, 1892-93, 1893-94,1894-95, 1895-96,
1896-97, 1897-98). Gweithiau Iolo Goch: Gyda Nodiadau Hanesyddoli a Beirniadol, gan
Charles Ashton. The works of Iolo Goch. Price 10s. 6d.

To be obtained on application to the Secretary, at the Cymmrodorion Library, 64, Chancery
Lane, London, W.C. GILDAE DE EXCIDIO BRITANNIAE, FRAGMENTA, LIBER DE PAENITENTIA, ACCEDIT
ET LORICA GILDAE. GILDAS: THE RUIN OF BRITAIN, FRAGMENTS FROM LOST LETTERS, THE
PENITENTIAL, TOGETHER WITH THE LORICA OF GILDAS. Edited for the Hon. Society of
Cymmrodorion. BY HUGH WILLIAMS, M. A., PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY AT THE THEOLOGICAL
COLLEGE, BALA. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION, BY DAVID
NUTT. ------ 1899. LONDON : PRINTED AT THE BEDFORD PRESS, 20 AND 21, BEDFORDBURY, W.C.

Preliminary Note.

IN the present edition, it is intended to publish in a collected form the works ascribed
to Gildas for which, roughly speaking, a date is assigned during the twenty years that
elapsed between A.D. 540 and 560. The earliest references to Gildas that have come down to
us are the two made by Columbanus in his letter to St. Gregory the Great, which must have
been written between thirty and forty years after the death of the British writer (i.e.,
A.D. 595-600). In the first passage, he is mentioned as Gildas auctor who has written
against simony in bishops; in the second, as having been engaged in correspondence,
respecting the monks who were leaving their convents to become hermits, with Vennianus,
probably Finian, the abbot of Clonard in Meath, to whom Gildas sent "an exceedingly noble
answer" (et eligantissime illi rescripsit). Gildas is thus widely known, not very long
after his death, as a writer on ecclesiastical abuses, and as a correspondent whose
opinion on new and doubtful movements was highly valued in Ireland.

In a general INTRODUCTION I hope to deal with the questions appertaining to the time and
life of Gildas, the condition of Britain, its people and its Church, at that time, and the
authorship of the several works named below. A map is also in preparation based on that in
Spruner's Histor. Atlas, and Maps 15 (Roman Britain) and 16 (England and Wales before the
Roman Conquest), in Parts I and XVI of The Histor. Atlas of Modern Europe. Oxford, 1896,
1898. The works brought together in the volume, of which the present is Part I, are the
following:---- I. The DE EXCIDIO BRITANNIAE. This work has been mistakenly read as
history; it is, really, in no way a history, nor written with any object a historian may
have. It may be regarded as a kind of "Tract for the Times" of the sixth century. Ebert
(Gesch. der Literatur des Mittelaltcrs) correctly terms the "De Excidio" a Tendenzschrift;
it is a message or a sermon addressed to rulers and ecclesiastics by a fervent monk,
containing historical portions which are of undoubted value, because we possess no other
for a part of the period to which they refer, but which in the whole setting of their
narration are coloured by the author's main purport as a Christian moralist. We may regard
it as extremely probable that this is the very work to which Columbanus refers, when
writing shortly after A.D. 595.

2. A series of FRAGMENTS. These Fragments appear in a collection of rules or canons for
church order, belonging to the early Irish Church. The whole consists of LXVII books,
divided into chapters which give extracts from many ecclesiastical writers; e.g. Origenes,
Hieronimus, Augustinus, Gregorius, Isidorus, also Sinodus Hibernensis, &c. Among these
appear extracts made probably from letters, now lost, of Gildas, such as that mentioned by
Columbanus as written to Finian. These will be printed from the text of Wasserschleben's
Irische Kanonensammlung, 2nd edition (Leipzig, 1885). 3. An early Penitential, or DE
PAENITENTIA. This will be printed from the text of Wasserschleben's Bussordnungen (Halle,
1851), and Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. i, p. 113 (1869). Penitentials, especially as
found in the Celtic remains, show the gradual extension of disciplinary rules over the
life, chiefly of monks, but also of those living outside the cloisters, in that age. 4.
The LORICA GILDAE. After much deliberation, it has been thought better to include this
poem as a probably genuine production of Gildas. The text will be that printed in THE
IRISH LIBER HYMNORUM, published by the Henry Bradshaw Society, 1897 (vol. i, p. 206),
compared with that of Zimmer in Nennius Vindicatus: " Die Lorica des Gildas," s. 337.

The necessary documentary research by examination of the few codices remaining, and of
probable evidence as to lost ones, in the first editions professedly based upon them, has
been already accomplished for us by the edition of Gildas which has appeared in the
MONUMENTA GERMANIAE HlSTORICA, forming vol. iii of the "Chronica Minora Saec. iv, v, vi,
vii, edidit Theodorus Mommsen" (1894-1898). It may well be presumed that no fresh research
could have provided us with a text of Gildas accompanied with the same guarantee of
thoroughness as this edition by Dr. Mommsen. To profit by it is, however, rendered
difficult for many readers by the fact that all introductory matter and critical notes are
in Latin, while all questions appertaining to the contents of the work, as the learned
editor several times intimates, are remitted to others. His task is mainly the production
of the best possible text of Gildas' De Excidio. With deep respect and gratitude, Dr.
Mommsen's text has been adopted for the present edition, excepting some changes of
punctuation and words and phrases in particular portions of the work. The particular
portions referred to are those places in which Gildas quotes from certain books of the Old
Testament. As explained in the notes, the Latin text of these quotations is found to be a
rude and excessively literal rendering of the Greek of the Septuagint; so far is this the
case that the Greek version itself, for the quotations made from Job, Ezekiel, the Minor
Prophets, and some other books, becomes a no unimportant part of the documentary evidence
for the determination of readings. It has been so employed in this edition.

The FRAGMENTS seem to throw a distinct and pleasing light upon the man's character, and
the PENITENTIAL will illustrate the beginnings of a peculiar mode of church discipline.
Every one of the pieces named, after the De Excidio, has been made the subject of
searching critical examination, as regards the text, by Dr. Wasserschleben or the late Mr.
Henry Bradshaw, by Dr. Heinrich Zimmer and the editors of The Irish Liber Hymnorum. The
Introductions and Notes in this edition will endeavour to deal with the subject-matter of
each. An unprejudiced student of Gildas comes back to his writings with the feeling that
something of value may, and ought to, be got out of them; my own frequent reading of these
has led me to a higher appreciation of the man and his work. To my mind, it is a grave
mistake to call Gildas a "historian": neither Columbanus, writing about forty years after
his death, nor Alcuin, in the last quarter of the eighth century, regard him in this
light. The fashion began with the Venerable Beda; for him, in the early parts of his
Historia Ecclesiastica, and, for the writers of the Saxon Chronicle also apparently,
Gildas was the sole "historian" (historicus eorum). Mediaeval writers, who invariably term
him historiographss, helped to make the idea a fixed one. But Gildas would never have
regarded himself as a "historian": he is a preacher, a revivalist, who will "attempt to
state a few facts" (pauca dicere conamur), by way of illustrating his message, that divine
anger must visit with punishment a sinning people and priesthood.

I could not but feel interested, in reading "The Letters of Cassiodorus," by Mr. Hodgkin,
to notice what he says of "the inflated and tawdry style" of that strenuous and successful
administrator, and exceptionally far-sighted Roman statesman. In the volume mentioned,
which contains a resumé of letters in the Variorum Libri XII, Mr. Hodgkin gives an amusing
specimen of how Cassiodorus, as prime minister, could write in the name of Theodoric to
Faustus, the Praetorian prefect, who was dawdling over an order to ship corn from Calabria
and Apuleia to Rome. Reprimanding the lazy official, Theodoric, by his minister, is made
to say: "Why is there such delay in sending your swift ships to traverse the tranquil sea?
Though the south wind blows and the rowers are bending to their oars, has the sucking-fish
fixed its teeth into the hulls through the liquid waves, or have the shells of the Indian
sea, whose quiet touch is said to hold so firmly that the angry billows cannot loosen it,
with like power fixed their lips into your keels?" Now Cassiodorus, who died A.D. 570, was
a contemporary of Gildas, and we ought, in the case of Gildas as well as in his, to be
able to conquer the aversion roused within us by an inflated style, because it is partly
the fault of the age. Perhaps, in the case of Gildas, something should also be attributed
to the emotional intensity that was, and is, characteristic of the Celtic race.
Notwithstanding all such blemishes, a substantial net profit remains for the student of
history and literature.

HUGH WILLIAMS. Bala, September 29th, 1899.


ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN
======================

ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN Gildas the Wise

c. AD 500–570

In this sermon-letter Gildas first sketches the history of Britain from the Roman conquest
to the Saxon settlement and the victory at Mount Badon. He then turns on the five kings of
his own day and on the clergy, and calls them to repent by the words of the Old Testament.
The English is Hugh Williams’s translation of 1899.

THE PREFACE

Motives for writing stated. 1. WHATEVER my attempt shall be in this epistle, made more in
tears than in denunciation, in poor style, I allow, but with good intent, let no man
regard me as if about to speak under the influence of contempt for men in general, or with
an idea of superiority to all, because I weep the general decay of good, and the heaping
up of evils, with tearful complaint. On the contrary, let him think of me as a man that
will speak out of a feeling of condolence with my country's losses and its miseries, and
sharing in the joy of remedies. It is not so much my purpose to narrate the dangers of
savage warfare incurred by brave soldiers, as to tell of the dangers caused by indolent
men. I have kept silence, I confess, with infinite sorrow of heart, as the Lord, the
searcher of the reins, is my witness, for the past ten years or even longer; I was
prevented by a sense of inexperience, a feeling I have even now, as well as of mean merit
from writing a small admonitory work of any kind.

I used to read, nevertheless, of the wonderful legislator, that he did not enter the
desired land because of hesitation in a single word; that the priest's sons, through
bringing strange fire to the altar, perished in sudden death; that the people who
transgressed the words of God, 600,000 of them, two faithful ones exceptcd, although
beloved of God, because unto them the way was made plain over the bed of the Red Sea,
heavenly bread was given as food, new drink from the rock followed them, their army was
made invincible by the mere lifting up of hands----that this people fell in different
places by wild beasts, sword and fire throughout the desert parts of Arabia. After their
entrance by an unknown gate, the Jordan, so to say, and the overthrow of the hostile walls
of the city at the mere sound of trumpets by God's command, I read that a small mantle and
a little gold appropriated of the devoted thing laid many prostrate; that the covenant
with the Gibeonites, when broken (though won by guile), brought destruction upon some:
that because of the sins of men we have the complaining voices of holy prophets, and
especially of Jeremiah, who bewails the ruin of his city in four alphabetic songs.

I saw that in our time even, as he wept: The widowed city sat solitary, heretofore filled
with people, ruler of the Gentiles, princess of provinces, and had become tributary. By
this is meant the Church. The gold hath become dim, its best colour changed; which means
the excellence of God's word. The sons of Zion, that is, of the holy mother the Church,
famous and clothed with best gold have embraced ordure. What to him, a man of eminence,
grew unbearable, has been so to me also, mean as I am, whenever it grew to be the height
of grief, whilst he wailed over the same distinguished men living in prosperity so far as
to say: her Nazarenes were whiter than snow, ruddier than old coral, fairer than sapphire.
These passages and many others I regarded as, in a way, a mirror of our life, in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament, and then I turned to the Scriptures of the New; there I
read things that previously had perhaps been dark to me, in clearer light, because the
shadow passed away, and the truth shone more steadily.

I read, that is to say, of the Lord saying: I am not come but unto the lost sheep of the
House of Israel. And on the other side: But the sons of this Kingdom shall be cast into
outer darknesses, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Again: It is not good to
take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. Also: Woe unto you Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites. I heard: Many shall come from east and west and recline with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven; and on the other hand: And then shall
I say unto them: depart from me ye workers of iniquity. I read: Blessed are the barren and
the breasts that have not given suck; and on the contrary: Those who were ready, entered
with him to the marriage feast, then came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open
unto us; to whom the answer was made, I know you not. I heard certainly: He who believeth
and is baptised, shall be saved, he, however, who believeth not shall be condemned.

I read in the apostle's word that a branch of the wild olive had been grafted into the
good olive tree, but that it must be broken off from partaking in the root of fatness of
the same, if it did not fear, but should be highminded. I knew the mercy of the Lord, but
feared his judgment also; I praised his grace, but dreaded the rendering unto each one
according to his works. As I beheld sheep of one fold unlike one another, I called Peter,
with good reason, most blessed on account of his sound confession of Christ, but Judas
most unhappy because of his love of covetousness; Stephen I called glorious, because of
the martyr's palm; Nicolas, on the contrary, miserable, owing to the mark of unclean
heresy. I read, indeed: They had all things in common, but I read also: Why did ye agree
to tempt the Spirit of God? I saw, on the contrary, what great indifference had grown upon
the men of our age, as if there were no cause for fear.

These things, and many others which I have decided to omit for the sake of brevity, I
pondered over with compunction of heart and astonishment of mind. I pondered----if the
Lord did not spare a people, peculiar out of all the nations, the royal seed and holy
nation, to whom he had said: Israel is my first born ----if he spared not its priests,
prophets, kings for so many centuries, if he spared not the apostle his minister, and the
members of that primitive church, when they swerved from the right path, what will he do
to such blackness as we have in this age? An age this to which has been added, besides
those impious and monstrous sins which it commits in common with all the iniquitous ones
of the world, that thing which is as if inborn with it, an irremovable and inextricable
weight of unwisdom and fickleness.

What say I? Do I say to myself, wretched one, is such a charge entrusted to thee (as if
thou wert a teacher of distinction and eminence), namely to withstand the rush of so
violent a torrent, and against this array of growing crimes extending over so many years
and so widely, keep the deposit committed to thec, and be silent? Otherwise this means, to
say to the foot, watch, and to the hand, speak. Britain has rulers, it has watchers. Why
with thy nonsense art thou inclined to mumble? Yea, it has these; it has, if not too many,
not too few. But, because they are bent clown under the pressure of so great a weight,
they have no time to breathe. My feelings, therefore, as if fellow debtors with myself,
were alternately engrossed by such objections, and by such as had much sharper teeth than
these. These feelings wrestled, as I said, for no short time, when I read: 'There is a
time to speak and a time to keep silence, and wrestled in the straight gate of fear, so to
speak. At length the creditor prevailed and conquered. He said: If thou hast not the
boldness to feel no fear of being branded with the mark that befits golden liberty among
truth-telling creatures of a rational origin second to the angels, at least shrink not
from imitating that intelligent ass, inspired, though mute, by the Spirit of God.
Unwilling it was to be the carrier of the crowned magician about to curse the people of
God; it bruised his feeble foot in the narrow path near the wall of the vineyards, though
it had on that account to feel his blows like those of an enemy. She pointed out to him
the angel from heaven, as if with the finger, holding his naked sword and opposing them
(whom he in the blindness of cruel stupidity had not observed), though the magician,
ungrateful and furious, was unrighteously beating her innocent sides.

In my zeal, therefore, for the holy law of the Lord's house, constrained by the reasons of
my own meditation or overcome by the pious entreaties of brethren, I am now paying the
debt exacted long ago. The work is, in fact, poor, but, I believe, faithful and friendly
to all noble soldiers of Christ; but severe and hard to bear to foolish apostates. The
former of these, if I am not mistaken, will, peradventure, receive it with the tears that
flow from the love of God; the others, also, with sorrow, but the sorrow which is wrenched
from the anger and timidity of an awakened conscience. 2. Before, however, fulfilling my
promise, let me attempt to say a little, God willing, concerning the geographical
situation, the stubbornness, the subjection and rebellion of our country; also of its
second subjection and hard service; of religion, persecution, and holy martyrs, of diverse
heresies; of tyrants, of the two nations which wasted it; of defence and of consequent
devastation; of the second revenge and third devastation, of famine; of the letter to
Agitius; of victory, of crimes; of enemies suddenly announced; of the great well-known
plague; of counsel; of enemies far more fierce than the first; of the ruin of cities, of
the men who survived; of the final victory won by the mother country, which is the gift
granted by the will of God in our own times.

PART I: THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN

Preliminary (cc. 3-26).- Description of Britain, Character of its People; Introductory
narrative of events, extending from the First Parthian Peace and the Roman expedition into
Britain which followed it, to the writer's own time (A.D. 117-c. 540). Reference to the
rise of Christianity under Tiberius, and its progress in Britain inserted (cc. 7-12).
Description of Britain. De situ. 3. THE island of Britain is situated in almost the
furthest limit of the world, towards the north-west and west, poised in the so-called
divine balance which holds the whole earth. It lies somewhat in the direction of the north
pole from the south-west. It is 800 miles long, 200 broad, not counting the longer tracts
of sundry promontories which are encompassed by the curved bays of the sea. It is
protected by the wide, and if I may so say, impassable circle of the sea on all sides,
with the exception of the straits on the south coast where ships sail to Belgic Gaul. It
has the advantage of the estuaries of two noble rivers, the Thames and the Severn, arms,
as it were, along which, of old, foreign luxuries were wont to be carried by ships, and of
other smaller streams; it is beautified by 28 cities, and some strongholds, and by great
works built in an unexceptionable manner, walls, serrated towers, gates, houses, the roofs
of which, stretching aloft with threatening height, were firmly fixed in strong structure.
It is adorned by widespread plains, hills in pleasant situations adapted for superior
cultivation, mountains in the greatest convenience for changing pasture of cattle. The
flowers of divers colours on these, trodden by human footsteps, gave them the appearance
of a fine picture, like a chosen bride adorned with various jewels. It is irrigated by
many clear springs, with their full waters moving snow-white gravel, and by shining rivers
flowing with gentle murmur, extending to those who recline on their banks a pledge of
sweet slumber, and by lakes overflowing with a cool stream of living water.

Character of people. De contumacia. 4. This island, of proud neck and mind, since it was
first inhabited, is ungratefully rebelling, now against God, at other times against fellow
citizens, sometimes even against the kings over the sea and their subjects. For what
deeper baseness, what greater unrighteousness, can be or be introduced by the recklessness
of men, than to deny to God fear, to worthy fellow citizens love, to those placed in
higher position the honour due to them, without detriment to the faith----than to break
faith with divine and human sentiment, and having cast away fear of heaven and earth, to
be governed by one's own inventions and lusts? I, therefore, omit those ancient errors,
common to all nations, by which before the coming of Christ in the flesh the whole human
race was being held in bondage; nor do I enumerate the truly diabolical monstrosities of
my native country, almost surpassing those of Egypt in number, of which we behold some, of
ugly features, to this day within or without their deserted walls, stiff with fierce
visage as was the custom. Neither do I, by name, inveigh against the mountains, valleys or
rivers, once destructive, but now suitable for the use of man, upon which divine honour
was then heaped by the people in their blindness. I keep silence also as to the long years
of savage tyrants, who are spoken of in other far distant countries, so that Porphyry, the
rabid eastern dog in hostility to the Church, added this remark also in the fashion of his
madness and vanity; Britain, he says, is a province fertile in tyrants. Those evils only
will I attempt to make public which the island has both suffered and inflicted upon other
and distant citizens, in the times of the Roman Emperors. I shall do it, however, to the
best of my ability, not so much by the aid of native writings or records of authors,
inasmuch as these (if they ever existed) have been burnt by the fires of enemies, or
carried far away in the ships which exiled my countrymen, and so are not at hand, but
shall follow the account of foreign writers, which, because broken by many gaps, is far
from clear.

Subjection by Rome. De subjectione. 5. The Emperors of Rome acquired the empire of the
world, and, by the subjugation of all neighbouring countries and islands towards the east,
secured through the might of their superior fame their first peace with the Parthians on
the borders of India. When this peace was accomplished, wars ceased at that time in almost
every land. The keenness of this flame, however, in its persistent career towards the
west, could not be checked or extinguished by the blue tide of the sea; crossing the
channel it carried to the island laws for obedience without opposition; it subjugated an
unwarlike but faithless people (not so much as in the case of other nations by sword,
fire, and engines, as by mere threats or menaces of judgments) who gave to the edicts
merely a skin-deep obedience, with resentment sunk deep into their hearts. Insurrection
against Rome. De rebellione.

6. Immediately on their return to Rome, owing to deficiency, as they said, of necessaries
provided by the land, and with no suspicion of rebellion, the treacherous lioness killed
the rulers who had been left behind by them to declare more fully, and to strengthen, the
enterprises of Roman rule. After this, when news of such deeds was carried to the senate,
and it was hastening with speedy army to take vengeance on the crafty foxes, as they named
them, there was no preparation of a fighting fleet on sea to make a brave struggle for
country, nor a marshalled army or right wing, nor any other warlike equipment on land.
They present their backs, instead of their shields, to the pursuers, their necks to the
sword, while a chilling terror ran through their bones: they hold forth their hands to be
bound like women; so that it was spread far and wide as a proverb and a derision: the
Britons are neither brave in war nor in peace faithful.

Second subjection and servitude. Item de subiectione ac diro famulatu. 7. The Romans
therefore, having slain many of the faithless ones, reserving some for slavery, lest the
land should be reduced to destitution----return to Italy leaving behind them a land
stripped of wine and oil. They leave behind governors as scourges for the backs of the
natives, as a yoke for their necks, so that they should cause the epithet of Roman slavery
to cling to the soil, should vex the crafty race not so much with military force as with
whips, and if necessary, apply the unsheathed sword, as the saying is, to their sides. In
this way the island would be regarded not as Britannia but as Romania, and whatever it
might have of copper, silver, or gold would be stamped with the image of Caesar. Rise of
Christianity. De religione. 8. Meanwhile, to the island stiff with frost and cold, and in
a far distant corner of the earth, remote from the visible sun, He, the true sun, even
Christ, first yields His rays, I mean His precepts. He spread, not only from the temporal
firmament, but from the highest arc of heaven beyond all times, his bright gleam to the
whole world in the latest days, as we know, of Tiberius Caesar. Atthat time the religion
of Christ was propagated without any hindrance, because the emperor, contrary to the will
of the senate, threatened with death informers against the soldiers of that same religion.

Evangelization of Britain. The Diocletian persecution. De persecutione. 9. Though these
precepts had a lukewarm reception from the inhabitants, nevertheless they continued
unimpaired with some, with others less so, until the nine years' persecution of the tyrant
Diocletian. In this persecution churches were ruined throughout the whole world, all
copies of the Holy Scriptures that could be found were burnt in the open streets, and the
chosen priests of the Lord's flock butchered with the innocent sheep, so that if it could
be brought to pass, not even a trace of the Christian religion would be visible in some of
the provinces. What flights there were then, what slaughter, what punishments by different
modes of death, what ruins of apostates, what glorious crowns of martyrs, what mad fury on
the part of persecutors, and, on the contrary, what patience of the saints, the history of
the church narrates. In consequence the whole church, in close array, emulously leaving
behind it the darkness of this world, was hastening to the pleasant realms of heaven as to
its own proper abode.

Holy Martyrs. De sanctis martyribus. 10. God, therefore, as willing that all men should be
saved, magnified his mercy unto us, and called sinners no less than those who regard
themselves righteous. He of His own free gift, in the above mentioned time of persecution,
as we conclude, lest Britain should be completely enveloped in the thick darkness of black
night, kindled for us bright lamps of holy martyrs. The graves where their bodies lie, and
the places of their suffering, had they not, very many of them, been taken from us the
citizens on account of our numerous crimes, through the disastrous division caused by the
barbarians, would at the present time inspire the minds of those who gazed at them with a
far from feeble glow of divine love. I speak of Saint Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Iulius,
citizens of Caerlleon, and the rest of both sexes in different places, who stood firm with
lofty nobleness of mind in Christ's battle.

11. The former of these, through love, hid a confessor when pursued by his persecutors,
and on the point of being seized, imitating in this Christ laying down his life for the
sheep. He first concealed him in his house, and afterwards exchanging garments with him,
willingly exposed himself to the danger of being pursued in the clothes of the brother
mentioned. Being in this way well pleasing to God, during the time between his holy
confession and cruel death, in the presence of the impious men, who carried the Roman
standard with hateful haughtiness, he was wonderfully adorned with miraculous signs, so
that by fervent prayer he opened an unknown way through the bed of the noble river Thames,
similar to that dry little-trodden way of the Israelites, when the ark of the covenant
stood long on the gravel in the middle of Jordan; accompanied by a thousand men, he walked
through with dry foot, the rushing waters on either side hanging like abrupt precipices,
and converted first his executioner, as he saw such wonders, from a wolf into a lamb, and
caused him together with himself to thirst more deeply for the triumphant palm of
martyrdom, and more bravely to seize it. Others, however, were so tortured with diverse
torments, and mangled with unheard of tearing of limbs, that without delay they raised
trophies of their glorious martyrdom, as if at the beautiful gates of Jerusalem. Those who
survived hid themselves in woods, deserts, and secret caves, expecting from God, the
righteous ruler of all, to their persecutors, sometime, stern judgment, to themselves
protection of life.

12 Thus when ten years of the violence referred to had scarcely passed, and when the
abominable edicts were disappearing through the death of their authors, all the soldiers
of Christ, with gladsome eyes, as if after a wintry and long night, take in the calm and
the serene light of the celestial region. They repair the churches, ruined to the ground;
they found, construct, and complete basilicae in honour of the holy martyrs, and set them
forth in many places as emblems of victory; they celebrate feast days; the sacred offices
they perform with clean heart and lip; all exult as children cherished in the bosom of
their mother, the church. Heresies. De diversis haeresibus. For this sweet harmony between
Christ the head and the members continued, until the Arian unbelief, fierce as a snake
vomiting forth upon us its foreign poison, caused deadly separation between brethren
dwelling together. In this way, as if a path were made across the sea, all manner of wild
beasts began to inject with horrid mouth the fatal poison of every form of heresy, and to
inflict the lethal wounds of their teeth upon a country always wishful to hear something
new and, at all events, desiring nothing steadfastly.

The tyranni, particularly Maxi mus. De tyrannis. 13 At length also, as thickets of tyrants
were growing up and bursting forth soon into an immense forest, the island retained the
Roman name, but not the morals and law; nay rather, casting forth a shoot of its own
planting, it sends out Maximus to the two Gauls, accompanied by a great crowd of
followers, with an emperor's ensigns in addition, which he never worthily bore nor
legitimately, but as one elected after the manner of a tyrant and amid a turbulent
soldiery. This man, through cunning art rather than by valour, first attaches to his
guilty rule certain neighbouring countries or provinces against the Roman power, by nets
of perjury and falsehood. He then extends one wing to Spain, the other to Italy, fixing
the throne of his iniquitous empire at Trier, and raged with such madness against his
lords that he drove two legitimate emperors, the one from Rome, the other from a most
pious life. Though fortified by hazardous deeds of so dangerous a character, it was not
long ere he lost his accursed head at Aquileia: he who had in a way cut off the crowned
heads of the empire of the whole world.

Picts and Scots. De duabus gentibus vastatricibus. 14 After this, Britain is robbed of all
her armed soldiery, of her military supplies, of her rulers, cruel though they were, and
of her vigorous youth who followed the footsteps of the above-mentioned tyrant and never
returned. Completely ignorant of the practice of war, she is, for the first time, open to
be trampled upon by two foreign tribes of extreme cruelty, the Scots from the north-west,
the Picts from the north; and for many years continues stunned and groaning. Defence made
against them. De defen sione. 15. Owing to the inroads of these tribes and the consequent
dreadful prostration, Britain sends an embassy with letters to Rome, entreating in tearful
appeals an armed force to avenge her, and vowing submission on her part to the Roman
power, uninterrupted and with all strength of heart, if the enemy were driven away. A
legion is forthwith prepared, with no remembrance of past evil, and fully equipped. Having
crossed over the sea in ships to Britain, it came into close engagement with the
oppressive enemies; it killed a great number of them and drove all over the borders, and
freed the humiliated inhabitants from so fierce a violence and threatening bondage. The
inhabitants were commanded to build a wall across the island, between the two seas, so
that, when strongly manned, it might be a terror to repel the enemies and a protection to
the citizens. The wall being made not of stone but of turf, proved of no advantage to the
rabble in their folly, and destitute of a leader.

Repeated devastation. Itemque vastatione. 16. The legion returned home in great triumph
and joy when their old enemies, like rapacious wolves, fierce with excessive hunger, jump
with greedy maw into the fold, because there was no shepherd in sight. They rush across
the boundaries, carried over by wings of oars, by arms of rowers, and by sails with fair
wind. They slay everything, and whatever they meet with they cut it down like a ripe crop,
trample under foot and walk through. Second revenge (by Roman aid). De secunda ultione.
17. Again suppliant messengers are sent with rent clothes, as is said, and heads covered
with dust. Crouching like timid fowls under the trusty wings of the parent birds, they ask
help of the Romans, lest the country in its wretchedness be completely swept away, and the
name of Romans, which to their ears was the echo of a mere word, should even grow vile as
a thing gnawed at, in the reproach of alien nations. They, moved, as far as was possible
for human nature, by the tale of such a tragedy, make speed, like the flight of eagles,
unexpected in quick movements of cavalry on land and of sailors by sea; before long they
plunge their terrible swords in the necks of the enemies; the massacre they inflict is to
be compared to the fall of leaves at the fixed time, just like a mountain torrent, swollen
by numerous streams after storms, sweeps over its bed in its noisy course; with furrowed
back and fierce look, its waters, as the saying goes, surging up to the clouds (by which
our eyes, though often refreshed by the movements of the eyelids, are obscured by the
quick meeting of lines in its broken eddies), foams surprisingly, and with one rush
overcomes obstacles set in its way. Then did the illustrious helpers quickly put to flight
the hordes of the enemy beyond the sea, if indeed escape was at all possible for them: for
it was beyond the seas that they, with no one to resist, heaped up the plunder greedily
acquired by them year by year.

18. The Romans, therefore, declare to our country that they could not be troubled too
frequently by arduous expeditions of that kind, nor could the marks of Roman power, that
is an army of such size and character, be harassed by land and sea on account of un-
warlike, roving, thieving fellows. They urge the Britons, rather, to accustom themselves
to arms, and fight bravely, so as to save with all their might their land, property,
wives, children, and, what is greater than these, their liberty and life: they should not,
they urge, in any way hold forth their hands armourless to be bound by nations in no way
stronger than themselves, unless they became' effeminate through indolence and
listlessness; but have them provided with bucklers, swords and spears, and ready for
striking. Because they were also of opinion that it would bring a considerable advantage
to the people they were leaving, they construct a wall, different from the other, by
public and private contributions, joining the wretched inhabitants to themselves: they
build the wall in their accustomed mode of structure, in a straight line, across from sea
to sea, between cities, which perhaps had been located there through fear of enemies; they
give bold counsel to the people in their fear, and leave behind them patterns for the
manufacture of arms. On the sea coast also, towards the south, where their ships were wont
to anchor, because from that quarter also wild barbarian hordes were feared, they place
towers at stated intervals, affording a prospect of the sea. They then bid them farewell,
as men who never intended to return.

Third devastation by Picts and Scots. Tertiaque vastatione. 19. As they were returning
home, the terrible hordes of Scots and Picts eagerly come forth out of the tiny craft
(cwrwgs) in which they sailed across the sea-valley, as on Ocean's deep, just as, when the
sun is high and the heat increasing, dark swarms of worms emerge from the narrow crevices
of their holes. Differing partly in their habits, yet alike in one and the same thirst for
bloodshed ----in a preference also for covering their villainous faces with hair rather
than their nakedness of body with decent clothing----these nations, on learning the
departure of our helpers and their refusal to return, became more audacious than ever, and
seized the whole northern part of the land as far as the wall, to the exclusion of the
inhabitants. The famine. De fame. To oppose their attacks, there was stationed on the
height of the stronghold, an army, slow to fight, unwieldy for flight, incompetent by
reason of its cowardice of heart, which languished day and night in its foolish watch. In
the meantime the barbedweapons of the naked enemies are not idle: by them the wretched
citizens are dragged from the walls and dashed to the ground. This punishment of untimely
death was an advantage, forsooth, to them that were cut off by such an end, in so far as
it saved them, by its suddenness, from the wretched torments which threatened their
brethren and relatives.

Why should I tell more? They abandon their cities and lofty wall: there ensues a
repetition of flight on the part of the citizens; again there are scatterings with less
hope than ever, pursuit again by the enemy, and again still more cruel massacres. As lambs
by butchers, so the unhappy citizens are torn in pieces by the enemy, insomuch that their
life might be compared to that of wild animals. For they even began to restrain one
another by the thieving of the small means of sustenance for scanty living, to tide over a
short time, which the wretched citizens possessed. Calamities from without were aggravated
by tumults at home, because the whole country by pillagings, so frequent of this kind, was
being stripped of every kind of food supply, with the exception of the relief that came
from their skill in hunting.

THE LETTER TO AGITIUS, AD 446

20. The miserable remnant therefore send a letter to Agitius, a man holding high office at
Rome; they speak as follows:----To Agitius, in his third consulship, come the groans of
the Britons; a little further in their request: the barbarians drive us to the sea, the
sea drives us upon the barbarians; by one or other of these two modes of death we are
either killed or drowned; and for these they have no aid. In the meantime, the severe and
well-known famine presses the wandering and vacillating people, which compels many of them
without delay to yield themselves as conquered to the bloodthirsty robbers, in order to
have a morsel of food for the renewal of life. Others were never so compelled: rather
issuing from the very mountains, from caves and defiles and from dense thickets, they
carried on the war unceasingly. The victory over Picts and Scots. De victoria.

Then for the first time, they inflicted upon the enemy, which for many years was pillaging
in the land, a severe slaughter: their trust was not in man but in God, as that saying of
Philo goes: we must have recourse to divine aid where human fails. The boldness of the
enemy quieted for a time, but not the wickedness of our people; the enemy withdrew from
our countrymen, but our countrymen withdrew not from their sins. 21. It was the invariable
habit of the race, as it is also now, to be weak in repelling the missiles of enemies,
though strong to bear civil strifes and the burdens of sins; weak, I say, to follow
ensigns of peace and truth, yet strong for crimes and falsehood. The shameless Irish
assassins, therefore, went back to their homes, to return again before long. It was then,
for the first time, in the furthermost part of the island, that the Picts commenced their
successive settlements, with frequent pillaging and devastation.

Growth of crimes among the Britons. De sceleribus. During such truces, consequently, the
ugly scar is healed for the deserted people. While another more poisonous hunger was
silently growing on the other hand, and the devastation quieting down, the island was
becoming rich with so many resources of affluence that no age remembered the possession of
such afterwards: along with these resources of every kind, luxury also grew. It grew, in
fact, with strong root, so that it might fitly be said at that same time: such fornication
is actually reported as is not even among the gentiles. But it was not this vice alone
that grew, but also all to which human nature is generally liable: especially the vice
which to-day also overthrows the place that appertains to all good in the island, that is
to say, hatred of truth together with those who defend it, love of falsehood together with
its fabricators, undertaking evil for good, respect for wickedness rather than for
kindness, desire of darkness in preference to the sun, the welcoming of Satan as an angel
of light. Kings were anointed, not in the name of God, but such as surpassed others in
cruelty, and shortly afterwards were put to death by the men who anointed them, without
any enquiry as to truth, because others more cruel had been elected. If, however, any one
among them appeared to be of a milder disposition, and to some extent more attached to
truth, against him were turned without respect the hatred and darts of all, as if he were
the subverter of Britain;

all things, those which were displeasing to God and those which pleased him, had at least
equal weight in the balance, if, indeed, the things displeasing to him were not the more
acceptable. In this way that saying of the prophet which was uttered against that ancient
people might be applied with justice to our country: Ye lawless sons, he says, have
forsaken God and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. Why will ye be stricken any
more when ye add iniquity? Every head is weak and every heart grieving; from the sole of
the foot to the crown there is no soundness in it. The coming of the enemy suddenly made
known. De nuntiatis subito hostibus. In this way they did all things that were contrary to
salvation, as if there were no remedy to be supplied for the world by the true Healer of
all men. It was not only men of the world who did this, but the Lord's flock itself also
and its pastors, who ought to have been an example to the whole people; they, in great
numbers, as if soaked in wine through drunkenness, became stupified and enervated, and by
the swelling of animosities, by the jar of strifes, by the grasping talons of envy, by
confused judgement of good and evil, were so enfeebled that it was plainly seen, as in the
present case, that contempt was being poured out upon princes, and that they were led
astray by their vanities and error in a trackless place, and not on the way.

22. Meanwhile, when God was desirous to cleanse his family, and, though defiled by such a
strain of evil things, to better it by their hearing only of distress, there came like the
winged flight of a rumour not unfamiliar to them, into the listening ears of all----that
their old enemies had already arrived, bent upon thorough destruction, and upon dwelling
in the country, as had become their wont, from one end to the other. Nevertheless they in
no way profited by this news; rather like foolish beasts, with clenched teeth, as the
saying is, they bite the bit of reason, and began to run along the broad way of many sins,
which leads down to death, quitting the narrow way though it was the path of salvation.
The noted plague. De famosa peste. Whilst then, according to the words of Solomon, The
stubborn servant is not corrected by words, the foolish nation is scourged and feels it
not: for a deadly pestilence came upon the unwise people which, in a short time, without
any sword, brought down such a number of them that the living were unable to bury the
dead.

But they were not corrected even by this pestilence, so that the word of Isaiah the
prophet was fulfilled in them: And God has called to lamentation and to baldness and the
girdle of sack-cloth: behold they kill calves, and slay rams, behold they eat and drink
and say, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow let us die' Deliberation how to oppose the
Picts and Scots. The Saxons invited to aid in their repulsion. De consilio. In this way
the time was drawing nigh when the iniquities of the country, as those of the Amorites of
old, would be fulfilled. A council is held, to deliberate what means ought to be
determined upon, as the best and safest to repel such fatal and frequent irruptions and
plunderings by the nations mentioned above. 23. At that time all members of the assembly,
along with the proud tyrant, are blinded; such is the protection they find for their
country (it was, in fact, its destruction) that those wild Saxons, of accursed name, hated
by God and men, should be admitted into the island, like wolves into folds, in order to
repel the northern nations. Nothing more hurtful, certainly, nothing more bitter, happened
to the island than this. What utter depth of darkness of soul! What hopeless and cruel
dulness of mind! The men whom, when absent, they feared more than death, were invited by
them of their own accord, so to say, under the cover of one roof: Foolish princes of Zoan,
as is said, giving unwise counsel to Pharaoh.

The Saxons prove far more cruel than the former enemies. De saeviore multo primis hoste.
Then there breaks forth a brood of whelps from the lair of the savage lioness, in three
cyulae (keels), as it is expressed in their language, but in ours, in ships of war under
full sail, with omens and divinations. In these it was foretold, there being a prophecy
firmly relied upon among them, that they should occupy the country to which the bows of
their ships were turned, for three hundred years; for one hundred and fifty----that is for
half the time----they should make frequent devastations. They sailed out, and at the
directions of the unlucky tyrant, first fixed their dreadful talons in the eastern part of
the island, as men intending to fight for the country, but more truly to assail it. To
these the mother of the brood, finding that success had attended the first contingent,
sends out also a larger raft-full of accomplices and curs, which sails over and joins
itself to their bastard comrades. From that source, the seed of iniquity, the root of
bitterness, grows as a poisonous plant, worthy of our deserts, in our own soil, furnished
with rugged branches and leaves. Thus the barbarians, admitted into the island, succeed in
having provisions supplied them, as if they were soldiers and about to encounter, as they
falsely averred, great hardships for their kind entertainers. These provisions, acquired
for a length of time, closed, as the saying is, the dog's maw. They complain, again, that
their monthly supplies were not copiously contributed to them, intentionally colouring
their opportunities, and declare that, if larger munificence were not piled upon them,
they would break the treaty and lay waste the whole of the island. They made no delay to
follow up their threats with deeds.

24. For the fire of righteous vengeance, caused by former crimes, blazed from sea to sea,
heaped up by the eastern band of impious men; and as it devastated all the neighbouring
cities and lands, did not cease after it had been kindled, until it burnt nearly the whole
surface of the island, and licked the western ocean with its red and savage tongue. In
this assault, which might be compared to the Assyrian attack upon Iudaea of old, there is
fulfilled in us also, according to the account, that which the prophet in his lament
says:---- They have burnt with fire thy sanctuary in the land, They have defiled the
tabernacle of thy name; and again, O God, the gentiles have come into thine inheritance,
They have defiled thy holy temple, and so forth. In this way were all the settlements
brought low with the frequent shocks of the battering rams; the inhabitants, along with
the bishops of the church, both priests and people, whilst swords gleamed on every side
and flames crackled, were together mown down to the ground, and, sad sight! there were
seen in the midst of streets, the bottom stones of towers with tall beam cast down, and of
high walls, sacred altars, fragments of bodies covered with clots, as if coagulated, of
red blood, in confusion as in a kind of horrible wine press: there was no sepulture of any
kind save the ruins of houses, or the entrails of wild beasts and birds in the open, I say
it with reverence to their holy souls (if in fact there were many to be found holy), that
would be carried by holy angels to the heights of heaven. For the vineyard, at one time
good, had then so far degenerated to bitter fruit, that rarely could be seen, according to
the prophet, any cluster of grapes or ear of corn, as it were, behind the back of the
vintagers or reapers.

25. Some of the wretched remnant were consequently captured on the mountains and killed in
heaps. Others, overcome by hunger, came and yielded themselves to the enemies, to be their
slaves for ever, if they were not instantly slain, which was equivalent to the highest
service. Others repaired to parts beyond the sea, with strong lamentation, as if, instead
of the oarsman's call, singing thus beneath the swelling sails: Thou hast given us like
sheep appointed for eating, And among the gentiles hast thou scattered us. Others,
trusting their lives, always with apprehension of mind, to high hills, overhanging,
precipitous, and fortified, and to dense forests and rocks of the sea, remained in their
native land, though with fear. After a certain length of time the cruel robbers returned
to their home. A remnant, to whom wretched citizens flock from different places on every
side, as eagerly as a hive of bees when a storm is threatening, praying at the same time
unto Him with their whole heart, and, as is said,

Burdening the air with unnumbered prayers, that they should not be utterly destroyed, take
up arms and challenge their victors to battle under Ambrosius Aurelianus. He was a man of
unassuming character, who, alone of the Roman race chanced to survive in the shock of such
a storm (as his parents, people undoubtedly clad in the purple, had been killed in it),
whose offspring in our days have greatly degenerated from their ancestral nobleness. To
these men, by the Lord's favour, there came victory. The final victory over the Saxons.
Siege of Mons Badonicus. De postrema patriae victoria quae temporibus nostris Dei nutu
donata est. 26. From that time, the citizens were sometimes victorious, sometimes the
enemy, in order that the Lord, according to His wont, might try in this nation the Israel
of to-day, whether it loves Him or not. This continued up to the year of the siege of
Badon Hill, and of almost the last great slaughter inflicted upon the rascally crew. And
this commences, a fact I know, as the forty-fourth year, with one month now elapsed; it is
also the year of my birth. But not even at the present day are the cities of our country
inhabited as formerly; deserted and dismantled, they lie neglected until now, because,
although wars with foreigners have ceased, domestic wars continue. The recollection of so
hopeless a ruin of the island, and of the unlooked-for help, has been fixed in the memory
of those who have survived as witnesses of both marvels. Owing to this (aid) kings,
magistrates, private persons, priests, ecclesiastics, severally preserved their own rank.
As they died away, when an age had succeeded ignorant of that storm, and having experience
only of the present quiet, all the controlling influences of truth and justice were so
shaken and overturned that, not to speak of traces, not even the remembrance of them is to
be found among the ranks named above.

I make exception of a few ----a very few----who owing to the loss of the vast multitude
that rushes daily to hell, are counted at so small a number that our revered mother, the
church, in a manner does not observe them as they rest in her bosom. They are the only
real children she has. Let no man think that I am slandering the noble life of these men,
admired by all and beloved of God, by whom my weakness is supported so as not to fall into
entire ruin, by holy prayers, as by columns and serviceable supports. Let no one think so,
if in a somewhat excessively free-spoken, yea, doleful manner, driven by a crowd of evils,
I shall not so much treat of, as weep concerning those who serve not only their belly, but
the devil rather than Christ, who is God blessed for ever. For why will fellow-citizens
hide what the nations around already not only know, but reproach us with?

PART II: AGAINST THE KINGS

General Denunciation of Princes and Judges. 27. KINGS Britain has, but they are as her
tyrants: she has judges, but they are ungodly men: engaged in frequent plunder and
disturbance, but of harmless men: avenging and defending, yea for the benefit of criminals
and robbers. They have numerous wives, though harlots and adulterous women: they swear but
by way of forswearing, making vows yet almost immediately use falsehood. They make wars,
but the wars they undertake are civil and unjust ones. They certainly pursue thieves
industriously throughout the country, whilst those thieves who sit with them at table,
they not only esteem but even remunerate. Alms they give profusely, but over against this
they heap up a huge mountain of crimes. They take their seat to pronounce sentence, yet
seldom seek the rule of right judgment. Despising the innocent and lowly, they to their
utmost extol to the stars the bloody-minded, the proud, the murderous men, their own
companions and the adulterous enemies of God, if chance so offers, who ought, together
with their very name, to be assiduously destroyed. Many have they bound in their prisons,
whom they ill-use with weight of chains, more by their own fraud than by reason of desert:
they linger among the altars in the oaths they make, and shortly afterwards look with
disdain on these same altars as if they were dirty stones.

Denunciation of the Five Princes. Constantius of Damnonia. 28. Of this so execrable a
wickedness Constantine, the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Damnonia , is not
ignorant. In this year, after a dreadful form of oath, by which he bound himself that he
would use no deceit against his subjects, making his oath first to God, and secondly to
the choirs of saints and those who follow them, in reliance upon the mother (the church),
he nevertheless, in the garb of a holy abbot, cruelly tore the tender sides of two royal
children, while in the bosoms of two revered mothers ----viz., the church and the mother
after the flesh----together with their two guardians. And their arms, stretched forth, in
no way to armour, which no man was in the habit of using more bravely than they at this
time, but towards God and His altar, will hang in the day of judgment at thy gates, Oh
Christ, as revered trophies of their patience and faith. He did this among the holy
altars, as I said, with accursed sword and spear instead of teeth, so that the cloaks, red
as if with clotted blood, touched the place of the heavenly sacrifice.

This deed he committed, after no meritorious acts worthy of praise; for, many years
previously he was overcome by frequent successive deeds of adultery, having put away his
legitimate wife, contrary to the prohibition of Christ and the Teacher of the gentiles,
who say: What God hath joined let man not separate, and: Husbands love your wives. For he
planted, of the bitter vine of Sodom in the soil of his heart, unfruitful for good seed, a
shoot of unbelief and unwisdom, which, watered by public and domestic impieties as if by
poisonous showers, and springing forth more quickly to the displeasure of God, brought
forth the guilt of murder and sacrilege. But as one not yet free from the nets of prior
sins he heaps new crimes upon old ones. 29. Come now! (I reprove, as if present, one whom
I know to be yet surviving). Why art thou confounded, thou murderer of thine own soul? Why
kindlest thou, of thine own accord, the ceaseless flames of hell against thyself? Why,
taking the place of thine enemies, piercest thou thyself, under no compulsion, with thine
own sword and spear? Were not those very cups, poisonous with crimes, able to satisfy thy
heart? Look back, I beseech thee, and come to Christ, since thou labourest and art bent
down with thy huge burden, and He, as He has said, will give thee rest. Come to Him who
willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live: break,
according to the prophet, the chains of thy neck, thou son of Sion. Return, I pray, though
from the far-off secret haunts of sins, to the tender father who----for the son that
despises the unclean food of swine, and fears the death of hard famine, and returns to
himself-----has been accustomed in gladness to kill the fatted calf and to bring forward
the first garment and royal ring for the erring one, and with a foretaste of heavenly hope
thou shalt feel how the Lord is kind. For if thou despisest these admonitions, know that
thou shalt even soon be whirled round and burnt in hell's indescribable dark floods of
fire.

30. Thou also, lion whelp, as the prophet says, what doest thou, Aurelius Caninus? Art
thou not swallowed up in the same, if not more destructive, filth, as the man previously
mentioned, the filth of murders, fornications, adulteries, like sea-waves rushing fatally
upon thee? Hast thou not by thy hatred of thy country's peace, as if it were a deadly
serpent, or by thy iniquitous thirst for civil wars and repeated spoils, closed the doors
of heavenly peace and repose for thy soul? Left alone now, like a dry tree in the midst of
a field, remember, I pray thee, the pride of thy fathers and brothers, with their early
and untimely death. Wilt thou, because of pious deserts, an exception to almost all thy
family, survive for a hundred years, or be of the years of Methuselah? No. But unless, as
the Psalmist says, thou be very speedily converted to the Lord, that King will soon
brandish his sword against thee; who says by the prophet: I will kill and I will make
alive: I shall wound and I shall heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
Wherefore shake thyself from thy filthy dust, and turn unto Him with thy whole heart, unto
Him who created thee, so that when His anger quickly kindles, thou mayest be blest, hoping
in Him. But if not so, eternal pains await thee, who shalt be always tormented, without
being consumed, in the dread jaws of hell.

Vortiporius, prince of the Demetae (Dyfed). 31. Why also art thou, Vortipor, tyrant of the
Demetae, foolishly stubborn? Like the pard art thou, in manners and wickedness of various
colour, though thy head is now becoming grey, upon a throne full of guile, and from top to
bottom defiled by various murders and adulteries, thou worthless son of a good king, as
Manasseh of Hezekiah. What! do not such wide whirlpools of sins, which thou suckest in
like good wine, nay, art thyself swallowed by them, though the end of life is gradually
drawing near----do these not satisfy thee? Why, to crown all thy sins, dost thou, when
thine own wife had been removed and her death had been virtuous, by the violation of a
shameless daughter, burden thy soul as with a weight impossible to remove? Spend not, I
beseech thee, the remainder of thy days in offending God, because now is the acceptable
time and the day of salvation shines upon the faces of the penitent, during which thou
canst well bring to pass that thy flight be not in winter or on the Sabbath. Turn
(according to the Psalmist) away from evil and do good, seek good peace and follow it;
because the eyes of the. Lord will be upon thee when thou doest good, and his ears unto
thy prayers, and he will not destroy thy memory from the land of the living. Thou shalt
cry and he will hear thee, and save thee from all thy tribulations. For Christ never
despises the heart that is contrite and humbled by the fear of Him. Otherwise the worm of
thy agony shall not die, and the fire of thy burning shall not be quenched.

Cuneglasus. 32. Why dost thou, also, wallow in the old filth of thy wickedness, from the
years of thy youth, thou bear, rider of many, and driver of a chariot belonging to a
bear's den, despiser of God and contemner of His decree, thou Cuneglas (meaning in the
Roman tongue, thou tawny butcher)? Why dost thou maintain such strife against both men and
God? Against men, thine own countrymen, to wit, by arms special to thyself; against God,
by crimes without number? Why, in addition to innumerable lapses, dost thou, having driven
away thy wife, cast thine eyes upon her dastardly sister, who is under a vow to God of the
perpetual chastity of widowhood, that is as the poet says, of the highest tenderness of
heavenly nymphs, with the full reverence, or rather bluntness, of her mind, against the
apostle's prohibition when he says that adulterers cannot be citizens of the kingdom of
heaven? Why dost thou provoke, by thy repeated injuries, the groans and sighs of saints,
who on thy account are living in the body, as if they were the teeth of a huge lioness
that shall some day break thy bones? Cease, I pray, from anger, as the prophet says, and
forsake the deadly wrath that shall torment thyself, which thou brcathest against heaven
and earth, that is, against God and His flock.

Rather change thy life and cause them to pray for thee, to whom is given the power to bind
above the world, when they have bound guilty men in the world, and to loose, when they
have absolved the penitent. Be not, as the apostle says, high-minded, nor have thy hope
set on the uncertainty of riches, but in God who giveth thee many things richly, that by
an amendment of life, thou mayest lay in store for thyself a good foundation against the
time to come, and mayest have the true life; that is, of course, the eternal life, not
that which passeth away. Otherwise thou shalt know and see, even in this world, how evil
and bitter it is to have abandoned the Lord thy God, and that His fear is not with thee,
and that in the world to come thou shalt be burnt in the hideous mass of eternal fires,
without, however, in any way dying. For the souls of sinners are as immortal for never-
ending fire as those of the saints are for joy.

Maglocunus insularis draco. Maelgwn of Anglesey (?) 33. And thou, the island dragon, who
hast driven many of the tyrants mentioned previously, as well from life as from kingdom,
thou last in my writing, first in wickedness, exceeding many in power and at the same time
in malice, more liberal in giving, more excessive in sin, strong in arms, but stronger in
what destroys thy soul----thou Maclocunus, why dost thou obtusely wallow in such an old
black pool of crimes, as if sodden with the wine that is pressed from the vine of Sodom?
Why dost thou tie to thy royal neck (of thine own accord, as I may say), such heaps,
impossible to remove, of crimes, as of high mountains? Why showest thou thyself to Him,
the King of all kings, who made thee superior to almost all the kings of Britain, both in
kingdom and in the form of thy stature, not better than the rest in morality, but on the
contrary worse? Give a patient hearing for awhile to an undoubted record of those charges
which, passing by domestic and lighter offences----if, indeed, any are light----shall
testify only the things which have been proclaimed far and wide, in broad daylight, as
admitted crimes. In the first years of thy youth, accompanied by soldiers of the bravest,
whose countenance in battle appeared not very unlike that of young lions, didst thou not
most bitterly crush thy uncle the king with sword, and spear, and fire? Not regarding the
prophet's word when it says: Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days.
What wouldst thou expect of retribution for this deed alone from the righteous judge, even
if such consequences as have followed were not to occur, when He likewise says by the
prophet: Woe unto thee that spoilest; shalt thou not be spoiled? and thou that killest,
shalt not thou thyself be killed? and when thou hast made an end of thy spoiling, then
shalt thou fall.

34 When the dream of thy oppressive reign turned out according to thy wish, didst thou
not, drawn by the desire to return unto the right way, with the consciousness of thy sins
probably biting days and nights during that period, first, largely meditating with thyself
on the godly walk and the rules of monks, then, bringing them forward to the knowledge of
open publicity, didst thou not vow thyself for ever a monk? Without any thought of
unfaithfulness was it done, according to thy declaration, in the sight of God Almighty,
before the face of angels and men. Thou hadst broken, as was thought, those big nets, by
which fat bulls of thy class are wont to be entangled headlong, that is, thou hadst broken
the nets of every kind of royalty, of gold and of silver, and what is mightier than these,
of thine own imperious will. And thyself didst thou profitably snatch like a dove, from
the raven, strongly cleaving the thin air in rustling flight, escaping the cruel claws of
the speedy hawk with sinuous windings, to the caves of the saints, sure retreats for thee,
and places of refreshment. What gladness would there be for thy mother, the church, if the
enemy of all mankind had not disastrously dragged thee off, in a way, from her bosom! What
plentiful touchwood for heavenly hope would blaze in the hearts of men without hope, if
thou didst persevere in good!

What and how many rewards of the kingdom of Christ would wait thy soul in the day of
judgment, if that crafty wolf, when from a wolf thou hadst become a lamb, had not snatched
thee from the Lord's fold (not greatly against thy will), to make thee a wolf from a lamb,
like unto himself! What joy thy salvation, if secured, had furnished to the gracious
Father and God of all saints, had not the wretched father of all the lost, like an eagle
of mighty wings and claws----the devil, I mean----against every right, snatched thee away
to the unhappy troop of his children! Not to be tedious----thy conversion unto good fruit
brought as much joy and pleasantness, both to heaven and earth, as now thy accursed
reversion to thy fearful vomit like a sick dog, has caused of sorrow and lamentation. When
this reversion had come to pass thy members are presented as weapons of unrighteousness
unto sin and the devil, which ought to have been eagerly presented, with proper regard to
good sense, as weapons of righteousness unto God. When the attention of thy ears has been
caught, it is not the praises of God, in the tuneful voice of Christ's followers, with its
sweet rhythm, and the song of church melody, that are heard, but thine own praises (which
are nothing); the voice of the rascally crew yelling forth, like Bacchanalian revellers,
full of lies and foaming phlegm, so as to besmear everyone near them. In this way the
vessel, once prepared for the service of God, is changed into an instrument of Satan, and
that which was deemed worthy of heavenly honour is, according to its desert, cast into the
abyss of hell.

35 Yet not by such stumbling-blocks of evils, as if by a kind of barrier, is thy mind,
dulled through a load of unwisdom, retarded; but impetuous like a young colt, which,
imagining every pleasant place as not traversed, rushes along, with unbridled fury, over
wide fields of crimes, heaping new sins upon old. For contempt is thrown upon thy first
marriage, though after thy violated vow as a monk it was illicit, yet was to be assumed as
the marriage of thine own proper wife; another marriage is sought after, not with
anybody's widow, but with the beloved wife of a living man; and he not a stranger, but thy
brother's son. On this account, that stiff neck, already weighted with many burdens of
sins (to wit, a double daring murder, the killing of the husband above named, and the wife
that was for a time regarded by thee as thine), is bent down through the extreme excess of
thy sacrilegious deed, from lowest crimes to still lower. Afterwards thou didst wed her,
by whose collusion and intimation, the huge mass of the crimes grew suddenly so big, in
public, and (as the false tongues of thy flatterers assert, at the top of their voice,
though not from the depth of their heart), in a legitimate marriage, regarding her as a
widow; but our tongues say, in desecrated wedlock.

What saint is there whose bowels, moved by such a tale, do not at once break forth into
weeping and sobbing? What priest, whose righteous heart is open before God, on hearing of
these things, would not, with great wailing, instantly say that word of the prophet: Who
will give water unto my head, and a fountain of tears unto my eyes? A nd I shall weep day
and night the slain of my people. Alas! little didst thou, with thy ears, listen to the
prophet's reproof when it thus speaks: Woe unto you, ye impious men, who have abandoned
the law of the Most High God: and if ye be born, ye shall be born for a curse; and if ye
die, your portion shall be for a curse. All things that are of the earth shall go to the
earth, so shall the wicked from curse unto perdition. It is understood if they return not
unto the Lord, at least, when such an admonition, as the following, has been heard: My son
thou hast sinned; add no more thereto but rather pray to be relieved of thy old sins. And
again: Be not slow to be converted unto the Lord, nor defer it from day to day, for His
anger shall come suddenly; because, as the Scripture says: When the king hearkens to an
unrighteous word, all that are under him are wicked. Surely, as the prophet has said: A
just king elevates the land. 36 But warnings are certainly not wanting to thee, since thou
hast had as instructor the refined teacher of almost the whole of Britain. Beware,
therefore, lest what is noted by Solomon happens unto thee: As one who rouses a sleeper
from deep sleep, is he who speaks wisdom to a fool; for in the end of his speaking he will
say, 'What saidst thou first ?' Wash thine heart, O Jerusalem, as is said, from
wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.

Despise not, I pray thee, the unspeakable mercy of God, when, through the prophet, he
calls the wicked from their sins, as follows: Instantly shall I speak to the nation and to
the kingdom, so that I may pluck up, and scatter, and destroy, and ruin. He earnestly
exhorts the sinner to repentance in this passage: And if that nation repent of its sin, I
also shall repent respecting the evil which I spake to do unto it. Again: Who will give
them such a heart that they may hear me, and keep my precepts, and it may be well unto
them all the days of their life. Again, in the song of Deuteronomy, he says: They are a
people void of counsel and understanding. O that they were wise, that they understood and
foresaw their last end! how one shall chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight.
Again, in the gospel, the Lord says: Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden
and I shall cause you to rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; because I am meek
and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For if thou hear these things with deaf ears, thou contemnest the prophets, thou despisest
Christ, and me, though a man of the lowest estate I grant, thou regardest as of no weight,
though at any rate I keep that word of the prophet with sincere godliness of mind: I shall
surely fill my strength with the spirit and power of the Lord, so as to make known unto
the house of Jacob their sins, and to the house of Israel their offences, lest I be as
dumb dogs that cannot bark. Also that word of Solomon, who says thus: He that saith that
the wicked is just, shall be accursed of the people, and hated of the nations: for they
who convict him shall hope better thing's. Again: Thou shalt not respect thy neighbour to
his own ruin, nor hold back word in the time of salvation. Also: Pluck out those that are
drawn unto death, and redeem those that are slain, spare not, because, as the same prophet
says, riches shall not profit in the day of wrath; righteousness delivereth from death. If
the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? That dark
flood of hell shall roll round thee with its deadly whirl and fierce waves; it shall
always torture and never consume thee, to whom, at that time too late and profitless,
shall be the real knowledge of pain and repentance for sin, from which the conversion to
the righteous way of life, is delayed by thee.

Reasons for Introducing Words of the Holy Prophets (sancti vates). 37. Here indeed, or
even before, was to be concluded this tearful and complaining story of the evils of this
age, so that my mouth should no further relate the deeds of men. But let them not suppose
that I am timid or wearied, so as not to be carefully on my guard against that saying of
Isaiah: Woe unto him who calleth evil good, and good evil, putting darkness for light, and
light for darkness, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Who seeing do not see, and
hearing do not hear, whose heart is covered with a thick cloud of vices. Rather, I wish
succinctly to relate what threatenings, and how great, the oracles of the prophets exclaim
against the above-named lascivious and mad five horses of the retinue of Pharaoh, by whom
his army is actively incited to its ruin in the Red sea, and those like unto them. By
these oracles, as if by a noble roof, the undertaking of my little work is safely covered,
so that it may not stand open to the rain-storms of envious men, which shall rush upon it,
vieing with one another.

Let, therefore, the holy prophets speak for me now, as they did formerly----they who stood
forth as the mouth, so to speak, of God, the instrument of the Holy Spirit with
prohibition of sins unto men, befriending the good----against the stubborn and proud
princes of this age, lest they say, that out of my own invention and mere wordy rashness,
I am hurling against them such threatenings, and terrors of such magnitude. For to no wise
man is it doubtful how much more grievous are the sins of this time, than those of the
primitive time, when the apostle says: He that transgresses the law, is put to death on
the word of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishments, think ye, is he worthy
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God.


ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN
======================

ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN continued

PART III: THE VOICE OF SCRIPTURE

Quotations from Scripture, made consecutively in the order of books, denouncing wicked
Princes. 38. The first to meet us is Samuel, who by the command of God founded a
legitimate kingdom, a man dedicated to God before his birth, a true prophet to all the
people of Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba, known by indubitably wonderful signs. From his
mouth the Holy Spirit thundered to all the powers of the world, when denouncing Saul, the
first king of the Hebrews, for the simple reason that he had not fulfilled certain
commands of the Lord. His words are: Thou hast done foolishly, nor hast thou kept the
commandments of the Lord thy God, which He commanded thee. If thou hadst not done this
thing, God would now prepare thy kingdom over Israel for ever; but thy kingdom shall arise
no further. What then is there like to the crimes of this time? Did. he commit adultery or
murder? Not at all. He, however, made a partial change of the command, because, as one of
ourselves has well said, "the question is not respecting the kind of sin, but respecting
the transgression of a command. And when he was attempting to disprove the charges, as he
thought, and weaving apologies, as is the custom with men, after the following plausible
manner: Verily I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord, and walked in the way by which
He sent me; the prophet punished him with such a censure; as the following: Doth the Lord,
he says, desire burnt offerings or victims, and not rather to obey the voice of the Lord?

For obedience is better than victims, and to hearken is more than to offer the fat of
rams, since resistance is as the sin of witchcraft, and as the crime of idolatry is the
refusal to obey. Therefore, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also
rejected thee from being king. And a little after: God hath rent, he says, the kingdom of
Israel from thee to-day, and hath given it to thy neighbour, better than thou. Truly the
Victor in Israel will not spare, and by penitence will He not be bent; for He is not man,
that He should repent, that is to say, because of the hard hearts of the wicked. We must,
therefore, observe that he says, the refusal to obey God is the crime of idolatry. Let not
those wicked ones applaud themselves, when they do not publicly sacrifice to the gods of
the Gentiles, since by treading under foot, like swine, the costliest pearls of Christ,
they are idolaters. 39. But although this one example, with its impregnable confirmation,
should be fully sufficient to amend the wicked, nevertheless, in order that in the mouth
of many witnesses the whole wickedness of Britain may be established, let us pass on to
the rest. What happened to David when he numbered the people, the prophet Gad saying unto
him: Thus saith the Lord: The choice of three things is given thee; choose the one thou
wilt, that I may do it unto thee; either famine shall befall thee seven years, or thou
shalt flee from thine enemies three months and they pursue thee, or there shall be a
pestilence in thy land three days? Being hard pressed by such a condition, and willing
rather to fall into the hands of God, the merciful, than into the hands of men, he is
humbled by the slaughter of 70,000 of his people. Had he not, moved by apostolic love,
chosen to die for his countrymen, so that the plague should not touch them, as he said: It
is I that have sinned, I the shepherd have done unrighteously; those that are sheep, what
sin have they committed f let thy hand, I pray, be turned against me and against my
father's house: had he not done this, he would have made expiation for his heedless pride
of heart by his own death.

For what says the Scripture in a later part respecting his son? Solomon, it tells us, did
that which was not pleasing in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord as
his father. .... The Lord said unto him, forasmuch as thou hast had this with thee, and
hast not kept my covenant and my precepts which I have given thee, I will break asunder
and divide thy kingdom and give it to thy servant. 40. What befell two sacrilegious kings
of Israel, just like those of ours, Jeroboam and Baasha, hear. The judgment of the Lord
against these men is conveyed through the prophet, saying: Forasmuch as I have magnified
thee to be prince over Israel, because they have provoked me by their vanities, behold I
stir up after Baasha and after his house, and I shall render his house like the house of
Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Him that dieth of his in the city, shall the dogs eat, and his
dead body in the field shall the fowls of heaven consume. What also against that wicked
king of Israel (fellow of those) by whose collusion, and by the guile of his wife,
innocent Naboth was put to death, for the sake of his vineyard, inherited from his
fathers? What is threatened by the holy mouth of that Elijah, by the mouth taught in the
fiery message of the Lord? Thus he says: Thou hast even killed and taken possession; and
thou shalt add this, saith the Lord: in this place, in which the dogs have licked the
blood of Naboth, they will also lick thy blood. That the event did come to pass in this
way is known to us by certain proof.

But lest, as in the case of the aforementioned Ahab, a lying spirit, speaking vain things
in the mouth of your prophets, seduce you from hearkening to the words of the prophet
Micah, behold God hath allowed a lying spirit to be in the mouth of all thy prophets that
are here, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee. For even now, it is certain, there
are some teachers filled with an opposing spirit, declaring for depraved lust rather than
for truth, whose words are made softer than oil and yet are very javelins, who say,
"peace, peace," and there shall not be peace for those who persist in sins, as the prophet
elsewhere says: "there is no joy for the wicked, saith the Lord." 41. Azarias, also the
son of Obed, spoke unto Asa, when he was returning from the slaughter of ten hundred
thousand of the Ethiopian army, saying: The Lord is with you, whilst ye are with Him; and
if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; and if ye leave Him, He will leave you. For if
Jehoshaphat, while aiding an unjust king, is thus reproved by the prophet Jehu, son of
Annanias, saying: If' thou helpest a sinner or lovest him whom the Lord hateth, the anger
of God on that account is upon thee, what shall be unto them who are bound in the fetters
of their own crimes? The sins of these men, if we wish to fight in the Lord's battle, we
must hate, not their souls, as the Psalmist says: Ye who love the Lord, hate evil.

What did the afore-named Elijah, the chariot of Israel and horseman thereof, utter unto
the son of Jehoshaphat, even Jehoram the murderer, who butchered his noble brothers, that
he, a bastard, might reign in their stead. Thus saith the Lord God of thy father David:
Because thou hast not walked in the way of Jehoshaphat thy father, and in the ways of Asa,
King of Judah, and hast adulterously walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the
house of Ahab, and hast killed thy brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, better than thou,
behold the Lord shall strike thee and thy sons with a great plague. A little later: And
thou shalt have great sickness by weakness of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out with
very infirmity, from day to day. And hear ye also how Zecharias, the son of Jehoiadah, the
prophet, menaced Joash, King of Israel, when he abandoned the Lord, as ye do. He rose and
said unto the people: Thus saith the Lord: Why do ye transgress the precepts of the Lord,
and prosper not? Because ye have left the Lord, He will also leave you.

42. What shall I say of Isaiah, the first of the prophets? He began his prophecy or his
vision by saying: Hear ye heavens, and understand with your ears, O! earth, since the Lord
hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, but they have despised me. The ox
knoweth its owner, and the ass its master's crib: but Israel knoweth me not, and my people
hath not understood. A little further, adding fit threatenings for such a folly, he says:
The daughter of Sion shall be left like a tent in a vineyard, and as a booth in a garden
of cucumbers, like a city that is racked. And when he particularly summons the princes, he
says: Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom; know the law of the Lord, ye people
of Gomorrah. It is certainly worthy of observation that unjust kings are called princes of
Sodom. For, by way of forbidding the offering of sacrifices and gifts to him by such men
(whilst we greedily accept things that from every nation are displeasing to God, and to
our own destruction prevent the distribution of those same things to the needy and
penniless), so does the Lord speak unto men burdened with immense riches, and yet having
the mean purposes of sinners. Bring no more a sacrifice in vain; incense is an abomination
unto me. Again he declares: And when ye stretch forth your hand, I will turn away from
you; and when ye multiply prayer, I will not hear. Why He does this is set forth: Your
hands are full of blood.

Showing at the same time how he might be appeased, he says: Wash ye, be ye clean; put
away, the evil of your thoughts from before mine eyes; cease from perverse doing; learn to
do good; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless. As if assuming in
addition the part of reconciler, he says: If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made
white as snow; and if they be red like a worm, they shall be white as wool. If ye be
willing and hear me, ye shall eat the good of the land. Because if ye refuse and provoke
me to anger, the sword shall devour you. 43. Receive one who truly and publicly assents to
these words, when he declares the recompense of your good and evil, with no disguise of
flattery; not as the mouths of your flatterers whisper respectable poisonous things into
your ears.

Also, directing his judgment against rapacious judges, he speaks thus: Thy princes are
unfaithful companions of thieves; they all love gifts and follow after rewards; they judge
not the fatherless, and the cause of the widow cometh not iinto them. Therefore saith the
Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah! I shall be cheered with respect to my
enemies, and be avenged of my adversaries; and the heinous transgressors and the sinners
shall be crushed together and destroyed, and all who have abandoned the Lord shall be
consumed. Also below: The eyes of the lofty man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of
men shall be bowed down. Again: Woe unto the wicked for evil, for the reward of his hands
shall be unto him. A little after: Woe unto you that rise up early to follow after
drunkenness, and to drink until the evening, until ye are inflamed with wine. The harp,
the lyre, the tabret, the pipe and wine are in your feasts; and the work of the Lord ye
regard not, and the work of His hands ye consider not. Therefore my people have been led
captive, because they have not had knowledge; and their honourable men have perished with
famine, and their multitude have parched with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged her
soul, and opened her mouth without measure: and their strong ones and their multitude,
their lofty and renowned ones, shall descend unto it. And below: Woe unto them that are
mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle drunkenness;

who justify the ivicked for rewards, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from
him. Because of this, as the fire devoureth stubble, and the heat of the flame burneth
wood, so shall their root be as embers, and their blossom shall go iip as dust. For they
have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of
Israel. In all this the anger of the Lord is not turned away, but His hand is stretched
out still. 44. And after some further words, treating of the day of judgment and the
unspeakable fear of sinners, he says: Howl ye, because the day of the Lord is at hand----
if it was then near, what shall be thought now?----because destruction shall come from
God. Therefore shall all hands be unloosed, and every heart of man shall melt and be
crushed: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in
travail. Each one shall be amazed at his neighbour; their countenance shall be as faces
burnt. Behold the day of the Lord shall come cruel, and full of indignation and wrath and
anger, to place the land a desolation, and its sinners crushed out thereof; since the
stars of heaven and their splendour shall not spread their light; the sun shall be
darkened in its rising, and the moon not shine in her time. And I shall visit the evils of
the world, and, against the impious, their iniquity; and shall cause the pride of the
unfaithful to become quiet, and the haughtiness of the strong will I lay low. Again:
Behold the Lord shall waste the earth, and make it empty, and afflict its face, and
scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof, and it shall be, as the people, so the priest; and
as the servant so his master; as the maid, so her mistress; as the buyer, so he who sells;
as the lender, so he who borrows; as he who claims a debt, so he who is in debt.

The land shall be utterly dispersed, and shall be despoiled with pillaging. For the Lord
hath spoken this word: The earth hath mourned and hath faded away; the world hath faded
away; the loftiness of the people of the earth hath been weakened, and the earth hath been
brought to nought by its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, have
changed the right, and have broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore shall a curse
devour the earth. 45. And below: They that are merry in heart shall sigh, the joy of
tabrets shall cease, the noise of them that rejoice shall rest, the delight of the harp
with its song shall be silent, they shall not drink wine, bitter shall be their drink to
them that drink it, The city of vanity is wasted; closed is every house, because no man
entereth therein. There shall be crying in the streets over the wine, all joy is failed,
all gladness of the land is carried away, desolation is left in the city, and adversity
shall bear down the gates; for these things shall be in the midst of the land, and in the
midst of the people. After a few words: The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously,
and with the treachery of transgressors have they dealt treacherously. Fear, and the pit,
and the snare, are upon thee, who art an inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to
pass, he who fleeth from the voice of fear shall fall into the pit; and he that is freed
from the pit shall be taken in the snare, because the floodgates from above will be
opened, and the foundations of the earth will be shaken. The earth shall be utterly
broken; it shall be moved exceedingly; it shall be clean staggered like a drunken man, and
shall be carried away like a tent pitched for a night; its transgressions shall be heavy
upon it; it shall fall, and shall make no effort to rise.

It shall come to pass, in that day shall the Lord visit the host of heaven on high, and
the kings of the earth that are upon the earth, and they shall be gathered together as a
host of one bundle into the pit, they shall be shut in prison there, and after many days
shall they be visited. The moon shall blush, and the sun be confounded, when the Lord of
hosts shall reign in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified in the presence
of his elders. 46. After a while, giving a reason why such things should be threatened, he
says thus: Behold the Lords hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear
become heavy, that it hear not. But your iniquities have separated between you and your
God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He should not hear. For your hands are
defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken falsehood, and
your tongue uttereth wickedness. There is none that calleth for justice, nor is there that
judgeth truly, but they confide in nothingness; they speak vanities, they have conceived
sorrow and have brought forth iniquity. And below: Their works are unprofitable, and the
work of inquity is in their hands. Their feet run into evil, and they make haste to shed
innocent blood. Their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts; desolation and destruction are
in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known; and there is no judgment in their
steps. Their paths have been made crooked by them; everyone who walketh therein knoweth
not peace. Therefore is judgment made far from you, and righteousness hath not got hold of
you. After a few words: And judgment is turned back, and righteousness hath stood afar:
because truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness could not enter. Truth hath become
in oblivion; and he who hath departed from evil, hath become open to prey. And the Lord
saw it, and it was not pleasing in His eyes that there is no judgment.

47. So far, let it suffice to have said a few, out of many, of the words of Isaiah the
Prophet. Now with equal attention listen to him who, before he was formed in the womb, was
foreknown, was sanctified and appointed a prophet among all nations also, before he parted
with his mother----listen, I say, to Jeremiah, what he has pronounced concerning a foolish
people and stiff-necked kings. He begins his utterances gently in this manner. And the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, and say. . . .
Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye house of Jacob, and all kindred of the house of Israel:
thus saith the Lord, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they are far
removed from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain, and have not said,
Where is He who caused us to come up out of the land of Egypt? After a few words: From of
old hast thou broken my yoke, thou hast burst my chains; thou saidst, I will not serve. I
planted thee a chosen vine, all a true seed. How then art thou turned into evil things as
a strange vine? If thou wash thee with nitre, and multiply unto thee the plant borith,
thou art marked by thine iniquity before me, saith the Lord. And below: Wherefore will ye
plead with me in judgment, ye have all abandoned me, saith the Lord. In vain have I
smitten your children; they have not received discipline. Hear the word of the Lord.

Have I become a wilderness unto Israel, or a late bearing land? Wherefore, then, hath my
people said: We have gone away, we will no more come unto thee? Doth a maid forget her
ornament, or a bride the fillet of her bosom? Yet my people have forgotten me days without
number. Because my people is foolish, they know me not: unwise children are they, and
without understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. 48
Then the prophet speaks in his own person, saying: O Lord thine eyes behold faithfulness.
Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved: Thou hast ground them, and they have
refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock, and have
refused to return. The Lord also: Declare ye this to the house of Jacob and make it heard
in Judah, saying: Hear, ye foolish people, who have no heart, who, having eyes, see not;
and ears, and do not hear. Will ye then not fear me, saith the Lord, and will ye not
grieve at my presence? I who have placed the sand for a bound to the sea as a perpetual
decree, which it will not pass by. Its waves shall be moved, and they cannot prevail; they
shall swell, and shall not pass over it. But to this people there hath come an unbelieving
and exasperating heart: they have retreated and departed, and have not said in their
heart: Let us fear the Lord our God. And again:

Because among my people have been found wicked men, lying in wait as fowlers, setting gins
and snares to catch men; as a trap is full of birds, so their houses are full of guile.
Therefore they are become great and waxen rich, they are waxen stout and fat, and they
have most wickedly passed by my words: the cause of the fatherless they have not pleaded,
and the judgment of the poor they have not judged. Shall I not visit for these things?
saith the Lord, or shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 49. But God
forbid that what follows should befall you: Thou shalt, speak all these words unto them,
and they shall not hear thee; and thou shalt call them, and they will not answer thee; and
thou shalt say unto them: This is a nation which hath not heard the voice of the Lord its
God, nor received correction; faithfulness is perished, and is taken away from their
mouth. After a while: Will he who falls not rise again, and he who is turned away not
return? Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with obstinate backsliding? They
have seized falsehood, and have refused to return, I watched and hearkened, no orte
speaketh that which is good. There is none who repenteth of his sin, saying: What have I
done? All have turned to their own course, as a horse rushing headlong into battle. The
kite in the heaven knoweth her time, the turtle and swallow and stork have kept the time
of their coming; My people knoweth not the judgment of God. And the prophet----terrified
at so great a blindness of the irreligious and the unspeakable drunkenness, weeping also
for those who do not weep for themselves (just as miserable tyrants behave now)----desires
that an increase of tears be given him by the Lord, speaking as follows: For the grief of
the daughter of my people am I worn out; astonishment hath taken hold of me. Is there no
balm in Gilead, or is there no physician there?

Why, then, is the wound of the daughter of my people not closed? Who will give, wafer unto
my head, and unto mine eyes a fountain of tears? A nd I shall weep day and night for the
slain of my people. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men? A
nd I shall leave my people and go away from them, since they are all adulterers, an
assembly of treacherous men. They have stretched their tongue like a bow of falsehood and
not of truth. They have become strong in the land, because they have proceeded from evil
to evil, and have not known Me, saith the Lord. Again: And the Lord said: Because they
have forsaken My law, which I gave unto them, and have not hearkened unto My voice nor
walked therein, and have gone after the wickedness of their heart; on that account, thus
saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, behold I shall feed this people with wormwood
and give them water of gall to drink. And a little after, speaking in the person of God, a
way which the prophet very frequently assumes: Therefore pray thou not for this people,
and raise not up for them praise and prayer, because I will not hear them in the time of
their crying unto Me and their trouble.

50. What then shall unhappy leaders do now? Those few who have abandoned the broad way and
are finding the narrow, are forbidden by God to pour out prayers for you, who persist in
evil and tempt Him so greatly: upon whom, on the contrary, if you return with your heart
unto God, they could not bring ven-geance, because God is unwilling that the soul of man
should perish, but calls it back, lest he who is cast away should utterly perish. Because,
not even Jonas the prophet, and that when he greatly desired it, could bring vengeance on
the Ninevites. But putting aside, meanwhile, our own words, let us rather hear what sound
the prophetic trumpet gives: And if thou say this in thy heart, wherefore are these evils
come? They come for the greatness of thy iniquity. If the Ethiop can change his skin, or
the leopard his spots, ye also can do good, who have learnt to do evil. Here it is
understood, "ye are not willing. And below: Thus saith the Lord to this people that hath
loved to move its feet, and hath not rested, and hath not been pleasing unto the Lord; now
will He remember their iniquities and visit their sins. And the Lord said unto me, Pray
not for that people for their good. When they fast, I shall not hear their cries; and if
they offer burnt-offerings and victims, I will not accept them. Again: And the Lord said
unto me:

If Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind is not toward that people; cast them out of
My sight, and let them go forth. And after a few words: Who shall have pity upon thee, O
Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go to pray for thy peace? Thou hast
abandoned Me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward, and I shall stretch forth My hand
over thee, and kill thee. And after a while? Thus saith the Lord, behold I frame a device
against you; let every one return from his evil way, and make straight your ways and
pursuits. And they said: We despair, after our own devices will we walk, and we will
everyone do the wickedness of his own evil heart. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, ask ye
the nations, who hath heard such horrible things as the virgin Israel hath done beyond
measure? Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or can the bursting
waters flowing cool be drawn away? Because My people have forgotten Me. After a while,
having placed a choice before them, he speaks, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Execute ye
judgment and righteousness, and deliver him that is oppressed by violence from the hand of
the oppressor, and afflict not the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; neither oppress
iniquitously, nor shed innocent blood. For if ye thoroughly do this word, there shall
enter in by the gates of this house kings of the race of David, sitting upon his throne:

because if ye hear not these words, I have sworn unto Myself, saith the Lord, that this
house shall be a desert. Again, for he was speaking of a wicked king: As I live, saith the
Lord, if Jechoniah were the ring on my right hand, I will pluck him hence, and give him in
the hands of those that seek his life. 51. Holy Habakkuk also crieth out, saying: Woe to
him that buildeth. a city in blood, and prepareth a city by iniquities, saying: Are these
things not from the Lord Almighty? and many peoples have perished by fire, and nations
many have been diminished. He thus begins his prophecy with a complaint: How long shall I
cry, and thou wilt not hear? I shall cry unto Thee, why hast thou given unto me hardships
and griefs, to see misery and ungodliness? To the contrary hath both a judgment been made
and the judge accepted it. Wherefore the law is demolished and judgment is not brought to
an end, because the ungodly by might trampleth down the righteous. Therefore judgment
goeth forth perverted. 52. Listen also to what the blessed prophet Hosea says of princes:
For that they have transgressed my covenant, and have borne themselves against my law; and
were crying out, we know thee that thou art against Israel. They have persecuted the good,
as if unrighteous; they have reigned for themselves, and not by me; they have held the
chief place, nor have they recognised me.

53. Hear also the holy prophet Amos threatening as follows: For three transgressions of
the sons of Judah, and for four, I will not turn them aside; because they have rejected
the law of the Lord, and have not kept His precepts, and their vanities have led them
astray. And I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the foundations of
Jerusalem. Thus saith the Lord, For three iniquities of Israel and for four I will not
turn them aside, because they have betrayed the righteous for money and the needy for
shoes, which tread upon the dust of the earth, and with cuffs have they struck the heads
of the poor, and have shunned the way of the humble. After a few words: Seek the Lord and
ye shall live, so that the house of Ioseph shall not blaze like fire and devour it, and
there shall not be to quench it. The house of Israel have hated him that reproveth in the
gates, and have abhorred the righteous word. And this Amos, when being forbidden to
prophesy in Israel, without the mildness of flattery says in answer: I was not a prophet
nor a prophet's son, but was a goat herd plucking the fruit of sycamores; and the Lord
took me from the sheep, and the Lord said unto me, Go and prophesy unto my people Israel;
and now hear thou the word of the Lord. For he was addressing the king.

Thou sayest Prophesy not unto Israel and gather not crowds against the house of Jacob.
Therefore thus saith the Lord. Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and
thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy lands shall be measured by line, and thou
shalt die in an unclean land; and Israel shall be led away captive out of his land. And
below: Hear therefore these things, ye that fiercely afflict the needy and employ tyranny
against the poor in the land; who say, When shall the month be gone that we may get, and
the sabbath that we may open our treasure. After a few words: The Lord sweareth against
the pride of Jacob. Shall. He forget your works in scorn, and in these things shall not
the land tremble? and every one that dwelleth thereon shall mourn, and its consummation
shall rise like a flood. A nd I will turn your feast days into mourning, and shall cast
haircloth upon every loin, and baldness upon every head, and I will render it as a
mourning for a beloved one, and those that are with him, as a day of sorrow. And again:
All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, Evils shall not overtake nor
come upon us.

54. But listen also what the holy prophet Micah has said: Hear thou, O! tribe; what shall
adorn a city? Not fire? Not the house of the unjust treasuring unjust treasures? Not
unrighteousness with injury? Shall the unjust be justified in his balance, or deceitful
weights in the bag, out of which they filled up their riches in ungodliness? 55. But hear
also what threats the distinguished prophet Zephaniah heaps up: The great day of the Lord
is near, near and hastening greatly. The voice of the day of the Lord hath been appointed
bitter and mighty, that day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of
cloud and mist, a day of trumpet and cry, a day of misery and desolation, a day of
darkness and thick gloom, over strong cities and high corner towers. A nd I will distress
men, and they shall go as blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; and I will
pour out their blood as dust, and their flesh as the dung of oxen; and their silver and
gold cannot deliver them in the day of the Lord's anger. And by the fire of his jealousy
shall the whole land be consumed, when the Lord shall bring an end and a loneliness over
all that dwell in the land. Come together, and gather yourselves together, nation without
discipline; before ye be made as a flower that passeth away, before the anger of the Lord
come upon you.

56. Listen also what Haggai, the holy prophet, says: Thus saith the Lord: Once shall I
move heaven and earth and sea and dry land, and will turn away the kingdom and banish the
strength of the kings of the nations, and turn away the chariots and those (them) that
mount thereon. 57. Now again, observe what Zachariah, son of Adda, the chosen prophet, has
said, beginning his prophecy in this manner: Return unto me and I will return unto you,
saith the Lord, and be not such as your fathers, whom the former prophets charged, saying,
Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Return ye from your ways: and they did not observe so as to
hearken unto me. Below also: And the angel said unto me, What seest thou? and I said, I
see a flying scythe of twenty cubits in length. It is the curse which goeth forth over the
face of the whole earth; since every thief shall from it be punished unto death, and I
shall cast him forth saith the Lord Almighty; and it shall enter into the thief's house,
and into the house of swearing . falsely in my name.

58. Holy Malachy the prophet also says: Behold the day of the Lord shall come, burning as
a furnace; and all the proud and all who work wickedness shall be as stubble, and the
coming day shall set them on fire, saith the Lord of hosts, which shall not leave of them
root or shoot. 59. But hear what holy Job also has taught respecting the beginning and end
of the wicked, saying: Wherefore do the wicked live? A nd they have become old
dishonourably, and their seed is according to their desire, and their sons before their
face; and their houses are fruitful, and never is the fear or the scourge of the Lord upon
them. Their cow hath not been abortive, and their animal, big with young, hath brought
forth and hath not gone astray; but it abideth as an eternal flock, and their children
rejoice, taking up both psaltery and harp. They finished their life in good things, and
stept into the rest of the grave. God, then, does not regard the deeds of the wicked? No,
not so, I conclude. But the candle of the wicked shall be extinguished, and calamity shall
come upon them, and pain as of one in childbirth shall hold them through anger. And they
shall be like chaff before wind, and as dust, which the whirlwind carrieth away. May his
goods fail to his children. Let his eyes see his own destruction, and may he not be
redeemed by the Lord. After a while, of the same: Those who have carried away the flock
with the shepherd, he says, and have taken away the beast of the orphans, and have pledged
the widow's ox, and have shunned the weak in the way of need, they have reaped a field,
not their own, before its time;

the poor have worked the vineyards of the strong, without pay and without hire; they have
caused many to sleep naked without clothing; the covering of their life have they taken
away. After a few words, when he knew their deeds, he delivered them over to darkness:
Cursed therefore be his portion from the earth, and may his plantations appear as parched
ones. Let there be, therefore, retribution to him as he hath done; let every wicked man be
destroyed as a tree without health. For he riseth in anger, and overturns the weak.
Therefore he shall not have confidence of his life, when he shall begin to grow weak; he
shall not hope for health, but shall fall into weariness. For his pride hath wounded many,
and he hath become withered as the mallow in heat, as the ear of corn when it falleth from
its stem. Below also: Although his children be many, they shall be for destruction. Though
he gather silver like earth, and prepare gold like unto clay, all these do the just
obtain.

60. Listen besides to what the blessed prophet Esdras, that volume of the law, has
threatened, treating in this manner: Thus says my Lord, my right hand shall not spare
sinners, neither shall the sword cease over them that shed innocent blood upon the earth.
The fire shall go forth from my anger, and shall devour the foundations of the earth, and
sinners like kindled straw. Woe unto them who sin and keep not my commandments, saith the
Lord, I will not spare them. Depart ye apostate children, and defile not my holiness. God
knoweth those that sin against Him, therefore He will deliver them unto death and unto
destruction. For now have evils many come upon the whole earth. A sword of fire is sent
upon you, and who shall turn back those evils? Will anyone turn back a hungry lion in the
wood? Or what shall quench fire, when the straw is kindled? The Lord God will send evils
and who will turn them back? And fire shall go forth from His wrath, and who is he that
shall quench it? He shall send lightning, and who shall not fear? He shall thunder, and
who shall not dread it? God shall threaten, and who shall not be terrified before His
face? The earth shall quake and the foundations of the sea move like waves from the deep.

61. Listen also to what Ezekiel the famous prophet, the wonderful seer of the four beasts
of the gospels, has said of the wicked. To him first, as he piteously weeps the scourge of
Israel, the Lord says: The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Judah hath grown
exceeding great, because the land is full of many peoples and the city is full of iniquity
and uncleanness. Behold it is I. Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. And
below. Because the land is full of peoples, and the city is full of iniquity, I will also
turn away the force of their prowess, and their holy places shall be polluted.
Supplication shall come, and they shall seek peace, and it shall not be. And after a
while. The word of the Lord, he says, came unto me saying, Son of man, the land which
shall sin against me to commit a trespass, I will stretch out my hand and break her
foundation of bread, and send famine upon it, and take away from it man and beast.
Although those three men be in the midst of it, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they shall not
deliver it, but shall be themselves saved by their righteousness, saith the Lord.

Because if I bring noisome beasts upon the land, and punish it, and it shall be a
banishment, and there shall not be to walk from the face of the beasts, and if those three
men be in the midst of it, as I live saith the Lord, its sons and daughters shall not be
delivered, yet they themselves alone shall be saved, but the land shall be a desolation.
And again. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear
the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself. And the
unjust man if he turn from all the iniquities which he hath done, and keep all my
commandments, and do righteousness and plenteous mercy, he shall surely live and not die.
All his transgressions which he hath committed, shall not be: in the righteousness which
he hath done, he shall surely live. Do I, indeed, desire the death of the unrighteous,
saith the Lord, rather than that he turn from his own evil way and live? But when the
righteous shall turn away from his righteousness and commit iniquity, according to all the
unrighteousnesses which the sinner hath committed, all the righteousnesses which he hath
done, shall not be in remembrance. In his own trespass, by which he hath fallen, and in
the sins by which he hath sinned, shall he die. And after a while.

And all the nations shall know that it was on account of their sins the house of Israel
were carried away captive, because they forsook me. And I have turned my face away from
them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and all have fallen by the
sword. According to their uncleanness, and according to their transgressions, have I done
unto them and have turned my face away from them. 62. Let this be sufficient to say
respecting the threats of the holy prophets. I have, however, thought it necessary to
insert in this little work a few things from The Wisdom of Solomon, so as to declare
exhortation or intimation to kings no less than threats, lest it should be said of me,
that I wish to place burdens of words, heavy and grievous to be borne, upon the shoulders
of men, but am unwilling to move them with my finger, that is, by a word of consolation.
Let us hear, therefore, what the prophet hath said. Love righteousness, he says, ye that
judge the earth. This one testimony, if it were kept with the whole heart, would
abundantly suffice to set right the rulers of the land. For if they had loved
righteousness, they would also certainly love the fountain, as it were, and source of all
righteousness, even God. Serve the Lord in goodness, and in singleness of heart seek ye
him. Alas! "who shall be alive," as someone before us says, "when those things are done by
our citizens," if haply they can be done anywhere, Because he is found of them that tempt
him not, but appeareth unto them who have faith in him. For those men tempt God without
respect, whose precepts they despise with stubborn contumacy; nor do they keep faith
towards him unto whose oracles, pleasant or partly severe, they turn their back and not
their face. For froward thoughts separate from God.

This is that which is chiefly observed in the tyrants of our time. But why is my
insignificant self brought in where the meaning is so manifest? For let him speak on my
behalf, as I have said, who alone is true, that is to say, the Holy Spirit, of whom it is
now said: For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit. Again: Because the spirit of
God hath filled the world. And below, showing with clear judgment the end of evil and
good, he says. For the hope of the ungodly man is as the down of plants, that is carried
away by the wind; and as the smoke that is dispersed by wind, and as the thin foam that is
driven away by the storm, and as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day; but
the righteous shall live for ever, and with God is their reward, and the care for them is
with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive the kingdom of dignity, and the crown of
beauty, from the Lord's hand: because with His right hand He shall cover them, and with
His holy arm shall He protect them. For unlike in quality are they; they are righteous and
ungodly; there is no doubt of this, as the Lord has said, I shall honour them 63 who
honour me, and they that despise me shall be unknown. But let us pass on to the other
things.

Hear, he says, all ye kings and under-stand, learn ye judges of the ends of the earth.
Give ear, ye that hold dominion over multitudes, and pride yourselves in crowds of
nations. Because power was given, you of God, and your strength from the Most High, who
shall inquire into your works, and search out your counsels. Because, though ye were
ministers of this kingdom, ye have not judged aright, nor kept the law of righteousness,
nor walked according to His will; awfully and speedily shall He appear unto you, because a
stern judgment shall be unto them that rule. For mercy is granted to the mean, but mighty
men shall mightily suffer torments. For He who is Ruler of all will not thrust aside men's
persons, nor will He reverence any man's greatness, because it is He that hath made the
mean and the great, and He hath care for all alike. But a very sore trial is at hand unto
the mighty. Unto you, therefore, O kings, are these words of mine, that ye may learn
wisdom, and fall not away. For they that have kept righteous things shall be justified,
and they that have learnt holy things shall be made holy.


ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN
======================

ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN continued

PART IV: AGAINST THE PRIESTS

The writer's feelings with respect to the princes so severely censured in the preceding
part. Motives as to intending attack upon the clergy. 64. So far, I have argued with the
kings of my country no less by oracles of prophets than by my own words, desiring that
they should know what the prophet had said: Flee from sins, he says, as from the face of a
serpent; if thou draw nigh unto them, the teeth of a lion shall catch thee, their teeth
that slay the souls of men. And again: How great is the mercy of the Lord, and His
reconciliation unto them that turn unto Him. If I have not in me that apostolic word, that
I should say, I could wish to be an anathema from Christ for my brethren, I could,
nevertheless, say that word of the prophet with my whole heart: Alas! a soul perisheth.
Again: Let us search and try our ways, and return unto the Lord; let us lift up our hearts
with our hands unto God in heaven; but also that apostolic saying, We desire every one of
you to be in the bowels of Christ.

65. How gladly, in this place, as one tossed by the waves of the sea, and carried into the
desired haven by the oars, would I, under the prompting of modesty, take my rest, did I
not see mountains so great, and of such a kind, of the evil committed by bishops or the
other priests, or by clergy of my own order also, raised up against God. These must I
first, according to the law, as the witnesses did, with rough stones of words, and then
the people, if they cling to the decrees, stone with all our might, not that they may be
killed in the body, but, by being dead unto sins, they may live unto God. This I do lest I
be accused of making an exception of persons. Yet, as I have already said in the former
part, I crave pardon from those whose life I not only praise, but even prefer to all the
wealth of the world, of which, if it be possible, sometime before the day of my death, I
desire and thirst to be a partaker. While my sides are now made invincible by a rampart of
two shields of saints, with my back steadfast against the walls of truth, while my head is
most surely covered by the Lord's help for a helmet, let the stones of my censures fly in
a thick flight of truthful words.

1. Charges against wicked and reprobate priests, cc. 66-68. 66. Priests Britain has, but
foolish ones; a great number of ministers, but shameless; clergy, but crafty plunderers;
pastors, so to say, but wolves ready for the slaughter of souls, certainly not providing
what is of benefit for the people, but seeking the filling of their own belly. They have
church edifices, but enter them for the sake of filthy lucre; they teach the people, but
by furnishing the worst examples, teach vice and evil morals; they seldom sacrifice, and
never stand among the altars with pure heart; they do not reprove the people on account of
their sins, nay, in fact, they commit the same; they despise the commandments of Christ,
and are careful to satisfy their own lusts with all their prayers: they get possession of
the seat of the apostle Peter with unclean feet, but, by the desert of cupidity, fall into
the unwholesome chair of the traitor Judas. Truth they hate as an enemy, and favour lies
as if they were their dearest brothers: the righteous poor they eye like huge serpents,
with fierce countenances, and respect the rich impious, with no touch of shame, like
angels from heaven. They preach that alms should be given to the needy, with all the power
of their lips, but they themselves contribute not a penny. Silent as to abominable sins of
the people, they magnify their own injuries as if inflicted upon Christ.

They drive out of house a religious mother, may be, or sisters, and unbecomingly make
light of strange women, as if for a more hidden service, or rather, to speak the truth,
though it be of improper things----not so much for me as for the men who do such things
----they demean them. After these things, they are more ready to seek ecclesiastical
positions than the kingdom of heaven; and these, when received by an illegal rite, they
defend without even adorning them by legitimate usages. Towards the precepts of the
saints, if indeed they have at any time heard these things, which ought to be very
frequently heard by them, they are listless and dull; while for public games and the
scandalous tales of men of the world, they are active and attentive; as if the things
which open the way of death were the way of life. They are hoarse, by reason of fat, like
bulls; and are unhappily ready even for things unlawful; proudly holding their faces
aloft, and their feelings plunged down to the lowest, even to hell, though with the
remorse of conscience; grieving at the loss of a single penny, glad also at the gain of
one. In apostolic decrees, because of ignorance or the weight of sins, while they stop the
mouths of even the knowing, they are sluggish and dumb, yet in the false windings of
worldly affairs, they are exceedingly well versed.

Many of these men, after a wicked life, rather force their way into the priesthood, or buy
it at almost any price, than be drawn into the same; and in the same old and accursed mire
of unbearable crimes, after gaining the priestly chair of episcopate or presbyterate (men
who never sat thereon), meanly wallow like swine. They have violently seized the mere name
of priest, without receiving its true meaning or apostolic worthiness, but as men, who in
respect of sound faith and by repentance for sins, are not yet fit. How do they arrive at
and acquire any ecclesiastical rank, to say nothing of the highest? because it is a rank
which none save the holy and perfect, and those who imitate the apostles, and, to speak in
the words of the teacher of the gentiles, those without reproach, undertake in a
legitimate way and without the great sin of sacrilege.

67. For what is so impious and so wicked as, after the pattern of Simon Magus, though
meanwhile no indiscriminate sins intervene, that any one should wish to purchase the
office of bishop or presbyter for an earthly price, an office that is more becomingly
obtained by holiness and upright character? But the error of those men lies the more grave
and desperate in the fact that they buy counterfeit and unprofitable priesthood, not from
apostles or the successors of apostles, but from tyrants and from their father the devil.
Nay, furthermore, they place upon the edifice of an infamous life a kind of roof and
covering for all sins, in order that admitted desires, old or new, of covetousness and
gluttony should not be easily placed to their charge by any one, seeing that, having
oversight of many, they carry on their pillage with greater ease. For if truly such a
stipulation of purchase had been presented by those shameless men, let me not say to the
apostle Peter, but to any holy priest and pious king, they would have received the same
answer as the originator of the same, the magician Simon, received from the apostle when
Peter said: Thy money perish with thee. But perhaps, alas!

they who ordain those candidates, nay, rather, who abase them and give them a curse for a
blessing, because out of sinners they make, not penitents, which would be more befitting,
but sacrilegious and irremediable offenders, and in a way appoint Judas, the betrayer of
the Lord, to the chair of Peter, and Nicolaus, the founder of a foul heresy, in place of
Stephen the martyr----perhaps they were summoned to the priesthood after the same manner.
For this reason, in the case of their sons, they do not greatly detest (they rather
approve), that it is a matter of utmost certainty that things should come to pass
afterwards as with the fathers. Since, if they could not find this kind of pearl, because
fellow-labourers resisted them in a diocese, and sternly refused them so profitable a
business, they are not so much grieved as delighted to send messengers before them, to
cross seas and travel over broad countries, so that in any way such display and
incomparable dignity, or to speak more truly, such diabolical mockery, be acquired, even
by the sale of all their substance. Afterwards, with great state and magnificent show, or
rather foolery, they return to their own country, and show their haughty gait more
haughty. While hitherto their gaze was at the tops of mountains, they now direct their
half-sleepy eyes straight to heaven, or to the light fleecy clouds, and obtrude themselves
upon their country as creatures of a new mould;

nay, rather as instruments of the devil, just as aforetime Novatus at Rome, the tormentor
of the Lord's jewel, the black hog, their purpose is to stretch forth their hands
violently upon the holy sacrifices of Christ, hands worthy not so much of the venerable
altars as of the avenging flames of hell, because they are men placed in a position of
this kind. 68. What wilt thou, unhappy people, expect from such belly beasts, as the
apostle says? Shalt thou be amended by these men who not only do not call themselves to
what is good, but, in the words of the prophet, weary themselves to commit iniquity? Shalt
thou be illuminated by such eyes which greedily scan only those things which lead
downwards to wickedness, that is, to the gates of hell? Or, surely, according to the
Saviour's saying, if ye do not; speedily escape from those ravenous Arabian wolves, just
as Lot escaped to the mountain, fleeing the fiery shower of Sodoma, blind led by the
blind, ye shall fall equally into the ditch of hell. 2. Defects of those acknowledged to
be blameless in their lives when compared (a) with Old Testament examples, cc. 69-72; (b)
with examples found in the New, c. 73; (c) with those furnished by Church history, cc.
74-75.

69 Perhaps, however, some one may say: All bishops or presbyters are not so wicked as they
have been described in the former part; because they are not defiled by the infamy of
schism or of pride or of uncleanness. Neither do I also strongly deny this. (a) Comparison
with Old Testament examples. But while I know them to be chaste and good, I shall,
nevertheless, make a brief answer. What did it avail Eli the priest, that he himself did
not violate the precepts of the Lord by seizing with flesh-hooks, before the fat was
offered to the Lord, flesh out of the pots, whilst he was punished by the same anger
leading to death as his sons were? Who, I ask, of those men was killed, as Abel, owing to
envy of a better sacrifice, and one carried by celestial fire into heaven? They are men
who even reject the reproof of a lowly word----who hath hated the counsel of the malicious
and hath not sat with the ungodly, so that of him it might be truly said as of Enoch:
Enoch walked with God and was not found, that is to say, was not found to have abandoned
God, and to limp readily after idols at that time, amid the vanity of the whole world in
its unwisdom. Who of them has refused to admit into the ark of salvation, that is, now,
the Church, any adversary of God, as Noah in the time of the deluge, so that it may be
made clearly manifest that only the innocent, or those pre-eminently penitent, ought to be
in the Lord's house?

Who, like Melchisedek, offered, sacrificed, and blessed the victors only when, three
hundred in number (which implies the mystery of the Trinity), after delivering the just
man, they vanquish the dangerous armies of the five kings and of their victorious troops,
and have no desire for the goods of others? Who, like Abraham, at the command of God, has
voluntarily offered his own son to be slain on the altar, so that he should fulfil a
command similar to that given by Christ when he says that the offending right eye must be
plucked out, and should guard against the prophet's warning, that cursed is he who keepeth
back the sword and blood? Who, like Joseph, has rooted out of his heart the memory of an
injury? Who, to speak in figure, like Moses, has spoken with the Lord on the mountain and
then, without being terrified by the sounding trumpets, has brought to the people, as
Moses did, the two tables and a covered face impossible (unbearable) to look at and awful
to unbelievers? Which of them, praying for the sins of the people, has cried out from the
depths of his heart, as he, saying: Lord this people hath sinned a great sin, which if
thou forgive them forgive, otherwise blot me out of thy book?

70. Who, burning with an extraordinary zeal for God, has risen strongly to the immediate
punishment of adultery, applying the medicine of penance for the healing of filthy lust;
lest anger should burn against the people, as Phineas the priest did, so that for ever it
might be counted unto him as righteousness? Which of them has imitated Joshua, son of Nun,
in moral understanding, either to root out unto their utter destruction from the Land of
Promise the seven nations, or to establish in their stead a spiritual Israel? Which of
them has shown to the people of God their farthest boundaries beyond Jordan, so that they
might know what is suitable for each tribe, just as the above-named Phineas and Joshua
made a wise division of the country? Who, in order to overthrow the innumerable throngs of
the Gentiles, the enemies of God's people, has, as Jephtha, offered up his only daughter
----by which is understood his own will, in this imitating the apostle when he says: Not
seeking mine own profit but the profit of many, that they maybe saved----offered her as a
sacrifice of vow and propitiation when she was coming to meet the victors with timbrel and
dance, that is, the carnal desires? Which of them, in order to disturb, put to flight and
overthrow the camp of the proud Gentiles, went forth with undoubting faith as Gideon?

Went forth, showing the mystery of the Trinity as was said above, with men holding in
their hands the extraordinary pitchers and sounding trumpets----by which is meant the
thoughts of prophets and apostles, as the Lord said to the prophet, Lift up thy voice like
a trumpet; and the Psalmist said of the apostles, Their sound is gone forth to all the
earth----waving also the pitchers in the night with brightest light of fire, which are
understood of the bodies of the saints joined to good works and glowing with the fire of
the Holy Spirit, Having, as the apostle says, this treasure in earthen vessels? went
forth, after cutting down the wood in the grove of idolatry, which, in its moral
interpretation, means thick and dark desire, and after the clear signs of the Jewish
fleece without the moisture from heaven, and of the Gentile fleece made wet by the. dew of
the Holy Spirit?

71. Which of them, desiring to die to the world and live unto Christ, has made prostrate
such innumerable luxurious banqueters (that is, the senses), praising their gods, exalting
riches (in the words of the apostle, and covetousness which is idolatry), as Samson did,
when he, by the strength of his arms, clashed the two columns, which mean the vain
pleasures of soul and flesh, by which the house of every human wickedness is, in a manner,
fixed and established? Which of them, as Samuel, driving away fear of the Philistines by
prayers and the offering of a sucking lamb as a whole burnt-offering, brought on sudden
thunder and rain from the clouds, and appointing a king without flattery, casting away the
same when not pleasing unto God, after anointing a better man for the throne, stood to bid
adieu to the people, speaking as follows: Here I am: speak before the Lord and His
anointed: have I taken anyone's ox or ass? have I made false accusation against any one?
have 1 oppressed any one? have I taken a reward from any man's hand? To him answer was
made by the people: Thou hast not made false accusation against us, nor oppressed us, nor
hast thou taken anything from the hand of any man.

Which of them, burning a hundred proud ones by fire from heaven, while preserving fifty
humble ones, and without the deceit of flattery, announcing to the unrighteous king his
impending death, when he was taking counsel, not of God by his prophet, but of the idol
Accharon, which----like Elias, the illustrious prophet----has overthrown with a gleaming
sword, that is, the word of God, all the prophets of the idol Baal, who, when interpreted,
are understood to be the human emotions (as we have already said), ever intent upon envy
and covetousness? Who, as he, moved by zeal for God, depriving the land of the unrighteous
of rain from heaven, as if it were shut up in the stronghold of want for three years and
six months, was about to die of famine and thirst in the wilderness, and made his lament,
saying, Lord, they have slain thy prophets and have thrown down thine altars, and I am
left alone, and they seek my life?

72. Which of them, as Elisaeus, punished a beloved disciple, when burdened beyond his wont
by the weight of earthly things which had previously been despised by himself, though
earnestly entreated to accept them, not by perpetual leprosy, it is true, yet by
dismissal? Which of them, as he, has opened the eyes of the soul for a servant, when, in
despair of life, he was excited and trembling at the sudden warlike preparations of the
enemies, besieging the city in which they were? Who among us, as he, has done this with
fervent prayer offered unto God, so that he could see the mountain full of the heavenly
army of allies, and of armed chariots or horsemen flashing with fiery countenances, and
that he might believe that God was stronger to save than the enemies to fight? Which of
them also by contact with his body, when dead to the world, yet living unto God, shall
profit, as the above-named did, another lying in a different death, that is, dead unto
God, but living unto sins, so that he should forthwith leap forth and give thanks to
Christ for a healing despaired of in the conversation of almost all men? Of which of them,
with live coal carried from off the altar in the tongs of the cherubs, so that his sins
should be blotted out, were the lips purified, as those of Isaiah, by humble confession?

Was it not by those lips, with the help of the efficacious prayer of the pious king
Hezekiah, that 185,000 of the Assyrian army, like the men mentioned above, were thoroughly
overthrown, with no trace of wound, by the hand of the angel? Which of them, like blessed
Jeremiah, because of the commands of God and his public utterance of threats given from
heaven, and the truth even to men who heard not, experienced the squalor and filth of
prisons, equivalent to death for a time? To be brief, who of them, as the teacher of the
gentiles has said, suffered the wandering on mountains, in caves and holes of the earth,
the stoning, the cutting asunder, the trial by every kind of death for the Lord's name,
like the holy prophets? (b) Compared with New Testament examples. 73. Why do we delay in
ancient examples as if there were not any in the New Testament? Let those men, therefore,
who think that without any hardship they can enter this narrow way of the Christian
religion merely by claiming the name of priest, listen to me as I cull a few flowers, the
chiefest in a way, from the extensive and pleasant meadow of the holy soldiery of the New
Testament. Which of you, who loll listlessly rather than sit in a legitimate way in the
priestly chair, was cast out from the council of the wicked, and, like the holy apostles,
gave thanks with full heart to the Trinity, after blows from diverse rods, that he was
held worthy to suffer contumely for Christ, the true God?

Who, through bearing true testimony to God, had his brains dashed out with a fuller's
club, and suffered bodily death, like James, though the first bishop in the New Testament?
Who among you was beheaded, by an unjust prince as James the brother of John? Who, like
the first deacon and martyr of the gospel, with no crime but this that he saw God, whom
the unbelieving could not have seen, has been stoned by impious hands? Who, fixed to the
cross-bar with feet up because of his reverence for Christ, whom he intended to honour no
less by death than by life, breathed his last breath, like that fit keeper of the keys of
the kingdom of heaven? Who of you, as the chosen vessel and elect teacher of the gentiles,
was beheaded by a stroke of the sword, for the confession of the Christ that spoke the
truth, after prison chains, shipwrecks at seas, blows with rods; after continuous perils
of rivers, of robbers, of Gentiles, of Jews, of false apostles, after sufferings of
famine, fasting, watchings, after constant anxiety for all the churches, after burning for
them that cause stumbling, after weakness for the weak, after wonderful compassing of the
world, almost, to preach the gospel of Christ?

(c) Compared with examples furnished by Church History. 74. Who of you, like the holy
martyr Ignatius, bishop of the city of Antioch, after wonderful deeds in Christ, was torn
to pieces at Rome by the teeth of lions, because of his testimony? When you hear his words
as he was being led to his passion, if ever you have----with blushing----felt confusion of
face, you will not only not consider yourselves priests in comparison with him, but will
barely regard yourselves as middling Christians. In the epistle which he sent to the Roman
Church he says: From Syria unto Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, day and
night, being bound and tied to ten leopards, I mean the soldiers appointed as guards, who
wax more cruel by our kindnesses. Howbeit by their wickednesses I grow more instructed,
yet am I not hereby justified. O! the beasts of salvation, that are being prepared for me,
when will they come? When shall they be let out? When will it be free for them to enjoy my
flesh? These I wish to be made more prompt, and I will entice them to devour me, and pray
that they will not, as they have done in the case of some, fear to touch my body. Yea,
even if they delay, I will force them to it; I shall rush upon them. Bear with me; I know
what is expedient for me. Now am I beginning to be a disciple of Christ. Let the envy,
whether of human feeling or spiritual wickedness, cease, that I may be worthy to attain
unto Jesus Christ; may fires, crosses, beasts, wrenchings of bones, hacking of limbs, and
pains in my whole body, and all tortures devised by the art of the devil be fulfilled in
me alone, provided I be worthy to attain unto Jesus. Christ.

Why do you look at these things with the sleepy eyes of your soul? Why listen to such with
the dull ears of your senses? Disperse, I pray, the dark black mist of your heart's
slothfulness, so that ye may be able to see the beaming light of truth and humility. A no
common Christian but a perfect one, a no mean but most excellent priest, a martyr not
sluggish but distinguished, says: Now am I beginning to be a disciple of Christ. And you,
just like that Lucifer, cast down from heaven, are puffed up with words, not power, and
ruminate under your teeth, and allege by gestures the things which your advocate had
formerly pictured, saying: I will ascend unto heaven, and will be like to the Most High;
and again: I have digged and drunk water, and with the print of my feet have dried up all
the rivers of the banks. Far more rightly ought ye to imitate and hear him who is the
victorious example of goodness and humility when he says by the prophet: But I am a worm
and no man, a reproach of men and rejected of the people. O! something wonderful for Him
to say that He was the reproach of men, when He blotted out the reproaches of the whole
world. Again, in the gospel: I can of myself do nothing, when He Himself, coeternal with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, of common and the same substance, made heaven and earth
with all their priceless ornamentation, not by the might of another, but by His own. And
wonderful that you should arrogantly have held high words, though the prophet says: Why is
earth and ashes proud?

75. But let me return to my theme. Who of you, I say, like noble Polycarp, the pastor of
the church at Smyrna, witness of Christ, placed a table with kindliness to guests that
were violently dragging him to the fire, and when exposed to the flames for his love of
Christ said: He who gave me to bear the torture of fire will give me to endure the flames
unshaken without any fastening by nails? One more, swiftly flying in my words past the
thick forest of the saints, will I put forth by way of example. I mean Basil, the bishop
of Caesarea, who, when threats were pressed by an unjust prince to the effect that unless,
by the morrow, he would, like the rest, defile himself with the Arian filth, he should die
without fail, is said to have answered: I in sooth shall to-morrow be the man I am to-day:
as for thee, mayest thou not change. Again, he said: Would that I had some worthy reward
to offer him who would free Basil from the bond of this frame. Who of you, amid the
distraction of tyrants, has inviolably kept the rule given in the apostolic word? I mean
the rule which has been observed always by all the holy priests, in all times that have
been, rejecting the intimation of men which hurried them headlong to vanity, speaking
after this manner: We ought to obey God rather than men.

3. Quotations of incriminatory passages directed against "lazy and unworthy priests'" (a)
from the Old Testament, cc. 76-91; (b) from the New, cc. 92-105; (c) from the selections
of Scriptural Lessons found in the British Ordinal, or Service-book used in ordinations,
cc. 106-107. (a) Old Testament passages. 76. Let us therefore make our flight to the
Lord's mercy and the words of His holy prophets, so that they for us may poise the
javelins of their oracles against imperfect pastors, as heretofore against tyrants, in
order that through compunction they may be healed. Let us see what threats the Lord utters
by the prophets against slothful and unseemly priests, and such as did not teach the
people well by example and words. Eli, that priest in Shiloh, because he had not with a
zeal worthy of God punished his sons when they held God in contempt, but mildly and gently
admonished them, certainly with the feelings of a father, is condemned in such a censure
as the following. The prophet says to him: Thus saith the Lord,----Plainly did I show
myself to the house of thy father when they were in Egypt, slaves in the house of Pharaoh.
A nd I chose the house of thy father out of all the tribes of Israel for me in the
priesthood. After a few words: Why didst thou look upon my incense and my sacrifice with
an evil eye, and didst honour thy sons more than me, so as to bless them from the
beginning in all the sacrifices before me? And now thus saith the Lord: Because them that
honour me will I honour, and they that despise me shall be brought to nought, behold the
days shall come that I shall destroy thy name and the seed of thy father s house. And let
this be a sign unto thee, which shall come upon thy two sons Hophni and Phineas: in one
day shall they both die by the sword of men. I f therefore they who merely correct those
subject to them by words, and not by deserved punishment, suffer these things, what shall
be to those who incite and draw men to wicked deeds by sinning?

77 What happened also to that true prophet, after the fulfilment of the sign foretold by
himself and the restoration of the withered hand to the impious king, when he was sent to
prophesy in Bethel, and was forbidden to take any food there, but was deceived by another
prophet, as he was called, to take a little bread and water, is evident. His host says to
him: Thus saith the Lord God, Forasmuch as thou wert disobedient to the mouth of the Lord
and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded, and earnest back and
hast eaten bread and drunk water in this place in which I had commanded thee not to eat
bread nor to drink water, thy body shall not be placed in the sepulchre of thy fathers.
And it came to pass, it is said, after he had eaten bread and had drunk water, that he
saddled his ass for him and he departed. And a lion found him in the way and slew him.

78. Hear also the holy prophet Isaiah, speaking of the priests in the following manner:
Woe unto the wicked for evil! for the reward of his hands shall be unto him. Their
overseers have spoiled my people and women have ruled over them. O! my people, they who
call thee blessed, themselves deceive thee and destroy the way of thy paths. The Lord
standeth to judge and standeth to judge the peoples. The Lord will come to judgment with
the elders of his people and the princes thereof. Ye have eaten up my vineyard, the spoil
of the poor is in your house: Why crush ye my people and grind the face of the poor? saith
the Lord of hosts. Again: Woe unto them that decree unrighteous laws and as writers have
written unrighteousness, to oppress the needy in judgment and make violence to the cause
of the poor of my people, that widoiws may be their prey, and that they may rob the
fatherless. What will ye do in the day of visitation and of the calamity that cometh from
afar? Below also: But these have also been ignorant through wine, and have erred through
drunkenness; priests have been ignorant by reason of drunkenness; they are swallowed up of
wine, they have erred in drunkenness; they have not known Him that seeth, they have been
ignorant of judgment. For all tables were filled with the vomit of their filthiness, so
that there was no more room.

79. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scoffing men, that rule over my people which
is in Jerusalem. For ye have said, We have made a covenant with death and with hell we are
in agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us,
for we have made falsehood our hope, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. A little
further: And the hail shall upset the hope of falsehood, and the waters shall overflow the
hiding-place, and your covenant with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with
hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, ye shall be trodden
down. Whenever it shall pass through, it shall sweep you away. Again: And the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth and glorify me with their lips, but
their heart is far from me, therefore, behold, I will proceed to cause a wondering in this
people by a great and amazing marvel. For wisdom shall perish from its wise men, and the
understanding of its prudent-men shall be hid. Woe unto you who are deep of heart to hide
your counsel from the Lord, whose works are in the dark and they say, Who seeth us? and,
Who knoweth us? persevere in this your thought. Somewhat further: Thus saith the Lord,
Heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool: which is the house that ye will build unto
me? and which is the place of my rest?

All these things hath mine hand made, all those things came to pass, saith the Lord. To
whom will I look except to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth
at my words? He that sacrificeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that killeth a
sheep is as he that beateth out the brains of a dog; he that offereth an oblation is as he
that offereth swine's blood; he that remembereth frankincense is as he that blesseth an
idol. These things have they chosen in their own ways, and in their abominations their
soul delighteth. 80. Jeremiah also, celibate and prophet, listen what he says to foolish
pastors: Thus saith the Lord, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me that they
are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity and have become vain? A little further:
When ye entered, ye defiled my land and placed mine heritage an abomination. The priests
said not, Where is the Lord? And they that handle the law knew me not, and the pastors
transgressed against me. Wherefore I will hereafter plead with you in judgment, saith the
Lord, and with your children will I dispute. Also, after somewhat more: An amazement and
wonderful things have been committed in the land; the prophets prophesied falsehood and
the priests applauded with their hands, and my people have loved such things. What
therefore shall be done in the end thereof? To whom shall I speak and testify that he may
hear? behold their ears are uncircumcised and they cannot hearken; behold the word of the
Lord is become unto them a reproach and they receive it not. For I will stretch out my
hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. For from the least of them even
unto the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness, and from the prophet even
unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter
of my people meanly, saying, Peace, peace; and there will be no peace. They were put to
shame, they who have committed an abomination.

Nay, they were not at all ashamed and could not blush. Therefore they shall fall among
them that fall; at the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.
Again: They all are princes of men that turn aside; they walk fraudulently; brass and iron
are they; they have been all together corrupted; the bellows have failed in the fire; in
vain hath the founder melted, but their wickednesses have not been consumed: call them
refuse silver because the Lord hath rejected them. A short space after: I am, I am, I have
seen, saith the Lord. Go ye unto my place in Shiloh where my name dwelt from the first,
and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have
done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking,
but ye heard not, and I called you but ye answered not, I shall do unto this house in
which my name was invoked, and in which ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you
and to your fathers, as I have done unto Shiloh, and I will cast you out of my sight.

81. Again: My children are gone forth from me, and they are not; there is none to stretch
forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains, for the pastors have done foolishly,
and have not sought the Lord, therefore they have not understood, and their flock is
scattered. Somewhat further: Why is it that my beloved hath in mine house committed many
crimes? Will the holy flesh take away from thce thy sins in which thou hast gloried? A
rich olive tree, fair, fruitful, goodly hath the Lord called thy name; to the sound of
speech a great fire hath burnt in her and her groves are consumed. Again: Come, assemble
all ye beasts of the earth, hasten to devour. Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard,
they have trodden my portion under foot, they have rendered my desirable portion a
wilderness of solitude. He also speaks: Thus saith the Lord unto this people, that loved
to move its feet, and hath not rested, and hath not pleased the Lord. Now will we remember
its iniquities and visit its sins. The prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword,
and famine shall not be among you, but the Lord will give you true peace in that place.
And the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy falsely in my name: I sent them not, and
have not commanded them: they prophesy unto a lying vision, and divination and fraud, and
the deceit of their own heart. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, By sword and famine shall
those prophets be consumed, and the people to whom they have prophesied shall be cast out
in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there shall be none
to bury them.

82. Again: Woe unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith
the Lord. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people,
Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold I will
visit upon you the evil of your inclinations, saith the Lord. For prophet and priest are
polluted, and in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord. Wherefore their
way shall be as a slippery place in darkness, for they shall be driven on and fall
therein, for I will bring evils upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the
Lord. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria, they both prophesied by Baal and
deceived my people Israel. In the' prophets of Jerusalem also 1 have seen a similar thing,
adultery and the way of falsehood, and they have strengthened the hands of evildoers so
that no one returned from his wickedness; they are all become unto me as Sodom, and the
inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto the prophets, Behold
I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink water of gall. For from the prophets
of Jerusalem is pollution gone forth over all the land. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you and deceive you; they
speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord.

For they say unto them that blaspheme me, The Lord hath said, Peace shall be unto you, and
unto every one that walketh in the depravity of his own heart, they have said, No evil
shall come upon you. For who hath been in the council of the Lord and hath seen and heard
his word? Who hath marked his word and heard it? Behold the whirlwind of the Lord's fury
goeth forth, and a tempest bursting upon the head of the wicked shall come. The anger of
the Lord shall not return until he have done, and until he have completed the intent of
his heart. In the last days ye shall understand his counsel. 83. Little do you think or do
what the holy prophet Joel also has said in admonition of lazy priests, and lamenting the
people's loss through their iniquities: Awake ye that are drunk through your wine, and
weep and lament all who drink wine unto drunkenness, because joy and gladness is taken
away from your mouth. Mourn, ye priests, that serve the altar, because the fields have
become wretched. Let the earth mourn because the corn is become wretched and the vine
dried up, the oil is diminished, the husbandmen have become languish. Mourn, ye estates,
for the wheat and barley, because the vine harvest is perished from the field, the vine is
dried up, the fig-trees have become fewer: the pomegranates, palms, apple-tree, and all
trees of the field are withered, because the sons of men have thrown joy into confusion.
All these words must be understood by you in a spiritual sense, lest your souls be
withered by so destructive a famine for the Word of God.

Again: Weep ye priests that serve the Lord, saying, Spare, Lord, thy people; give not
thine inheritance to reproach, and let not the Gentiles rule over them, lest the Gentiles
say, Where is their God? Yet ye in no wise hear these things, but permit all things by
which the indignation of the divine anger is kindled. 84. Give express heed to what the
holy prophet Hosea also says to priests of your small stature: Hear this, ye priests and
hearken, thou house of Israel, and thou, house of the king, fasten them in your ears,
since judgment is toward you, because ye have been made, a snare unto watchfulness, and
like a net spread upon Tabor, which they who have set the hunt have fixed. 85. To you also
there is signified an alienation of this kind from the Lord by the prophet Amos, when he
says: I have hated and thrust away your feast-days, and I will not accept a sweet savour
in your solemn assemblies, because, though ye offer your burnt offerings and sacrifices, I
will not accept them. And I will not regard the salvation proclaimed by you. Take away
from me the sound of thy songs, and the (psalm) melody of thy instruments I will not hear,
because famine of Gospel food, the very fare which eats away the bowels of your soul, is
raging among you, as the prophet named above has foretold. Behold, he says, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land----not a famine of bread nor a
thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord, and the waters shall be
moved from sea to sea, and from the north unto the east; they shall run to and fro,
seeking the word of the Lord and shall not find it.

86. Understand also with your ears the holy Micah as he, like a heavenly trumpet, sounds
forth very concisely against the crafty princes of the people. Hear now, he says, ye
princes of the house of Jacob. Is it not for you to know judgment, though ye hate the good
and seek the evil, plucking their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their
bones? How have they eaten the flesh of my people and flayed their skins from off them,
have broken their bones and chopped them as flesh in the cauldron? They shall cry unto God
and he will not hear them, and he will hide his face from them at that time, because they
have behaved themselves ill in their imaginings. Thus saith the Lord concerning the
prophets that make my people to err, that bite with their teeth and cry unto them, Peace,
though it (peace) is not put into their mouth; I have stirred up war against them (i.e.,
people). Therefore night shall be unto you in consequence of your vision and darkness
shall be unto you in consequence of divining, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets
and the day shall be dark over them, then shall the seers of dreams be confounded and the
diviners mocked, and they themselves shall decry against all because there shall not be
that heareth them.

I shall surely fill my strength with the Spirit of the Lord, and with judgment and might,
to declare unto the house of Jacob its impieties and to Israel his sins. Hear this
therefore ye leaders of the house of Jacob and the residue of the house of Israel, that
abhor judgment and pervert equity, that build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with
iniquities. The leaders thereof judge for rewards and the priests thereof gave answer for
hire, and the prophets thereof were divining for money, yet did they rest in the Lord,
saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us; evils shall not come upon us. Therefore shall
Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be like the watch-tower of an
orchard, and the mountain of the house as a place of forest. After a while: Woe is me
because I have become as one that gathereth stubble in harvest, and as a bunch of grapes
in the vintage, when there is not a cluster to eat of its first fruits; woe is my soul! it
perisheth in works of earth, always doth reverence for sinners rise reverently from the
earth, and he that amendeth among men is not. All contend in judgment for blood, and
everyone hath greatly troubled his neighbour, he prepareth his hands for evil.

87. Hearken again to what Zephaniah, distinguished prophet, has treated of respecting your
fellows of old. He spoke of Jerusalem, which, spiritually, is understood to be the church
or the soul: O! the city that was splendid and set free, the trusting dove, she heard not
the voice nor learnt correction, she trusted not in the Lord, and to her God she drew not
near. He shows the reason why: Her princes are like a roaring lion; her judges, like the
wolves of Arabia, left not until the morning, her prophets carry the spirit of a scornful
man, her priests pollute the sanctuary, and have dealt impiously in the law. But the
righteous Lord is in the midst of her and will not do unrighteousness. Morning by morning
will he give his judgment. 88. But hear also the blessed, prophet Zechariah admonishing
you by the word of God. For thus saith the Lord Almighty: Execute righteous judgment, and
do mercy and compassion every man to his brother; and injure not the widow, the orphan,
the stranger and the poor, and let none remember malice against his brother in his heart.
But they were stubborn to heed, and turned their foolish back, and made their ears heavy
that they should not hear. Their heart they have set up impossible to persuade, lest they
should hear my law and the words which the Lord Almighty hath sent by his Spirit at the
hands of the former prophets, and a great wrath hath come from the Lord Almighty. Again:
Because they that spoke, spoke vexation, and the diviners spoke false visions and false
dreams, and gave vain comfort, therefore, they have become parched like sheep, and were
troubled because there was no health. Mine anger is kindled against the shepherds and I
will visit the lambs. After a few words: There is a voice of the lamentations of the
shepherds because their greatness has become wretched; a voice of roaring lions, because
the course of Jordan has become wretched. Thus saith the Lord Almighty: They who possessed
slew and did not repent, and they that sold them said: Blessed be the Lord for we have
been made rich, and their shepherds have not been spared among them; wherefore I will no
more have pity upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord.

89. Hear, moreover, what proclamation the holy prophet Malachi has made against you. You
priests who despise my name, and have said: Wherein have we despised thy name? By offering
polluted loaves upon mine altar, and ye have said: Wherein have we polluted them? in that
ye say: The table of the Lord is as nothing, and what was spread upon it ye have despised;
because, if ye bring the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? If ye bring forth the lame
or weak, is it not evil? Offer it now to thy chief; Will he receive it? Will he accept thy
person? saith the Lord Almighty. And now intreat ye the face of your God and beseech him:
these things were done by your hand, will I accept your persons among you? Again: And ye
have brought of your plunder the lame and weak, and have brought it as a gift. Shall I
accept that of your hand? saith the Lord. Cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a
male, and in fulfilling a vow sacrificeth the weak unto the Lord; for I am a great king,
saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the gentiles. A nd now this
commandment is for you, O ye priests. If ye will not hear and put it to heart, to give
glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will send poverty unto you, and will curse
your blessings, because ye have not laid it to heart. Behold I will stretch forth my arm
against you and will spread over your face the dung of your solemn feasts.

But meanwhile that you may the more eagerly prepare the instruments of evil for good,
listen to what he says of the holy priest, if there remains ever so little of the inner
hearing in you. My covenant was with him----he spoke of Levi or Moses in point of history
----of life and peace; I gave him. fear and he feared me, and stood in awe before my name.
The law of truth was in his mouth and iniquity was not found in his lips; in peace and
equity walked he with me, and did turn many from iniquity. For the priest's lips shall
keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the messenger of
the Lord of hosts. Now he changes his meaning, and ceases not to rebuke the evil ones,
saying: Ye have departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law, and ye
have made the covenant with Levi of no effect, saith the Lord of hosts. Wherefore I have
also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept
my ways, and have had respect of person in the law. Have we not all one father? Hath not
one God created us? Why doth every one despise his brother? Again: Behold the Lord of
hosts will come, and who can think of the day of his coming? And who shall stand to see
him?

For he himself shall come forth like burning fire, and as the washers soap, and he shall
sit refining and purifying silver, and he shall purge the sons of Levi, and shall cleanse
them like gold and like silver. After a while: Your words have become strong against me,
saith the Lord, and ye said: Vain is he that serveth God, and what profit is it that we
have kept his precepts, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
Therefore, now we will call the proud blessed, because they that work wickedness are built
up; they have tempted God and have been delivered. 90. Listen, however, to what the
prophet Ezekiel said: Woe shall come upon woe, and messenger upon messenger, and the
vision shall be sought from the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest and
counsel from the elders. Again: Thus saith the Lord: Because your words are falsehoods,
and your divinations vain, on this account behold I am against you, saith the Lord. I will
stretch forth my hand against the prophets that see lies, and those who speak vain things.
They shall not be in the discipline of my people, and shall not be written in the writing
of the house of Israel, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel, and ye shall
know that I am the Lord. Wherefore they have led astray my people, saying: The Peace of
the Lord, and there is no Peace of the Lord. This man buildeth a wall, and they daub it,
and it shall fall. After some more words: Woe unto those that sew pillows beneath every
elbow, and fashion veils upon every head of every age, to subvert souls. Subverted are the
souls of my people, they took possession of their souls, and profaned me to my people for
a handful of barley and a piece of bread to slay the souls that should not die, and to
free the souls that should not live, while ye speak to the people as they listen to vain
speeches. Below also: Son of man say:

Thou art the land that is not watered, nor hath rain come upon thee in the day of wrath,
the land in which the princes are like raging lions in the midst of her, ravening the
prey, devouring souls by their might and taking rewards; thy widows have been made many in
the midst of thee, and her priests have despised my law and were polluting mine holy
things. They distinguished not between the holy and the profane, and discerned not between
the unclean and clean, and veiled their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned in the
midst of them. 91. Again also: And I sought for a man from among them that walked
uprightly, and stood before my face wholly for the times of the land, that I should not in
the end destroy it, and have not found. A nd I have poured out against it my soul in the
fire of my anger to consume them. Their ways have I brought upon their head, saith the
Lord. After a while: And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, speak to
the children of my people, and say unto them: The land into which I bring a sword, and the
people of the land take a man from among themselves, and place him for them as a watchman,
if he see the sword coming over the land, and blow the trumpet and signify unto the
people, and he that heareth hear the voice of the trumpet and not observe, and the sword
come and seize him, his blood shall be upon his own head. Because, when he heard the voice
of the trumpet, he did not observe, his blood shall be upon himself. And this man who
watched over his own soul hath delivered it. And the watchman, if he see the sword coming,
and signify not by the trumpet so that the people observe not, and the sword coming take a
soul from among them, and that soul is taken away on account of its own iniquity, yet its
blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

And thou, son of man, a watchman have I set thee for the house of Israel, and thou shalt
hear the word from my mouth; when I say to the sinner: Thou shalt surely die, if thou
speak not so that the wicked may turn aside from his way, the wicked himself shall die in
his wickedness, but his blood will I require at thy hand. However, if thou warn the wicked
of his way that he may turn aside from it, and he turn not from his way, this man shall
die in his iniquity, and thou hast delivered thy soul. 92. But let these few testimonies
from the many of the prophets be sufficient By them is the pride or sloth of stubborn
priests restrained, that they may not think I make such denunciations against them by my
own imaginings rather than by the authority of the law and the saints. Let us therefore
see what the gospel trumpet, while sounding forth to the world, says to irregular priests
(unordained priests). For as I have already said, my speech is not of those who obtain the
apostolic throne in a lawful way, and who are well able to dispense spiritual food to
their fellow servants in due season (if, in fact, there are many at the present day), but
of the unskilled pastors who abandon the sheep, and give vain things as food, and have not
the words of the skilled pastor. The evidence, therefore, is clear, that he is not a
legitimate pastor; nay, not even an ordinary Christian man, who rejects and disowns these
words, not so much words of mine, who am very insignificant, as decrees of the Old and New
Testament. One of our own people says well: We desire much that the enemies of the church
be ours also and enemies without treaty, and that her friends and defenders be regarded
ours, not only as allies but as fathers and lords. For let each one meet his own
conscience in true examination, and in this they shall discern whether they sit in the
priestly chair according to right reason.

Let us see, I say, what the Saviour and Creator of the world says: Ye are, he avers, the
salt of the earth; because if the salt have vanished, wherewith shall it be salted? It is
thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden by men. 93 This single
testimony might fully suffice to confute all those that are without shame. But in order
that by still more manifest attestations, that is by the words of Christ, it may be proved
by what unbearable burdens of crimes these false priests weight themselves, some words
must be annexed. For there follows: Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill
cannot be hid, nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the stand, that
it may shine unto all that are in the house. Who, then, of the priests of this time, thus
possessed by the blindness of ignorance, as the light of a clear lamp, will shine in any
house to all those sitting by night with the torch of both learning and good works? Who is
regarded such a safe, public, and conspicuous refuge for all the sons of the church, that
he is what a strong city placed upon the summit of a high hill is for its citizens. But as
to that which follows: So let your light shine before men that they may see your good
works and magnify your Father which is in Heaven:

Which of them can fulfil it even for a single day? Nay rather a certain thick mist and
black night of their offences sit upon the whole island, so that it draws away almost
everyone from the right path, and causes them to err by impassable and obstructed paths of
crimes; by these men's works the heavenly Father is so far from being praised that he is
unbearably blasphemed. I could indeed wish that these testimonies of Holy Scripture
inserted in this epistle, or to be inserted, as far as my mean power would be able, should
all be interpreted in a historical or moral sense. 94. But in order not to extend this
little work to too great a length for those men who despise, scorn and turn aside, not so
much my words as God's, the passages have been, or will be, put together without any
paraphrase. A little further on: For whosoever shall break one of these least commandments
and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Again: Judge not
that ye be not judged, for with what judgement ye judge it shall be judged to you. Who of
you, I ask, will have regard to that which follows: But why beholdest thou the mote in thy
brother s eye, and considerest not the beam in thine own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy
brother: Let me cast the mote out of thine eye; and lo! the beam is in thine own eye. Or
what follows: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before
swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet and turn and rend you. This very
frequently happens to you. Admonishing the people lest they be seduced by crafty teachers,
such as you are, he said: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheets clothing,
but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes
of thorns, or jigs of thistles? Even so every good tree beareth good fruit, and a corrupt
tree corrupt fruit. And below: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven,
the same shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

95. What indeed shall become of you who, as the prophet says, cling to God with your lips
only, not with your heart? But how do you fulfil what follows: Behold I send you as sheep
in the midst of wolves, you who, on the contrary, go as wolves in a flock of sheep? Or
that which is said by him: Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves? Wise, of
course, you are to bite anyone with deadly mouth, not to defend your head, which is
Christ, by any exposure of your body, whom by all the endeavours of evil deeds you tread
under foot (trample upon). Neither have you the simplicity of doves, nay rather being like
the black crow, once out of the ark, that is the Church, you fly away, and having found
the carrion of carnal pleasures you never fly back to it with a pure heart. But let us see
other words also: Be not afraid of those which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul; but fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Which of these
have you done?----consider. Which of you would not the following testimony, spoken by the
Lord to the apostles of depraved bishops, wound in the deep secrecy of his heart? Let them
alone, they are blind guides of the blind. But if the blind guide the blind, both shall
fall into a pit.

96. The people, certainly, whom you guide, or rather whom you deceive, have need of
hearing. Listen to the words of the Lord when he speaks to the apostles and the
multitudes, words which, as I hear, you are not ashamed to put forth publicly and
frequently. The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; all things, therefore,
whatsoever they say unto you, observe and do; but after their works do not, for they say
and do not themselves. The teaching that is darkened with evil deeds is certainly full of
peril, and useless for priests. Woe unto you, hypocrites, who shut the kingdom of heaven
before men, but enter not in, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter. For
you shall have penal suffering inflicted upon you, not only on account of such huge crimes
of sins as you bear for future time, but also because of those who daily perish by your
example. The blood of these men in the day of judgment shall be required at your hands.
Observe what evil is set forth in the parable of the servant who said in his heart: My
Lord tarrieth. Before this probably he had begun to beat his fellow servants, eating and
drinking with the drunken. The Lord of that servant, it is said, shall come in a day when
he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall separate him----that is to
say, from the holy priests----and place his portion with the hypocrites (with those, no
doubt, who beneath a veil of priesthood conceal much wickedness); there, says he, shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth, unto men to whom it does frequently come in this life,
because of the daily loss of sons brought upon the mother church, or because of defections
from the kingdom of heaven.

97. But let us see what a true disciple of Christ, Paul the teacher of the gentiles,
utters in such a matter when he says in his first epistle----Paul, who should be imitated
by every ecclesiastical teacher as he himself exhorts: Be ye imitators of me as I also am
of Christ; because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God nor gave thanks, but
became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was blinded, saying that they
were wise, they became fools. Although this appears to be said to the gentiles, observe it
nevertheless, as it will apply fully to the priest together with the people (Christians)
of this age. After a few words we read: Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever; for
this cause God gave them up unto passions of vileness. Again: And even as they did not
approve to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not fitting; being fitted with all unrighteousness, wickedness, unchaste-
ness, fornication, covctousness, maliciousness; being full of envy, murder----that is of
the souls of the people----strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, hateful unto
God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents;
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without mercy, without natural affection: who
knowing the justice of God did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of
death.

98. Who of the men referred to above has in truth been without these all? For if there
were he would be possibly included in the idea subjoined, where he says: Not only they
that do them, but also consent with them that do, as undoubtedly not one of them is free
from this evil. Below also: But thou after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up
for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who
will render to every man according to his works. And further: For there is no respect of
persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law:
and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; for not the hearers of
the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

99. What severity therefore awaits those who not only do not do what ought to be
fulfilled, and turn not away from things prohibited, but even fly away from the very
reading of God's words, even when slightly uttered in their ears, as if it were a serpent
of the fiercest kind? But let us pass on to the following words: What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died unto sin, how
shall we any longer live therein? And after awhile: Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation? Shall anguish? Shall persecution? Shall famine? Shall
nakedness? Shall peril? Shall sword? Who of you, may I ask, has been touched by such a
feeling in the depth of your heart? You who, far from labouring to further godliness, do
even suffer much in order to act unjustly and offend Christ. Or by what follows: The night
is far spent, but the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and
let us put on the armour of light; let us walk honourably as in the day; not in revellings
and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonnesses, not in strife and jealousy, but put
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and have no care for the flesh in concupiscence.

100. Again, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians he says: As a wise master-builder I
laid a foundation, another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth
thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which exists, even Christ Jesus.
But if any man buildeth on this gold and silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble, every
work shall be made manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed in fire; and each man's work of what sort it is the fire shall prove. If any
man's work shall abide, which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss. Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man defile the temple of God, him shall
God destroy. Again: If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become
a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. And
after awhile: Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be new dough. How shall the old
leaven, that is sin, be purged out which increases from day to day by every endeavour?
Again: I have written to you by epistle to have no company with fornicators;

not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners,
or with idolaters; otherwise must ye needs go out of the world. But now I write unto you
not to keep company if any man is named a brother and is a fornicator, or covetous, or an
idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a man no, not to take
food. But a thief does not condemn another thief for theft or highway robbery: has rather
a liking for him, defends and loves him as a partner of his crime. 101. In the Second
Epistle to the Corinthians also he says: Therefore seeing, we have this ministry, even as
we have obtained mercy, let us not faint, but let us renounce the hidden things of shame,
not walking in craftiness, nor adulterating the word of God, that is by evil example, and
by flattery. In later passages he speaks thus of evil teachers: For such false apostles
are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for
Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing, therefore,
if his ministers also are transformed as angels of righteousness; whose end shall be
according to their works. 102. Listen also to what he says to the Ephesians. Are you
ignorant that you are held guilty of something in this particular? This I say and testify
in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
having their understanding darkened, alienated from the way of God through the ignorance
that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts, who being without hope gave
themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and covetousness. Which of you
has willingly done what follows: Wherefore be not foolish, but understanding what is the
will of God, and be not drunken with wine in which is riot, but be filled with the Holy
Spirit.

103 But listen also to that which he says to the Thessalonians: For neither were we at any
time among you with word of flattery, as ye know, nor in occasion of covetousness; nor
seeking glory of men, neither from you nor from others, when we might be a burden as other
apostles of Christ. But we became like little ones, babes among you, or as when a nurse
cherisheth her little ones, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to
impart unto you, not the Gospel only, but also our souls. If you preserve this feeling of
the apostle, in all things, you know also how legitimately to sit in his chair. Or even
what follows: For ye know what: precepts I gave unto you. This is the will of God, even
your sancti-fication, that ye abstain from fornication, and each one of you know how to
possess his own vessel in honour and sanctification, not in the passion of lust, even as
the Gentiles who know not God; and let no man over-reach or wrong his brother in the
matter, because the Lord is avenger in all these things. For God called us not unto
unclean-ness but unto sanctification. Therefore he who despiseth these things, despiseth
not man, but God. Who also of you has circumspectly and carefully kept that which follows:
Mortify therefore youri members which are upon earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil
desire, on account of which cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of unbelief. For you see
on account of what sins the wrath of God mostly rises.

104. Hear therefore what the same holy apostle predicted by the spirit of prophecy,
respecting you and men like you, when plainly writing to Timothy. For know this, that in
the last days dangerous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, covetous,
boastful, haughty railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, criminal, without
affection, without self-control, fierce, without goodness, traitors, headstrong, puffed
up, lovers of pleasures more than God; holding indeed a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof. From these also turn away, as the prophet says: I have hated the
congregation of evil. doers, and will not sit with the wicked. After a while, mentioning
what we see on the increase in our time, he says: Ever learning, and never coming to the
knowledge of the truth. For as Iamnes and Mambres withstood Moses, so do these also
withstand the truth; men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith; but they shall
proceed no further. For their folly shall be evident unto all men, as theirs also was.

105. He indicates plainly how priests should show themselves in their office, when writing
as follows to Titus: Present thyself an example of good works, in doctrine, in
incorruptness, in gravity, holding a sound word that cannot be condemned; that he that is
of the contrary part may fear, having no evil to say of us. Again, to Timothy: Suffer
hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man warring for God entangleth himself in
the affairs of the world, that he may please him to whom he hath approved himself. For
also the man who contendeth in the game is not crowned unless he hath contended lawfully.
These words are an exhortation to the good. But what the epistle likewise comprises is
denunciation of bad men, such as you appear to all men of understanding. If any man
teacheth differently and consenteth not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
that doctrine which is according to godliness, he is haughty, knowing nothing, but weak
about questions and disputes of words, whereof come envyings, strifes, railings, evil
surmisings, wranglings of men corrupted in mind, who are bereft of the truth, supposing
that godliness is gain.

Quotations from the Ordinal or Service Book used in the consecration of priests or
ministers (deacons?). 106. But why will I use at considerable length the testimonies of
opinion, though expressed by various persons and scattered here and there? Why will I be
tossed on the waves in the despicable craft of my own intellect. I have thought it
necessary to recur finally to those lessons which have been extracted from almost every
befitting text of the Holy Scriptures, not only to be repeated for this present object,
but also to be a confirmation of the rite by which the hands of priests or ministers are
consecrated, and to teach them continually not to abandon the commandments that are
faithfully contained therein by falling off from the dignity of priest. It will also
become more evident to all that eternal punishments await them, and the men who do not,
according to their powers, fulfil the teaching and commandments of those lessons, are not
priests or ministers of God.

Let us therefore hear what Peter, the prince of the apostles, has pointed out, respecting
such a matter: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by his great
mercy begat us again unto hope of life eternal by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, that fadeth not away, undefiled,
reserved in heaven for you, who are guarded by the power of God. Why indeed is such an
inheritance foolishly defiled by you, which does not fall away like an earthly one, but is
an inheritance that fades not away, and eternal. After a while: Wherefore gird up the
loins of your mind, be sober, hope perfectly for that grace which is brought unto you in
the revelation of Jesus Christ. Examine the depths of your heart, whether you are sober,
and maintain perfectly the priestly grace that is to be searched in the revelation of the
Lord. Again he says: As children of blessing, not fashioning yourselves to those former
lusts of your ignorance, but according to him who hath called you to be holy, be ye holy
in all manner of life. Because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy. Who of you, I ask,
has so followed holiness with all ardour of soul, that he hastened to fulfil this command
to the utmost of his power? But let us see what is contained in the second lesson from the
same apostle. Beloved, he says, purify your souls unto obedience of faith, by the Spirit
in love, in love of the brethren, loving one another from a true heart fervently, as born
again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God who liveth and
abideth for ever.

107. These, without doubt, are things commanded by the apostle, and were read on the day
of your ordination that you might keep them inviolably, but in no wise have they been kept
by you with judgment, nay, hardly have they been thought of or understood. Below, he says:
Putting away therefore all wickedness and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and evil
speakings, as new born babes, reasonable and without guile, desire milk that ye may grow
thereby unto salvation, because the Lard is kind. Consider also whether these words be
trodden under foot because heard by you too frequently with deaf ears. Again: But ye are
an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for adoption, that ye may shew
the excellencies of Him who hath called you out of darkness into that very wonderful light
of His, Not only are the excellencies of God not shown through you, but even, by most
corrupt examples, despised among all unbelievers. You heard, no doubt, on the same day,
what was read in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter, rising in the midst of
the disciples, said: Men and brethren, it is needful that the Scripture should be
fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas. And
shortly after: This man obtained a field with the reward of iniquity. This you heard
heedlessly, or rather with obtuse heart, as if it had not been read of you. Who of you, I
ask, does not seek a field with the reward of iniquity? For Judas was wont to thieve
coffers; you waste the church gifts and the souls of her sons. He went to the Jews to sell
God; you to tyrants and your father the devil, to despise Christ. He held the Saviour of
all as one to be sold for thirty pieces of silver; you for even a single penny.

4. Conclusion. 108. Why ply more words? You find brought before you the example of
Matthias for your confusion, the example also of the holy apostles. The lot fell upon him
by the election or judgment of Christ, not by his own will, to which fact you have become
blind, and do not see how far apart you are from his merits, while of your own accord you
sink to the desire and disposition of Judas the traitor. It is plain, therefore, that the
man who consciously from his heart calls you priest, is not an excellent Christian. I
shall certainly speak out my feelings. My rebuke might certainly be milder, but what
benefit is it merely to stroke softly with the hand, or besmear with ointment a wound
which by now, horrible in its foulness, has need of cautery and the public remedy of fire?
If, indeed, it could be healed in any manner, as the patient does not seek cure, and the
doctor is withdrawing further and further from him. O ye enemies and not priests of God,
veterans in wickednesses and not bishops, traitors not successors of the holy apostles and
not ministers of Christ, you have certainly listened to the sound of the apostle Paul's
words contained in the second lesson, but in no wise have you observed their admonitions
and strength. After the fashion of idols, which see not, neither do they hear, you stood
the same day at the altar, while then and always he was thundering at you.

Brethren, he says, faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptation. He spoke of it as
faithful and worthy; you have scorned it as not faithful and unworthy. If a man desireth
the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. You seek the office of bishop chiefly
because of covetousness, without the pretence of spiritual profit, and by no means regard
good work as suitable thereto. Such a man must therefore be without reproach. Here there
is, of a truth, more need of tears than of words, as if the apostle had said that he ought
to be, beyond all men, without reproach: The husband of one wife. This saying is also so
far despised with us, as if he were not heard to say the same, and were heard to say: the
husband of wives. Temperate, sober-minded. Which of you has ever even wished this to dwell
in him? Given to hospitality. If that has ever by accident come to pass, done rather for
the sake of a breeze of popularity than because it is commanded, it profits not, as our
Lord the Saviour says thus: Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward. A man
equipped, not drunk with wine, no striker, but gentle, not contentious, not covetous. O
fatal change! O awful treading under foot of the precepts of heaven!

Do you not indefatigably seize your armour of deeds and words to assault, or rather to
destroy, these precepts, for the preservation and strengthening of which, were it
necessary, one ought to undergo suffering, and lay down one's life? 109. But let us also
see the following words: Ruling his own house well, having his children in subjection with
all chastity. The chastity of the fathers is therefore imperfect, if that of the children
is not added to it. But what shall be where neither father nor son (depraved by the
example of a wicked parent) is found to be chaste? But if a man knoweth not how to rule
his own house, how shall he show care of the church of God? Here are words that are proved
by effects that admit of no doubt. Deacons in like manner must be chaste, not double-
tongued, not given to much wine, not following after filthy lucre, holding the mystery of
the faith in a pure conscience. But let these first be proved, and thus let them serve if
they are without reproach. With a shudder, indeed, at having to linger long at these
things, I can with truth make one statement, that is, all these are changed into the
contrary deeds, so that the clergy are (a confession I make not without sorrow of heart)
unchaste, double-tongued, drunk, greedy of filthy lucre, having the faith, and, to speak
with more truth, the want of faith, in an impure conscience, ministering not as men proved
good in work, but as known beforehand in evil work, and, though with innumerable charges
of crime, admitted to the sacred ministry.

You heard also on that day, when it was far worthier and far more right for you to be led
to prison or the scaffold for punishment than to the priesthood, that as the Lord asked
whom the disciples thought him to be, Peter answered, Thou art the Christ, Son of the
living God; and that the Lord for such a confession said! Blessed art thou, Simon Bar
Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in
heaven. Thus Peter, taught by God the Father, rightly confesses Christ; but you,
instructed by your father the devil, iniquitously deny the Saviour by evil deeds. To the
true priest it is said: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church. You,
however, are likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. But we must
observe that the Lord does not join in work with the foolish, in building a house upon the
changing inconstancy of sand, according to that saying: They have made unto themselves
kings and not by me. Similarly, what follows gives the same note when it says: And the
gates of hell shall not prevail, whereby sins are understood. Of your doomed building,
what is announced? The floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it
fell, and great was the fall thereof. To Peter and his successors the Lord says: And unto
thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; but to you:

I know you not, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, so that, separated with the goats
of the left hand, ye go to everlasting fire. To every holy priest it is also promised: And
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven. But how do you loose anything so that
it shall be loosed in heaven also, when, because of crimes, you are severed from heaven
and fettered by bands of monstrous sins, as Solomon also says: Each one is holden with the
cords of his own sins? With what reason shall you bind on earth anything that maybe, in
any extraordinary degree, bound, besides your own selves, who, bound to iniquities, are so
held in this world, that in no wise do you ascend to heaven, but, unless turned to the
Lord in this life, are descending to the unhappy prison of hell?

110. And let no one of the priests flatter himself solely on his consciousness of a pure
body, because the souls of those over whom he rules, if any one of them perish through his
ignorance, or slothfulness, or flattery, shall be asked at the hands of the same in the
day of judgment, as their murderer. Because the death which is inflicted by a good man is
not milder than that caused by a wicked man. Otherwise the Apostle would not have said, in
leaving a kind of paternal legacy to his successors: I am clean from the blood of all men.
For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole mystery of God. Seeing that you are
intoxicated by the habit and dense mass of your sins, and incessantly overwhelmed as if by
waves of crimes heaped on crimes rushing upon you, seek with all effort of soul the one
plank of penance, as if after shipwreck, on which you may escape to the land of the
living. In this way the wrath of the Lord may be averted from you, inasmuch as He
mercifully says: I wish not the death of the sinner, but that he may be converted and
live.

May the almighty God of all consolation and mercy Himself preserve His very few good
pastors from all evil, and make them citizens of His city, the heavenly Jerusalem (the
common enemy being subdued), that is, of the assembly of all saints----Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. [Selected footnotes
renumbered and placed at the end] 1. Gildas regards his work as a "debt" contracted long
ago in answer to the pious entreaties of his friends: it is also a "promise" made ten
years back. Such a statement would warrant us in regarding the strictures of the book as
sentiments entertained by a large circle of British men in the sixth century; the numerous
suggestions also found in the work as to the ideas held by the writer respecting the due
performance of duties by ministers of the church, and his estimate of those found wanting,
were in no way peculiar to himself. He represents feelings and ideas common to him and
many of his contemporaries.

2. Tironibus. The word tirones does not seem in Gildas to carry the meaning of "young."
Though ordinarily denoting a young soldier, a recruit, or in any profession " non aetate
sed usu forensi atque exercitatione tironem," yet Jerome in his monastic writings seems to
have given it the meaning of anyone who has become a follower of Christ. In his Vita
Hilarion., 5, he mentions tirunculos Christi apparently in this meaning. Neither
Forcellini nor Du Cange renders any help here, unless it be where the latter gives
instances of a castellanus or a castri vassallus being called tyro. In c. 73 the word is
applied to the writers of the New Testament or to the apostles and martyrs mentioned in
the New Testament: in c. 12, omnes Christi tirones is certainly equivalent to "all
Christians." Tiro also = catechumenus. 3. The list of subjects of which Gildas intends to
give a brief account, introductory to his more serious task, may be classified under four
heads:----

(1) Britain itself; the weak unfaithfulness of its inhabitants towards the Romans leading
to subjection and punishment; i.e., a geographical description of Britain; an account of
the stubbornness of its people, their subjection, the rebellion, the second subjection and
hard service. Here we have the relation of Britain to Rome only, Rome being God's avenger.
(2) An account of the rise of the Christian religion; persecution (in the world at large
and in Britain), martyrs, heresies. (3) Tyrants, whose abandonment of the island left it
open to the attack of the "two nations"; defence (with the aid of a Roman legion);
devastation, second revenge (this time again successful by Roman aid); third devastation,
famine, letter to Aetius, victory, crimes. Gildas begins his account of "the two nations,"
Scots and Picts, not at the point when their ravages began, but at a juncture which makes
the story a telling one for his purpose: that is, when, owing to the action of the
tyrannus Maximus, the country was left defenceless against these barbarians. On Aetius,
see c. 20.

(4) The same enemies suddenly announced, the plague, the counsel entertained by the
Britons to invite the Saxons, etc. This last part of the narrative relates the struggles
of the Britons with the Saxons, beginning again not with the earliest attacks of these
barbarians, but with a significant policy which changed the whole attitude of affairs. The
narrative ends with victory and peace. (See Introduction). It would be well to keep in
mind that (1) is a period of revolt, (3) of inroad. (See Additional Note at end of c. 18).
4. Gildas is frequently said to have derived his geographical details from Orosius (Hist.,
i, 2, 77), but what the Spanish presbyter wrote may have been a common-place in Gaul and
Britain by the time of Gildas, and even from other sources. Pliny gives the same length
and breadth: insula habet in longo milia passuum DCCC, in lato milia CC. The words of
Orosius run thus: Britannia oceani insula per longum in boream extenditur; a meridie
Gallias habet.... haec insula habet in longo milio passuum DCCC, in lato CC; the
measurements, we see, are stated word for word the same as by Pliny. Orosius says,
"towards the north" as to the position of the island, in which he is followed by Gildas,
though in poetic language; but Gildas has the further detail that with respect to the
continent Britain lies towards the west-north-west and the west (circium occidentemque
versus). The two writers may well be independent of one another. In the remainder of this
description, Gildas draws upon his own personal acquaintance with his native island,
lingering over each detail, though in faulty style. On the geography of Britain and
Ireland in ancient writers, see Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, vol. i, p. 584,
etc.

5. Twenty-eight cities. Suetonius, in Vesp. 4, mentions that there were twenty cities in
Britain. It is difficult to define the special character of the towns and town population
that had grown up in Britain under Roman rule. From the material supplied in Hübner's
Corpus Inscr. Lat., vol. vii, and a few other sources, it may be concluded that besides
the great military posts the civil development of Britain was somewhat insignificant.
Gildas informs us that the wall (of Hadrian) ran "between cities" (inter urbes, quae
ibidem forte ob metum hostium collocatae fuerant). There were no doubt garrison towns
where the auxiliary cohorts were stationed: there were also, Eburacum, where the Vlth
legion was fixed; Deva, with the XXth; and Isca, with the IInd Augusta. Besides these
military stations, though Gildas speaks of cunctae coloniae and coloni in c. 24, not more
than four are known that were, strictly speaking, coloniae, viz., Eburacum, Camulodunum,
Glevum, Lindum. Many small towns are named, especially towards the south and south-east;
but Wales, in Hübner's map of places yielding inscriptions, is almost a blank. The single
municipium known, Verulamium, is accidentally mentioned by Gildas, as well as Caerlleon
(i.e., Caer legion = Legionum urbs). The Historia Britonum gives a list of these twenty-
eight, which Zimmer argues must have been drawn up some time before A.D. 796 (Nennius,
Vindicatus, pp. 108-110). He notices the intervocalic "g" in Cair Legion, Cair Segeint,
Cair Guorthigirn.

6. We find a free rendering into Welsh of several portions of Gildas in Ystorya Brenhined
y Brytanycit, by Geoffrey of Monmouth (+ A.D. 1154). The Welsh quotations are from the
edition of The Bruts, by Mr. Gwenogfryn Evans; the very slight variations made will
explain themselves as simply intended to render the passages easier to read. [omitted] 7.
Civibus. The term cives, citizens of the Roman Empire, is throughout employed by Gildas to
designate his countrymen. By this character they are, in his eyes, to be distinguished
from the "barbarians." 8. Gildas, in his narrative, intends to omit all reference to four
subjects, (1) He will not treat of the pre-Christian beliefs which the Britons had in
common with the whole human race; he naturally calls them "errors." (2) The forms of old
idolatry, remains of which still survived "inside and outside the deserted walls" of
temples, will not be recounted. (3) Superstitious honours paid to mountains, valleys and
rivers, he will not exclaim against. (4) He will be silent respecting the old years of
tyrants, evidently having his eye particularly on Maximus, A.D. 383-388.

His attempt will be to narrate the evils which Britain suffered herself and those which
she inflicted on others "during the times of the Roman emperors." These limitations are
instructive, inasmuch as they show how the narrative itself is ruled by the spirit of the
whole "Epistle." 9. Portenta. Vol. vii of Hübner's Corpus Inscr. Lat. bears ample evidence
that the worship, e.g., of Mithra, had spread in Britain, the monuments of which were
mainly erected by Roman officers. Gildas in the word portenta seems to refer to such
remains of oriental cults. Cf. Jerome, Ep., 107, 2: nonne specum Mithrae et omnia
portentosa simulacra quibus Corax, Nymphus, Miles, Leo, Perses, Helios, Dromo, Pater
initiantur. 10. Porphyrius rabidus orientalis adversus ecclesiam canis. Porphyry (233-304)
is called orientalis as a Greek writer; besides other (philosophical) works he wrote also
a work in xv Books "Against the Christians." [...] He is several times named by Jerome,
always with Celsus and Julian, as an opponent of Christianity, e.g., Ep. 57; but in the
Preface to the De Viris Illustribus, we find the very appellation "rabid dog" applied in
the plural to Celsus, Porphyry and Julian. Discant igitur Celsus, Porphyrius, Iulianus
rabidi adversus Christum canes.

In Ep. 133, Jerome, while answering the Definitiones et Syllogismi of Coelestius (the
Irish companion of Pelagius), says: "Lastly (an objection which your friend Porphyry is
wont to make against us), what reason is there that the compassionate and merciful God has
suffered whole nations, from Adam to Moses and from Moses until the advent of Christ, to
perish through ignorance of the Law and His Commandments? For neither Britain, a province
fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland .... knew Moses and the prophets (Neque enim
Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannum et Scoticae gentes ., . .)." Jerome probably intends
a thrust at the Briton (?) Pelagius, and Coelestius the Irishman; but Gildas has evidently
fallen into the error of ascribing the words of Jerome himself to Porphyry. The
Benedictine editors seem also to take this view, that Porphyry is only credited with the
character of the objection. The quotation as it is, together with the words which
introduce it, allows us to conclude that Gildas was conversant with the writings of
Jerome, and in particular with such as treat of the doctrines of Pelagius, though the
latter is not mentioned by him. We cannot, therefore, argue from his silence that he "knew
nothing" of the Pelagian heresy.

11. The first Parthian peace. There appears to be some confusion in the mind of Gildas
here: the passage will bear a good meaning, if understood of the peace made shortly after
the death of Trajan, A.D. 117; therefore the expedition to Britain mentioned by Gildas
here is that under Hadrian, who in A.D. 122 built the great wall called after him. Why
does Gildas select this particular time? The answer may be found in the word "unfaithful;"
after the great advances and improvements made under Agricola (78-85), which, no doubt,
ceased not with his abrupt departure, the Britons soon show themselves restless under
Roman rule. This, to the mind of Gildas, proved them to be an "unfaithful people," and the
record of their swift subjection under such a character serves well the special purpose of
his work. See Additional Note, c. 18. 12. Leaena dolosa. These words have been frequently
understood as referring to Boudicca's revolt against Suetonius Paulinus, when the latter
was in Anglesey, A.D. 62, but the date of the "First Parthian Peace" makes this
impossible. Zimmer is of opinion that the words imply a reminiscence of that vassal queen.
This, again, is not very probable, because Gildas shows a fondness elsewhere for the term
"lioness," as applied to a country: in c. 23 leaena barbara stands for the home of the
Saxon hordes, and in c. 27 for the kingdom of Damnonia. It is difficult to fix the date of
this second expedition of the Romans againstBritain. Was it that of Antoninus Pius, who in
143 built the second wall----the vallum of turf----between Clyde and Forth, or the
expedition of Septimius Severus in 193? Gildas' account is extremely vague; yet, as he
mentions no other visit of Roman forces until the end of the fourth century, and implies
extensive provisions for the consolidation of the Roman power in the island, it is not
improbable that he has the successful work of Severus in his mind.

A difficulty arises with the last sentence of c. 7. Mr. Rhys (Celtic Britain, p. 19)
concludes that British coinage came to an end about the time of Claudius (died A.D. 54),
or soon after 69; and in the Monumenta Hist. Brit., p. clii, we read: "After the
expedition of Claudius and his establishment of the Roman power in Britain, the Britons
discontinued the art of coining." Reference is made there, in a note, to the present
passage of Gildas as " confirming this opinion." Such confirmation is not possible if the
view taken here be correct, i.e., that Gildas has selected the expedition of Hadrian as
his starting-point, unless Gildas is erroneously ascribing to the time of Severus what had
already taken place in the time of Claudius. The work of Severus in Britain was, however,
far more effective than anything that could be accomplished with the limited occupation
secured under Claudius. Moreover, while it was quite natural that Roman coins should be
current in Britain from an early period, the policy of forbidding British coinage was
barely possible until the time of Severus, and it is something of this kind that is
implied in the words of Gildas. It is curious that the name of no emperor later than
Constans (A.D. 337-350) is found on inscriptions in Britain.

13. Vergilius, Aen. ii, 120. 14. If we read this section with care we find that Gildas is
not referring to the introduction of Christianity into Britain; his meaning seems to be
that the sun rose for Britain as for the whole world by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He is evidently taking his information (ut scimus) from the Latin version of Eusebius'
Chronicon. This reads: "When Pilate sent information to Tiberius of the doctrine of the
Christians, Tiberius referred it to the Senate, so that it should be received among the
other sacred records. But when it was decided by the city fathers that the Christians
should be expelled from Rome, Tiberius in an edict threatened the accusers of the
Christians with death. Tertullian writes so in his Apologeticus" (Pilato de Christianorum
dogmate ad Tiberium referente Tiberius retulit ad senatum, ut inter cetera sacra
reciperetur. Verum cum ex consulto patrum Christianos eliminari Urbe placuisset, Tiberius
per edictum accusatoribus Christianorum comminatus est mortem. Scribit Tertullianus in
Apologetico. An. Abr. 2053.) Eus. Chron., Schöne, ii, p. 151. Tert., Apol. 5.

15. Quae, licet ab incolis tepide suscepta sunt. This is all that Gildas says respecting
the evangelisation of Britain. Whether he knew more as to the first preachers of
Christianity it is impossible to tell, but his words imply that its spread among the
native population (incolae) of the island was exceedingly slow: they received it "coldly."
Among Roman officials and foreign immigrants it may have spread early, so that the few
remains which now attest an early Christian church in Britain belong to them, and are
found in the parts most thoroughly Romanised. According to the evidence furnished by
Hübner's seventh volume of Latin inscriptions, we gather that heathenism of various types
continued long, even among these provincials. Mithra and Cybele, Tyrian Hercules and
Phoenician Astarte, had their worshippers: at York there was a temple to Serapis, and at
Caerlleon, in South Wales, the Roman Legate, Postumius Varus, restores a temple of Diana
late in the third century, that is, not very long before that Council of Aries (314) which
we know so well. Christian inscriptions are more numerous in Wales than in any other part
of Britain, yet neither there nor in the other parts do they indicate a date earlier than
the middle of the fifth century. Of Britain, as well as of Gaul, the words of M. le Blanc
are true, that the legendary stories of a conversion "by explosion" have no evidence
whatever in their favour. "L'ecole historique n'admet point chez nous un Christianisme
fait, comme on 1'a dit, par explosion" (Preface, xli, Insc. Chretiennes de la Gaule). A
solid historic truth lies in that curt tepide of Gildas.

16. Novennem, the nine years' persecution. The meaning to be attached to this expression
may be gained from c. 12, "when ten years had not yet been com-pleted." Eusebius speaks of
the persecution as having lasted ten years (... H. E., viii, 15), yet both numbers admit
of ready explanation. The first Edict of Diocletian, of which Gildas gives the first and
second provisions, was issued in February 303, and the Edict of Milan, terminating state
persecution of Christianity, appeared towards the end of 312. The period was in this way a
good deal more than nine years, though not quite ten. Gildas seems to be simply copying or
enumerating, in order, the provisions of Diocletian's Edicts as stated in Rufinus' version
of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. By the first provision of Edict I, the churches
were to be levelled to the ground; by the second, the Scriptures were to be burnt; another
provision, involving degradation, finds no mention in this narrative of Gildas. Edict II
published not long after, commanded all church officers to be imprisoned without even the
option of recantation. Edict III (or so-called Edict) again soon followed, leading to the
application of torture, which too often resulted in death, though death hitherto had not
been enjoined as a punishment. With Edict IV, in 304, the persecution reached its fiercest
point by reproducing the former measures of Decius: commanding all men to offer sacrifice
and libations to heathen deities, it brought in its train the atrocities described by
Eusebius, and chronicled in so many Acta Martyrum. An African writer of the fourth century
describes the persecution in words that remind us of Gildas here: "It made some martyrs,
others confessors; some it demeaned in a calamitous death; it spared only those who
succeeded in hiding themselves" (Optatus, De Schism. Donat., i, 13).

17. Ecclesiastica historia narrat. Under this term we are to understand the Latin version
of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica, by Rufinus. But the mention of "ecclesiastical
history" suggests the very question that has been asked by several. Scholl was probably
the first to suggest that Gildas is here adopting the description he found in Eusebius of
the Diocletian persecution, and applying the same to Britain. But this chapter is in fact
not a description of persecution in Britain; it rather describes what took place "over the
whole world" (per totum mundum) and as such is a resume of Book VIII in Eusebius' History.
The actual course of events is followed by Gildas, just as the edicts succeeded each
other, and as described by Eusebius in the second chapter of the book named----the ruin of
churches, burning of Scriptures, slaughter of Christians. Further, when the final step was
taken by the emperors in the issue of the fourth Edict, the real object had become (as
here stated by Gildas) the extermination of Christianity. It is hardly just to say:
"Gildas' general statement respecting this persecution rests (as usual with him) upon an
unauthorised transference to the particular case of Britain of the language of Eusebius
(H. E., viii, 2) relating to the persecution in general, and is conclusively contradicted
by Eusebius himself and by Sozomen and Lactantius" (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i, p. 6,
n.). The last italics are mine: but this is what Gildas does not do in this part; he is
simply summarising what "Ecclesiastica Historia" narrates respecting the church in
general. His definite references to Britain are moderate. (Vide next note.)

Besides the places named in Eusebius, one might consult the De Morte Persecutorum of
Lactantius; and, in addition to the notes of Heinichen (pp. 381, 405) on the former, Mason
on The Persecution of Diocletian, chs. v and vi, and the notes in McGiffert's translation
of Eusebius, pp. 325, 397. 18. Ut conicimus. These words imply that Gildas had no definite
information respecting the exact time of the martyrdoms mentioned in this section. The
reading of Codex X, ut cognoscimus, is evidently a gloss, echoing the fixed tradition of
the copyist's own time. That the martyrdom of St. Alban took place during the Diocletian
persecution is, therefore, a guess on the part of Gildas. He evidently found the narrative
given here in some lost Acta or Passio, and we find that Beda has added other details from
some second Acta also lost. Now, many of these acts of martyrdom are found void of all
details as to time and place, as, for instance, those condemned by the famous Decretum of
Pope Gelasius in 496 (Hefele, ii, 618); if such a one had come into the hands of Gildas,
it was natural that he should conjecture the events there narrated to have taken place in
the last great persecution. One is tempted also to notice a difference of reading found
here in some codices, as possibly recording a different, if not the original, tradition;
these are, uellonnensis E, uellamien-scm C, uellomiensem D. Nevertheless, it is, perhaps,
safest to conclude that Gildas found Verulamium fixed in tradition as the place of
suffering of a martyr bearing the name Albanus, though it is not named in the account
given by the author of the Life of Germanus of a visit paid by the Gallic bishops Germanus
and Lupus (A.D. 429) to the tomb of Alban:

"The priests," we read, "sought the blessed martyr Albanus in order to render thanks, by
his mediation, to God; where Germanus, having with him relics of all the apostles and of
different martyrs, offered prayer, and commanded the grave to be opened in order to place
there the precious gifts. (V. Germ., i, 25. We can thus say that Albanus was known and
revered as a martyr c. 429, while the place of his martyrdom appears for the first time in
this chapter of Gildas' work. In the edition of Jerome's Martyrology, lately prepared by
De Rossi and Duchesne (for Aa. Ss., Nov.,Tom. ii) one codex, the Cod. Bern. (c. A.D. 770),
records "in Britain was Albinus martyr, along with others, 889 in number, placed in the
list of those whose names are written in the book of life. We are informed in the
Prolegomena of several indications, that the exemplar from which this MS. was copied had
been in the possession of, or written by, someone connected with Ireland. If so, we find
in this 889 about the earliest example of the amplification which the words of Gildas
underwent at the hands of later writers. Its exaggeration raises the question whether
persecution was possible in Britain, inasmuch as it belonged to the part of the Empire
assigned to Constantius, as Caesar of the West or Gaul. It has been held that Gildas is
contradicted by Eusebius and Lactantius, who are understood as asserting that Constantius
had no part in the persecution (Eus., H. E., viii, 13, 13:

Vita Const., I, 3. 17: Lact. De Morte Pers., xv: Letter of Donatist bishops to Constantine
in Optat. De Schism. Don., i, 22). In his anxiety to exonerate the father of Constantine
the Great, Eusebius maybe regarded as having gone too far when he said that he destroyed
none of the church buildings, .... Lactantius expressly states that the churches, as mere
walls which could be restored, were pulled down by him, but that he kept intact and safe
the true temple of God, that is, the human body. Nam Constantius, ne dissentire a maiorum
praeceptis videratur, conventicula, id est parietes qui restitui poterant, dirui passus
est; verum autem dei templum, quod est in hominibus, incolume servavit. It must be
remembered that Constantius was only Caesar of the "parts beyond the Alps," and that he
did not visit Britain until A.D. 306, the year of his death at York. The Caesar's power
was limited, which would render the name of Maximian as a rabid persecutor, especially
after the fourth Edict of 304, the more potent name with many governors and magistrates.
Constantius was bound to conform to the policy of the Augusti in carrying out edicts which
bore his own name as well as theirs. When, therefore, it is known that many martyrdoms did
take place in Spain, though that country belonged to Constantius, it is not unreasonable
to suppose that Britain had witness of the same sufferings, especially before 306, when he
himself arrived in the island.

Some confirmation of this view is afforded by the numerous place-names beginning with
Merthir, or Merthyr, found in parts of Glamorgan, and more sparsely in Monmouth and
Brecknock. Vide Additional Note after c. 26. 19. Aaron et Iulium Legionum urbis cives. Of
these two martyrs nothing more is known than is told us here by Gildas. Mason, in The
Persecution of Diocletian, p. 146, calls them "two clergymen of Caerleon," an epithet the
justice of which can neither be proved nor disproved. Dr. Plummer (vol. ii, p. 20) in his
Notes on Beda, says that "the story of Aaron and Julius must be considered extremely
doubtful," and refers us to Haddan and Stubbs, i, 6, for confirmation. One finds it
difficult to understand why this story must be doubted. There must have been a tradition
to this effect at Caerlleon in the sixth century, and in the Book of Llandav we find
evidence of the very local tradition that has been said to be wanting. The Index of that
book mentions about eighteen place-names beginning with Merthir (modern Welsh, Merthyr),
one of which is Merthir lun (Iulli) et Aaron. A merthyr means, as its Latin original
martyrium denotes, "place of martyr or martyrs," that is, a church built in memory of a
martyr, and generally over his grave. The word is found in Jerome's Chronicon: Cuius
industria in Hierosol. martyrium extructum est; it is used also by Adamnan in his De Locis
Sacris: inter illam quoque Golgotham basilicam et martyrium, i, 8. Du Cange quotes
Isidore, xv, 9: Martyrium, locus martyrum, Graeca derivatione, eo quod in memoriam
martyris sit construction, vel quod sepulcra sanctorum ibi sunt martyrum (Greek, to_
martu&rion).

We can hardly doubt that such a name as Merthyr, from martyrium, is as old as llan, or
cil, or disert, if not indeed older. This at once carries it beyond the sixth century. Now
the boundary of this particular merthir is: "The head of the dyke on the Usk; along the
dyke to the breast of the hill, along the dyke to the source of Nant Merthyr, that is
Amir" (pp. 225, 226, 377). Here we have a merthyr of Julius and Aaron in the neighbourhood
of Caerlleon. A grave objection may meet us here; many of the persons whose merthyr
survives as a place-name belong to the mythical progeny of Brychan, killed, it is said, by
the "pagan Saxons. These shadowy beings cannot disturb the main argument. 20. There is a
striking resemblance between Gildas' way of describing the double crime of Maximus and the
language of Sulpicius Severus in his Vita Martini. It seems impossible that it could be
accidental. St. Martin had been approached by Maximus with great respect; "though
repeatedly invited to his table he absented himself, saying that he could not partake of
his table qui imperatores unum regno, alterum vita expulisset (V. M., 20, 2). Orosius also
describes the double atrocity, but in words that show no close similarity to those of
Gildas: " Ubi Gratianum Augustum subita incursione perterritum . . . dolis circumventum
interfecit, fratremque eius Valentinianum Augustum Italia expulisset" (Hist., vii, 34,
10).

21. The Scoti came from the North West (a circione). This would fit well with the
explanation that at this time they had made no fixed settlements in the land subsequently
called after them Scotland. Until the tenth century, Scoti or Scotti, and Scotia or
Scottia, in Latin writers, mean respectively Irishmen and Ireland: in c. 21 Gildas calls
them grassatores Hiberni. After the Dalriad migration of Irish settlers in Cantyre and the
island of Islay, about A.D. 502, there were Scoti "qui Britanniam inhabitant," as Beda
could write in Book I of his History; but at the time to which Gildas refers any
occupation that might have taken place was merely migratory. The first mention of Picts,
by the Panegyricus of A.D. 292, refers also to Hiberni. We find an irruption of Scots and
Picts (Scottorum Pictorumque gentium ferarum excursus) first mentioned by Ammianus
Marcellinus, Book xx, i, I, while writing of Julian's activity in Gaul (A.D. 360). Four
years later, he relates, the Picti, Saxones, Scotti, and Atacotti, were harassing the
country (xxvi, 4, 5). It is not strange, therefore, when contingents from over the seas
had been, thus so long, abetting the northern barbarians, that Gildas should speak of
transmarinae gentes, though the Picts did not come under that designation. Beda, in
copying Gildas, gives an explanation of the term: "we say transmarinae gentes, not because
they were outside Britain, but because they were remote with respect to the Britons, and
two bays intervened" (H. E., i, 12).

Plummer pronounces this to be a very forced gloss (vol. ii, p. 23); cf. also the words of
c. 17, which tell us that they were driven over seas by the Roman troops: trans maria
fugaverunt. The adverb, primtim, has been understood as implying that this rush of Scots
and Picts, about A.D. 383, was their first inroad into Britain. Gildas is not guilty of
such an error, because primum must be taken as qualifying calcabilis. Previous to the
departure of Maximus, carrying the Roman army with him to the continent, the barbarians
had always found a Roman force to contend with: now, "for the first time" the country is
open (calcabilis) to their attack. 22. Legio. Maximus crossed over to Gaul in 383, and
after the murder of Gratian was unwillingly acknowledged Emperor by Theodosius and
Valentinian. When Valentinian fled, the usurper approached Italy, being at Aquileia in
September or October 387, and at Rome early in 388. His death took place in the summer of
that year, so that it was impossible for any Roman armament to help the Britons in
repelling the barbarian marauders before 388 or 389. . The "many years" (multos stupet
gemitque annos) of suffering, to which Gildas alludes in the previous section, are
explained by this fact. We know also that the xxth legion, stationed at Chester, was
withdrawn by Stilicho in 402 or 403; and from Claudian's De Bella Getico (vv. 416-418),
that it had previously served against the Picts and Scots. This legion may, therefore,
have been part of the force employed in the attack now mentioned.

23. Cespitibus. Two walls are mentioned by Gildas, one of turf and another of stone.
Hadrian (cf. c. 17), whose policy seems everywhere to have been a policy of caution, built
a wall in A.D. 122, along the more southern line from the Tyne to the Solway. It was, then
or afterwards (by Severus?), made of stone, and formed the practical frontier of the
province. In 143 the turf wall (murus cespiticius) of Antoninus Pius was constructed from
Clyde to Forth. Now the Welsh "Brut" of Geoffrey of Monmouth understands the construction
of the stone wall mentioned in c. 17 as the rebuilding of Hadrian's wall, or, as it is
called there the wall of Severus. The earthen wall, which Gildas in this section describes
as being built, may, therefore, naturally be regarded as the murus cespiticius of
Antoninus Pius repaired or rebuilt. The Romans now drive the barbarians to the more
northern line, commanding the Britons to reconstruct the no-doubt ruinous rampart: at a
later period (c. 17), they are satisfied with the safer boundary between Tyne and Solway.

24. This second expedition of the Romans against the Scots and Picts must have taken place
before A.D. 407, in which year the tyrannus or usurper, Constantine, left Britain for
Gaul. We are able to fix the possible time for the two expeditions. No forces could be
spared during the five years' reign of Maximus (383-388), nor during the struggles of
Constantine (407-411): we are thus limited to a period of about eighteen years, 389-407.
The arrangements for defence described in the next section may have been Constantine's
plans and efforts to make Britain secure in his rear. His departure proved to be the final
abandonment of Britain by the Empire. 25. Gurgite moles, cf. Verg. Aen., ii, 427:
Oppositasque evicit gurgite moles. 26. Romano stigmata: a stigma (sti/gma) was a brand
impressed upon slaves and artisans, as a mark of ownership, or for identification.
Stigmata, hoc est nota publica, fabricensium brachiis, ad invitationem tironum,
infligatur, ut hoc modo saltem possint latitantes agnosci. Cod. Theod. x, 22, 4. In the
present passage the marks or emblems of Roman power would be the disasters inflicted upon
the barbarians, and these again were visible in the Roman army and navy, as the means of
effecting them. It is, however, possible that Gildas is using the word, in a sense not
found elsewhere, for the Roman standards. Scholl includes stigma in his list of words
found only in Gildas, or found very rarely.

27. Murum non ut alterum. The wall of Hadrian rebuilt of stone. Vide note, p. 34. Gildas
speaks of two walls being built, one of turf, the other of stone: in fact, the two walls
had been so constructed from the first, the stone wall in A.D. 122, the turf in A.D. 143,
so that his words can imply no more than the repairing of them, though the repairs needed,
after so many years of neglect and ruin, must have been extensive in the extreme.
ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CC. 5-7, 13-18. Gildas in these chapters refers to Roman interference
as exercised on four different occasions. Unless we condemn the whole narrative as
confused and undeserving of credit, it may be well to endeavour to find some points in
which the account given of Roman visits touches well ascertained facts of history. Such an
enquiry will, I believe, yield some results not devoid of interest.

1. Remembering that the leading purpose of this work was to bring about a reformation of
morals in Church and State, that it is in fact a Sermon, or a "Tract for the Times," we
must recognise that the writer is in no way bound to present his facts in due order of
occurrence. Even more may be said: he is not bound to narrate events which, because of
their high importance in fashioning subsequent events, have a special claim upon a
historian. He is free, and in a way would be wise, to choose those that have a special
bearing upon the message he brings to the notice of his readers. This is exactly what
Gildas seems to me to have done: in no way does he call this part "a history;" his
intention is simply to say "a few things" respecting the points named by him, before
fulfilling his solemn promise (ante promisum Deo volente pauca .... dicere conamur).

The first visit or expedition of the Romans to Britain is placed by him "after the first
peace with the Parthians." The empire of the world had been won, and an almost universal
peace had come to pass (c. 5). Gildas may have read the Third Book of Orosius' Historiae,
where we find similar mention of a Parthian peace (post Parthicam pacem), followed by a
general cessation of war, and obedience to Roman law. This was in B.C. 20 under Augustus,
after the advance of Tiberius Nero into Armenia. (A full account is given in Merivale's
Rome under the Emperors, vol. iv, p. 173.) Orosius relates these events in order to show
that the light of Christianity came into the world at the same time (quodsi etiam, cum
imperante Caesare ista proucnerint, in ipso imperioCaesaris inluxisse ortum in hoc mundo
Domini nostri Jesu Christi liquidissima probatione manifestum est.----Hist., iii, 5, 8).
Gildas also introduces the rise of Christianity, but after relating the events of two
Roman expeditions to Britain.

Now, by many writers, both these have been understood as the expeditions of Julius Caesar
(B.C. 55, 54). The Preface, for instance, to the Mon. Hist. Britannica, speaking of the
narrative of Gildas, says: " It may be divided into two periods; the former extends from
the first invasion of Britain by the Romans to the revolt of Maximus at the close of the
fourth century, and the latter from the revolt of Maxirnus to the author's own time." I
find it very difficult to accept this view. In any way some confusion in the mind of
Gildas may be assumed, who, we again remind ourselves is writing not with a historian's
interest in facts as such, but with a reformer's bent to find a moral purpose in them. He
is, however, definite in certain limits he sets to himself. " Those evils only will I
attempt to make public which the island has both suffered and inflicted upon other and
distant citizens, in the times of the Roman Emperors" (c. 4). The Parthian peace of which
Orosius speaks was secured under Augustus, many years after the death of Julius Caesar,
therefore the first expedition described by Gildas, if after this Parthian truce and the
subsequent universal peace, cannot be the attempted, though barely successful, conquest of
Britain by Caesar. The expedition, according to Gildas, is due to the stubbornness
(contumacia) of an unfaithful people (infidelem populum), that is, it was an expedition to
punish not to conquer. Such a one could only take place " under the Roman Emperors" after
the ten years' work of conquest and settlement during the reign of Claudius (A.D. 43-53).
The vigorous measures under Vespasian's generals," particularly Agricola, were intended to
advance the Roman occupation, though Agricola, it is well khown, succeeded in attaining
larger and more permanent results. These, also, must precede the events narrated by
Gildas.

We, therefore, look out for " a peace with the Parthians," followed by a punitive
expedition to Britain, and find the former in the peace made by Hadrian, shortly after the
death of Trajan, A.D. 117, the latter in the expedition of Hadrian. Hadrian's policy of
caution aimed at the maintenance of peace by restricting warlike operations " Adeptus
imperium . . . tenendae per orbem terrarum paci operam intendit." This is said by Aelius
Spartianus, who in mentioning the difficulties adds further: " Britanni teneri sub Romana
ditione non poterant." It was then that the great wall from Tyne to Solway was built (A.D.
122). " Under Hadrian," we read in Mommsen's work: " A severe disaster occurred here, to
all appearance a sudden attack on the camp of Eburacum, and the annihilation of the legion
stationed there, the same gth legion which had fought so unsuccessfully in the war with
Boudicca. Probably this was occasioned, not by a hostile inroad, but by a revolt of the
Northern tribes that passed as subjects of the empire, especially of the Brigantes. With
this we have to connect the fact that the wall of Hadrian presents a front towards the
south as well as towards the north; evidently it was destined also for the purpose of
keeping in check the superficially subdued North of England (The Provinces, i, iSS)." It
may not be wrong to conclude that Gildas, with some confusion in that word "first Parthian
peace," has selected this instance, first of all, to point his moral of "evils suffered"
for "evils inflicted" by an "unfaithful people" (A.D. 122-124).

2. At what time must we place the second expedition? Unfortunately it is only described in
high-flowing language, almost turgid, void of all details: no name or date is supplied us.
The first impression is that it occurred not long after troops had been withdrawn owing to
the heavy burden of maintaining them. If so, then we may regard this second visit of the
Romans as that which was made under Pius Antoninus to punish renewed conflicts on the part
of the Brigantes. At that time, the Roman boundary was extended further north and fixed,
though only for a time, by the turf wall built between Clyde and Forth (A.D. 143). But
there seem to have been serious disturbances in Roman Britain, as well as renewed attacks
by the Caledonians and Maeatae, so that Severus found himself led to interfere by an
expedition in 209, during the operations of which he died at York in 211. Either of these
two visits of Roman forces would fit the description given by Gildas, while the fact that
no further troubles of any kind are mentioned until the end of the fourth century, may
incline us to decide in favour of the expedition of Severus.

3. There is a long interval from 122 or 209 to 383, of which not a word is said by Gildas.
He then introduces Maximus, the " tyrannus" or usurper, and makes his first mention of the
marauding incursions of the Picts and Scots. However, I believe a good reason for this
silence is not far to seek. It has struck many as strange that this historiographus, as he
is called by the mediaeval writers, should not have said a word about Constantius Chlorus
and his son Constantine embarking together from Boulogne in 306, on purpose to drive back
the Picts and Scots, nor of the splendid deeds of Constantine in the war against them.
There was a more terrible incursion of these barbarians, aided by the Attacotti, about
368, when the Franks and Saxons also harassed the opposite Gallic coast, plundering and
burning and murdering prisoners.* Yet Gildas makes no mention of this, or of the
successful attack made upon them by Theodosius, father of Theodosius the Great, nor is
anything said respecting the rebuilding of ruined cities and military posts, effected by
him in that year (Amm. Marcell., xxviii, 3).

Gildas, had he been writing as a historian, would be rightly censured for such grave
omissions as these, but his motive and plan is different. On that account we cannot wonder
that he passes by events, however important, which do not show the Britons to be a guilty
people, suffering because of their evil ways. In 306 and 368, the Britons were faithful
Roman subjects, who could in no way have contributed to the calamities of the empire. It
was otherwise in 383. Was it not Britain herself that sent forth the usurper Maximus? Such
is the view that Gildas takes, and, moreover, his action in denuding Britain of Roman
troops, for the first time after Agricola's settlement, laid the island bare to the
plundering expeditions of the barbarian tribes. For these reasons, a more detailed account
is given both of Maximus himself and of the fresh inroad which followed his abandonment of
the island, than of the two early expeditions against British revolt. That the usurpation
of Maximus could be laid to the charge of Britain herself, as Gildas represents the
matter, finds no insignificant support in some ancient writers. Orosius describes the
tyrannus as a man of strong character and probity, worthy to be Augustus, but created
emperor against his will (in Britannia invitus propemodum ab exercitu imperator creatus,
Hist., vii, 34.) Zosimus dwells upon the unpopularity of Gratian at the time among the
soldiery, owing to the favour shown by him to the barbarian Alani (..., Hist. Nova, iv,
35). " It is possible that he (Maximus) was rather the instrument than the author of the
mutiny" (Hodgkin's Italy and Her Invaders, i, 401). Now this is exactly the implication of
Gildas' language: non legitime, sed ritu tyrannico et tumtdtu ante initiatum milite,
Maximum mittit (Britannia).

Maximus crossed over into Gaul, taking with him the greater part of three legions: with
these and the forces which joined him on the continent, he was able soon to make himself
master of almost the whole of Europe west of Italy. The further words of Gildas, which
describe this progress, show that he was writing this part also of his narrative with a
firm grasp of the real facts of the time. He gives prominence to cunning artfulness
(callida ars), to perjury and falsehood, on the part of Maximus, which unamiable features
of his character are amply attested by writers of the fourth and fifth centuries. Socrates
describes the guile by which the young emperor Gratian was captured and murdered (... H.
E., v, 11); Sozomen speaks of the specious pretext he advanced that he would " allow no
innovation to be introduced with respect to the national faith and church order. Mr.
Hodgkin, in narrating the meeting of the two armies, that of Maximus and Merobaudes,
Gratian's counsellor and general, adds: " For five days there were slight and indecisive
skirmishes, but during all this time Maximus and his right-hand man, Andragathius, the
commander of his cavalry, were tampering with the fidelity of Gratian's troops. At a later
time, when Theodosius was making his preparations to suppress him, aided by the Gothic
focdorati, the man of whom Gildas speaks with such sincere reprobation is thus described
by the same historian: " Indeed, Maximus, whose one idea of strategy seems to have been to
bribe the soldiers of his opponent, had actually entered into negotiations with some of
the barbarians, offering them large sums of money if they would betray their master"
(Italy and Her Invaders, i, 403, 465). Gildas fixes our attention upon Maximus because
through him, the second stage of " the evils suffered " by Britain, begins in a highly
aggravated form.

But he may have felt also that this usurper, in whose usurpation Britain had a guilty
share, had been a prominent figtlre in history. Ambrose of Milan gives an account of two
embassies to him, in which the wily Maximus found the great bishop too astute for him; he
is spoken of in the writings of Zosimus, of the ecclesiastical historians Socrates and
Sozomen, of Jerome, Augustine, Orosius and Sulpicius Severus, probably others, besides
several Chronica and Annales. After reaching Italy in 387, and Rome itself early in 388,
the energy of Theodosius the Great brings his career to an end; he was captured and put to
death "at the third milestone from Aquileia' on August 28th (Prosper Tiro, Chron., and
Socrates, H. E., v, 14). It is only now that Gildas, for the first time, mentions the
Picts and Scots, old enemies though they had been, because Britain was guilty of the old
sin of unfaithfulness, and secondly, because not until then had the barbarians found the
civilised parts of the island empty of proper garrisons to obstruct their path. It was the
best opportunity for robber-inroads. 4. Two Roman expeditions are mentioned by Gildas as
taking place after Maximus had carried the forces needed for defence over to Gaul. The
brief account given above will aid us in finding the terminus a quo for the time during
which these took place. The position of Maximus, though strong, made it impossible for him
to spare any of the old garrisons, much less any other forces, to take the field in
Britain against the Scots and Picts.+ It may be concluded, therefore, that no expedition
could come until Theodosius had afresh reorganised the empire. This brings us to the year
389. It is possible also to fix a terminus ad quem.

In the last days of December, 406, the Vandals and Alani crossed the Rhine for a furious
attack upon the rich provinces of Gaul ( Wandali et Halani Gallias trajecto Rheno ingressi
II k. Jan. Prosper Tiro, M. G. H., ix, p. 465). In consequence, great dissatisfaction
arose in Britain, where many Gallic detachments were then serving, and moved by fear of a
general collapse of the empire, they proceeded to set up a new emperor. After making trial
of several, they eventually fix on one bearing the noble name of Constantine, ..., Sozom.,
H. E., ix, II; vide also Oros., vii, 40. "Having perpetrated extensive murder, they----
i.e., the Vandals, Alani and Suabians----became objects of fear even to the armies serving
in Britain, and drove them, through fear of an attack against themselves, to proceed to
the election of tyrants such as Marcus and Gratian, and after these Constantine" (Zosimus,
vi, 3, i). On this act, Mr. Hodgkin, in the first volume of Italy and Her Invaders, p.
740, remarks: "Where the liegemen of a constitutional king change a ministry, the subjects
of an elected emperor upset a dynasty." The discontented army of Britain was led over to
Gaul in the year 407 by Constantine, the third tyrannus, of whose deeds a full account by
Dr. Freeman will be found in the English Historical Review, 1886, in his article on "
Tyrants of Britain, Gaul and Spain," or in the above-named work of Mr. Hodgkin. At no
time, therefore, in the year 407, or subsequently, could any detachment of Roman forces be
sent over to Britain, because this usurpation of Constantine, with his four years of power
over the Prefecture of the Gauls, was the beginning of the final abandonment. " It was not
Britain that gave up Rome, but Rome that gave up Britain." By A.D. 446, we know from
Gildas, there were hardly any of the old Roman families left in the island.

Between 383 and 389, as has been said, no succour by the empire could have been despatched
to Britain; from 388-9 onwards order and authority were being restored in the West by
Theodosius the Great, and continued until 406 or 407. This is, therefore, the interval
during which the two expeditions mentioned by Gildas must have taken place, that is, a
period of about eighteen years (A.D. 389-407). It would be natural that Theodosius, while
reorganising Italy and the Prefecture of the Gauls, after the defeat and execution of
Maximus, should not delay in sending succour to Britain. It is certainly difficult to find
definite evidence of such assistance. Socrates mentions Chrysanthus, a Novatian bishop at
Constantinople, who was drawn into the episcopate against his will. His work as bishop
began in 407, but before that he had filled several public offices about the palace, and
after being raised to consular rank in Italy, was appointed by Theodosius the Great, Vicar
of Britain. In the tasks of this office he acquitted himself well (H. E., vii, 12). It is
just possible that in him we have one of the men employed by Theodosius in undoing the
havoc caused by Maximus in Britain, which would mean repelling the barbarians.

Theodosius died in 395, and from that time until his death in 408, Stilicho was actual,
though not nominal, ruler of the West. Claudian's verse has preserved many particulars
respecting this brave soldier and strong minister of Honorius, and as the poems do not
extend beyond the year 404, the frequent mention of Britain found in them must refer to
events anterior to that date. These may be read in the Man. Hist. Brit., xcvii, xcviii,
therefore I shall only quote the following from the poem on the Gothic war (De Bella
Getico, A.D. 402 or 403):---- " Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis Quae Scoto dat
frena truci, ferroque notatas Pertegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras." We have,
therefore, clear evidence that measures were taken to repress the barbarians of the North
after the death of Maximus, and before 402. I am further tempted to add the following
quaint translation given by Speed in his Great Britaine, from the poem " On the First
Consulship of Stilicho," of the year 400. Britain is made to say of Stilicho----

" When Seas did foame with strokes of Oares, That beat the billowes backe, His force
effecting with his cares, Prevented still my wracke: He bade me fear no forraine powers,
That Picts or Scots could make, Nor of the Saxons that on Seas, Uncertaine courses take."
The reference to Picts and Scots by Claudian may be pushed back some years earlier even
than 400.++ It is, however, unimportant to make any endeavour by way of fixing any precise
year. We find it proved for us that help was actually sent to Britain by the Empire during
the very time it was possible so to send it. Gildas is in this way vindicated as to the
genuineness of his facts, though his mode of describing them may certainly be still open
to suspicion. He has been accused of confusion, because historians have sought in his
narrative what it could not have entered his thought to narrate. For instance, it was
supposed that in c. 17 he was describing the successes of Theodosius (Senior), which took
place in 368; but because Gildas places the events of that chapter subsequent to the
usurpation of Maximus (383-388), his work was thrown aside with some amount of contempt.

5. The third appeal to Rome was made, according to him, at the time when Aetius was
consul, in 446, but was of necessity fruitless. The Empire was sinking. If, however, the
views advanced in this note be correct, or approximately correct, they will help us
further to understand his elation that, at last, victory over the old enemies came to the
Britons " for the first time after many years: primum per multos annos? These " many
years," as we have seen, would date at latest from Constantine's elevation in 407. The
last help rendered by Rome was the empty letter of Honorius, sent about 410 to the
Britons, " that the cities must take care of themselves." ... (Zosimus, vi, 10, 2). The
next and final disaster came by the deliberate admission of the Saxons into the island. *
The words of Ammianus Marc., xxvii, 5, 8, have been usually understood as if the Franks
and Saxons were ravaging Britain itself along with the northern nations. But must we not
understand Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones isdem confines .... violabant, in the
sense taken above?

+ St. Ambrose reminds Maximus, in the second embassy, of the latter's project to enter
Italy "followed by barbarian battalions" (barbarorum stipatus agminibus, Ep. 24). ++ It is
interesting to remember, once more, that the xxth legion, Valeria Victrix, established
hitherto at Chester, was recalled to the continent by Stilicho about 402; but Claudian's
poem, De Bello Getico, proves that it had, before its withdrawal, done service against the
Picts and Scots, as formerly, under Hadrian and Pius, as well as in the expeditions of
Severus, it had taken part in the same work (see Mommsen's Das Romische Heer in
Britannien, s. 27). 29. Curucus, or curuca. Irish, curach; Welsh, corwc; Modern Welsh,
corwg, corwgl, cwrwgl, whence English coracle. In Adamnan's Life of Columba, we read that
timber for building was to be conveyed over sea in boats (scaphis) and cwrwgs (curucis).
The term, though originally denoting, as now in Wales, a skiff made of osier twigs covered
with ox-hide, must be taken as denoting also the rude Celtic ship. The Martyr. Dungall.
Aa. Ss. Mart., iii, p. 268 B, says: "in those parts there was at that time (sixth century)
a mode of navigating by the use of osier twigs covered with ox-hide, which was called in
the Irish tongue (Scotica lingua) currach." But the curaci, used by Columba and his
friends, were provided with sail-yards (antennae), sails (vela), and rigging (rudentes).
Adamnan's Vita Columbae, ii, 45, Reeves' ed., pp. 176, 177.

30. Agitius. Gildas seems to have had access to a copy of the actual letter sent, but
either he or the Britons made a mistake in the Consul's name. This is generally regarded
as Aetius; and some continental editions of Gildas, e.g., the Bibl. P.P. Paris, read
Aetium, and Aetio here. Aetius was Consul for the third time, along with Symmachus, in
A.D. 466; his other consulships fell in 432 and 437. From 433 to 450, he exercised supreme
control over the affairs of the Western Empire, under Placidia and Valentinian. The abject
tone of the letter to him is in keeping with the times: its florid wording is not strange.
31. Dr. Wendland, the co-editor with Dr. Leopold Cohn of the edition of Philo that is now
being published in Berlin, regards the following as the nearest approach to Gildas'
quotation from Philo, but adds that no Latin version is known of the Vita Mosis (Letter to
Dr. Mommsen. See his edition, p. 6). Philo vita Mosis I, 31, p. 108; ...

32. It is impossible to tell what amount of definite fact there may be in this description
of prosperity and moral decay. Though the style makes us suspicious, yet as the years of
plenty were subsequent to 446, the old men of Gildas' childhood and youth must have moved
in the living tradition of them. 33. Superbo tyranno. The native king is called tyrannus,
because the sole legitimate authority, that of Rome, was absent. Procopius, who was a
younger contemporary of Gildas, relates that after the death of the tyrant Constantine
(A.D. 411), "the Romans were no longer able to save Britain, but it remained from his time
continuously under tyrants" (... ). Codex A reads tyranno Uortigerno, and X tyranno
Gurthigerno Britannorum duce (giving thus its later form to the name, in the same way as
Guenedotia takes the place of Venedotia), and the words of course appear in Gale's edition
based on the latter MS. The name may have slipped into MSS. of Gildas from the Historia
Britonum of Nennius, or perhaps from Beda (H. E., i, 14), who writes, placuitque omnibus
cum rege suo Uortigerno, and in the Chronicle, Vertigerno. Nearly all the MSS. of Nennius
have the late form, Guorthigernus, which in Welsh becomes Gwrtheyrn. That Gildas is not
ignorant of the former predatory visits of the Saxons (as attested by Ammianus
Marcellinus, and by the early title "Count of the Saxon shore"), is evident from the
words, "whom in their absence they feared more than death." Men are not feared in their
absence except through previous unhappy acquaintance, so that the Britons must have had
experience of the hated Saxons at times anterior to this compact struck with them. The
same conclusion may also be drawn from the closing sentence of c. 18: "They build towers
on the south coast where ships were usually anchored because from that quarter also wild
beasts of barbarians were to be feared." These could be no other than the Saxons. Zimmer
appears to me entirely wrong in concluding that British tradition, c. 540, knew nothing of
a previous presence of the Saxons in Britain: "von einer fruheren anwesenheit derselben in
Brittanien weiss sie absolut nichts" (Nennius Vindic., 190).

There is nothing direct in the narrative of Gildas to fix the date of this coming of the
Saxons at the invitation of the Britons. It cannot, however, be very long after the time
clearly furnished by the third consulship of Aetius (Agitio ter consult, c. 20). This
being in A.D. 446, the approximate dates given by Beda seem to be derived from it, though
he connects the time of the settlement of the Saxons with certain imperial events. A full
note by the Editor of M. H. B., p. 120, collects the different dates assigned by Becla.
They are, 452 in the Chronica, 449 in the Historia (5, 15; v. 24), 447 implied in i, 23,
and v. 23; other parts suggest 448. The Chronicle, however, does not fix the date to any
given year, and the adverb circiter is added in the other places. We learn from Gildas all
that Beda knew. About 446 the Britons gain the victory which causes the grassatores
Hiberni to flee homewards, but only to return at no long interval (post non longuin
temporis reversuri); to meet that return the Saxons are invited to come, and we may be
well satisfied that no nearer date can be found than c. 447. The Gallic Chronicle of the
year 511 (printed in M. Germania: Hist., vol. ix, p. 660), opposite A.D. 441-442, gives:
Brittaniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum
rediguntur. (Mommsen conjectures late vexatae). It is difficult to reconcile this
difference of five years, unless a Saxon invasion of that time be regarded as one (perhaps
the worst) of those which had made the Britons fear the Saxons "more than death."

The Historia Britonum follows a different tradition: it is to the effect that the three
ships which brought Horsa and Hengist came as the Ships of exiles (expulsae in exilio).
Cyulis or ciulis, as the word is in X, must be the same as the English keel. Geoffrey of
Monmouth changes it into tres celoces, quas longas naues dicimus; in the Welsh, deir llog
hirion. Prolixiorem catastam, cf. c. 109: rectius erat ut ad career em vel catastam
poenalem quam ad sacerdotium traheremini, where catasta must mean a scaffold as used for
the punishment of criminals. In this passage the word classis, i.e., fleet, is substituted
for it by Beda: mittitur confestim classis prolixior. One instance from an unpublished MS,
treatise on military tactics is furnished by Du Cange, where the word is used fora heap of
felled wood: Facial lignaria incidere de quibus fiant in diversis locis foci in die snae
discessionis, et accensis catastis lignorum statim discedat cum suo exercitu. Such a
meaning would easily give the signification of a raft, in which sense Gildas employs the
word here as a contemptuous expression with ratibus. Dr. Davies, in his Latin-Welsh
Dictionary, gives the Welsh carchardy = prison-house, for catasta. The only other meaning
given by Du Cange is that of an instrument of torture, a wooden rack, made in the shape of
a horse, equuleus, or a " bed of iron" on which martyrs were placed, fire being kindled
beneath. Scala, vel gemis poenae equideo similis is quoted from a gloss in Mai, Tom. vii,
p. 554, and from A ug. in Psalm 96: Habebant gaudia in catasta, qui Christum praedicabant
inter tormenta. Several Acta furnish examples: for instance, Acta Perpetuae et
Felicitatis: Ascendimus in catasta = scaffold.

34. Jerome's first revision of the Old Latin Psalter, made A.D. 383, and called Psalterium
Romanum, reads, as Gildas here, coinquinarunt (... in LXX). But the second, the Psalterium
Gallicum of A.D. 392, preserved in the Vulgate, has polluerunt, which is the rendering of
... in the previous quotation. In chapters 30, 104, we have further indications that
Gildas used an old Psalter, probably older than either revision of the old Latin made by
Jerome. 35. Or, with lofty door. 36. Nonnulli .... alii .... alii . . . alii. Gildas
describes the fate of his countrymen in this struggle, (1) Many were killed outright; (2)
others were reduced to life-long slavery; (3) others took refuge in parts beyond sea; (4)
others betook themselves to hilly districts and the rugged sea-coasts. These last are the
reliquiae, the remnant, who before Gildas' own time had, with the assistance of their
British fellow-countrymen (cives) succeeded in wresting back several cities and districts
from the terrible enemy. Two remarkable successes came at a time when a considerable part
of the Saxons had returned to their own settlement. The first occurred under the
leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus; the second came by the siege of Badon Hill; both
exceeded all expectation or hope on the part of the British. At the time when Gildas
wrote, there were many alive who had been eye-witnesses of the two events, who could not,
he remarks, refrain from frequent mentioning of them. He himself was born in the very year
of the later victory, forty-three years and one month from his time of writing; but the
success to which the generalship of Ambrosius Aurelianus led was acquired at no
considerable time before that, as it must fall within the memory of one life. If we take
the year of Gildas' birth as c. A.D. 500, then the battle of Badon Hill took place c.
456-7, and the successes of Ambrosius Aurelius may be put not far from A.D. 450.

37. Transmarinas petebant regiones. Gildas in these words certainly implies that there was
an emigration of a considerable part of the Britons of this island to the continent. He
has already intimated the same in c. 4, where he tells us that his information is derived
not from native sources but from continental ones. What might have existed of the former
had, he says, either been burnt by the enemy, or carried far away by that fleet which
conveyed his countrymen into exile. This was the beginning of Britanny, or Armorica, but
the emigration continued far on into the seventh century. Another view, maintained by
many, maybe stated in the words of Dr. Freeman: "Here the ante-Roman population still kept
its Celtic language, and it was further strengthened by colonies from Britain, from which
the land took its later name of the Lesser Britain, or Britany" (Hist. Geogr. of Europe,
p. 93). French writers, especially French Celtic scholars, hold a very different opinion.
M. Loth, for instance, in his exhaustive History of the British Emigration in Armorica.
thus sums up the conclusions of M. de Courson: " In every place where the insular Britons
are not established, the names of places are Gallo-Roman; men's names are Latin or German.
The territory of Rennes and that of Nantes .... are of this kind. The old Vannetais, even,
towards the end of the fifth century, presents the same character. The tyrant of Vannes,
in the Life of St.

Melanius, is named Eusebius, his daughter Aspasia, and the " villa " in which he resides
Prima Villa. Everywhere, on the contrary, where the Britons are established, the names of
men and of places present a Celtic character. Men's names are the same as in Wales and
Cornwall; the names of places are generally preceded by a British prefix, as in the
island; tref (hamlet), ploi, plou, pleu, plo (plebs = Welsh plwyf, meaning at first a
congregation, then the district inhabited by the congregation of any given church); caer
(a fortified place, and, simply, a village); llan (a monastery, generally, then a church),
etc. The terminations are equally distinct. The Britons do not derive names of places in
-acum (-ac) from names of persons, a formation very frequent in a Gallo-Roman country. In
a word, throughout the zone occupied by the immigrants, all is transformed, all is Celtic
(Brito-Celtic): we are in Britannia; at Rennes and at Nantes we are in Romania" (p. 84).
This account of the fact that a Brito-Celtic people are found settled on the peninsula
which forms the extremity of the "tractus Armoricanus," about the middle of the sixth
century, is amplified by M. Loth. He notices at length the special characteristics of
different Celtic languages, which make it impossible for us to regard the people of
Britanny as a portion of the old Celtic inhabitants of Gaul surviving there:

reference is made to the use of Britannia, etc., by Gregory of Tours in the Historia
Francorum, to ancient Lives of Saints, which describe their crossing over from Britain to
Lesser Britain (Britannia Minor) with crowds of companions, and to a large bulk of
historic matter in ancient annalists and poetry. Taking all things together, a host of
lines converge upon one fact: that from about A.D. 500 to 590 there was a strong stream of
emigration to the continent. It had, probably, begun earlier, and it continued later, but
during the whole lifetime of Gildas there were periods of emigration. Two of his old
fellow-disciples, Samson and Paul Aurelian, left their native land and settled in Britany.
(Vide L'Emigration bretonne en Armorique, par J. Loth. 1883.) 38. Domum: this can only
mean the place assigned to them by treaty in Britain, not their original home on the
Continent. The sentence, therefore, implies an ebb in the flood of Saxon conquest. 39.
Verg. Aen. ix. 24.

40. Ambrosio Aureliano. Ambrosius Aurelian has become known in Welsh literature as Emrys
Wledig, or, as the Historia Britonum gives the name, Embreis Guletic. According to Gildas,
he is (1) a Romanus, a member of one of the few old aristocratic families then remaining
in Britain; (2) his ancestors had worn the imperial purple: he may have been a descendant
of some tyrannus that had assumed the title of Augustus in Britain; (3) he was a vir
modestus, which implies kindness of disposition with unassuming manners: the mention of
this quality goes far to prove that the information had come to Gildas from some one
personally acquainted with the victorious leader; (4) his descendants, grandchildren
probably, were intimately known to Gildas. Ussher (Antiquities, vol. v, c. xiii, p. 513)
has drawn attention to the false reading indutus for indutis, which the first edition of
Polydore Vergil introduced. In this way Ambrosius Aurelian himself assumed imperial power
"for the struggle" (collisioni for collisione) against the Saxons. But, though one codex,
A, reads indutus, the way in which Beda paraphrases Gildas shows plainly that he must have
read indutis: occisis in eadem parentibus regium nomen et insigne ferentibus. H. E., i,
16. With Beda agrees the Historia Britonum of Nennius, which makes Ambrosius say that his
father was of consular rank (c. 42). The Irish version of Nennius adds an interpretation
of Guletic, in Latin, as meaning king of the Britons (rex Britonum). Maximus is also
styled Maxim Guletic (Archiv fur Celt.

Lexicogr., i., s. 206), but, in the case of both, its implication appears to be that of a
commander. Geoffrey of Monmouth absurdly makes him the son of the tyrannus Constantine,
whom he represents as king of Britain, along with Constans the monk and Uthur ben dragon:
"Ac or wreic honno y bu idaw tri meib. Sef oed y rei hynny, Constans ac Emrys Wledic ac
Uthur ben dragon" (Brut., p. 126). We seem to have here a reminiscence of both Gildas and
Orosius. In Gildas, Geoffrey found that the family of Ambrosius had worn, the purple,
which may well mean that he was descended from one of the many tyranni who had assumed the
title of Augustus in Britain. Orosius, on the other hand, furnishes the romancist with a
father for Ambrosius in the person of the tyrannus Constantine. He had a son Constans,
that from a monk became a Caesar, but this son was killed in Spain in A.D. 412, and
Constantine himself in the previous year. [Adversus hos Constantinus Constant em filium
suum----pro dolor!----ex monacho Caesarem factum----in Hispanias misit----Oros. Hist.,
vii, 40, 7. Yet according to Geoffrey's story, Emrys and Uthur must have been men in years
long before Constans left his monastery, that is, long before 411, nevertheless, the
former lived to conquer the Saxons about the year 450! This is still worse if we fall into
the mistake of taking Geoffrey's Constantine, as he himself suggests, to be Constantine
the Great.

41. Ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis. Since the publication of Dr. Guest's papers ("
Origines Celticae," 1883), the conclusions at which he arrives respecting the location of
Badonicus mons have been very generally accepted. Treating of "The early English
Settlements in South Britain," he maintains that Mount Badon or Badon Hill is not Bath,
but Badbury, in Dorset. "Its elevated site, its great strength and evident importance, and
its name, all alike favour the hypothesis " (vol. ii, p. 189). His hypothesis was accepted
by Freeman and Green. But it is one extremely difficult to fall in with, and must, one
feels, be put aside for the older view. There was no need of a very elevated site to build
a fortress, while the neighbourhood of Bath would supply hills for such a purpose.
Moreover, the very similarity of sound in Bad-bury and Bad-on-icus is itself something to
rouse suspicion rather than to suggest Dr. Guest's inference. The name Mons Badonis is
found in Nennius's Historia Britonum as the place where the "twelfth battle" was fought
under Arthur. The Annales Cambriae place Bellum Badonis opposite a doubtful date (A.D.
516); a fragment published in the Brut of Llyfr Coch o Hergest speaks of the " battle of
Badwn " (giveith Badwn) p. 404, while other parts of the Brut mention Kaer Vadon, and once
there is mention of esgob Bad. In all these places there can be no doubt that the meaning
is Bath, as in " capitulum LXVIII " of the Historia Britonum (p. 130 Mommsen's edn.); De
stagno calido, in quo balnea sunt Badonis (baths of Badon) secundum uniuscuiusque voti
desiderium. Cf. Camden's Britannia, Somersetshire, p. 70 (edn. of 1645).

42. Quique quadragesimus quartus.....There has been much controversy as to the meaning of
these words. Beda took them to mean, forty-four years after the coming of the Saxons to
Britain: quadragesimo circiter et quarto anno adventus eorum in Britanniam. M. de la
Borderie, in an article in Revue Celtique, vi, 1-13, holds that Beda's rendering is the
true one, and in this way arrives at the conclusion that the date assigned to the siege of
Badon Hill by the Annales Cambriae is incorrect. Certainly A.D. 516 cannot be the date of
that battle for several reasons; the entry in the Annales Cambriae has all the appearance
of an erroneous borrowing from Nennius, c. 56, of matter not found in the Irish
translation, and extremely legendary in character. Dismissing the date 516, M. de la
Borderie arrives at 493 as the date of the battle, which, he holds, Beda deduced from
Gildas, rightly understanding his words to convey the meaning of forty-four years after
the settlement of the Saxons. But the French scholar inserts the words adventus eorum in
Britanniam before ut novi. In the note on Ambrosius Aurelian we have had an instance of
the way in which Beda mixes literal quotations from Gildas with his own words,
interpreting the latter's meaning in better words or phrases. As no MS. authority exists
for this insertion of M. de la Borderie's, it seems far better to regard the words
adventus eorum in Britanniam as Beda's own interpretation of Gildas. Ussher (vol.

v, p. 544) holds that Beda has misunderstood Gildas's words, and gives himself the
following paraphrase of the passage: "perinde ac si dixisset, a clade Badonica
quadragesimum quartum tunc (tempore quo scripta ab eo ista sunt) numerari cepisse annum;
unico quippe anni illius mense adhuc elapso; idque ex sua ipsius aetate se novisse. " As
if he had said that from the loss inflicted at Badon, the forty-fourth year-had then (at
the time he wrote) begun to be counted; one month in fact of that year was gone, and this
he knew from his own age. Mommsen feels that the passage can hardly give a good meaning,
and, though reluctantly, proposes-an emendation of it. The difficulty, he feels, lies in
the strange ut novi, but if the sentence be read: quique quadragesimus quartus [est ab eo
qui] orditur annus mense iam uno emenso, qui et meae nativitatis est, then the meaning is
perfectly clear. (Man. Germ. Hist., iii, p. 8. When we think of the many involved scraggy
sentences which Gildas writes elsewhere, we do not wonder at the ut novi, which the
recollection of his own age forced to an undue prominence before his mind: by inserting it
in brackets the sentence is tolerably easier, and can only give the meaning deduced by
Ussher, and favoured by Mommsen.

43. The description given here of the atrocities perpetrated in this invasion is so
definite in details that it must have come to Gildas from eye-witnesses. He himself saw
the ruined cities, desertae dirutaeque hactenus squalent (chapter 26). 44. This passage
mentions two generations. First, there were the men who had witnessed the disasters
suffered from the Saxons and had survived them to enjoy a time of quiet in lives void of
reproach. Secondly, after they had passed away, there came a generation of men who, like
Gildas himself, had experience only of the period of non-molestation by outside enemies.
It is the deterioration of these that he laments in the present work. But there are also
the few select ones, so few that even the venerable mother, the church, hardly knows them
as her only real sons. Who are they? To answer this question fully we must consult cc. 65,
69, 92; yet in the main it would be right to say that he has the monks in his thoughts. We
find a reference to this passage in c. 65, and therein also, it may be mentioned in
passing, strong evidence that this work of Gildas never really consisted of two different
parts----Historia and Epistola----much less that they were written at different times. " I
ask pardon of these men, as I have said in a previous part," so writes Gildas in the
chapter named, " whose life I not only praise, but also esteem above all the wealth of the
world, and of which, if possible, I long for a share, sometime, before I die. For Gildas,
and, apparently, for his contemporaries also, in both the Irish and British churches, the
original idea of monasticism had undergone a great change.

It had ceased to be a purely contemplative life, or one of secluded discipline of the
individual soul unto holiness, as Eucher's beautiful De Contemptu Mundi describes it.
Gildas, though a monk, is mixing in the battle of public life, and the present work is
part of the task which he fearlessly carried out. "There was a prophet of the people in
the time of the Britons called Gildas. He wrote about their misdeeds: how they so angered
God, that at last He caused the army of the English to conquer their land, and utterly
destroy the strength of the Britons. And that came about through the irregularity of the
clergy, and the lawlessness of the laity" (Wulfstan, Anglo-Saxon Homilies).
Notwithstanding the position in which Gildas finds himself, the place of honour in his
mind belongs to those who lived in the cloisters: they are the saints, the only real sons
of mother church: sancti Dei, id est, monachi, as said by Salvian. would express his idea
also. The Welsh language itself still bears evidence how such words as sanctus (sant),
religiosi (crefyddwyr), took a special meaning, at first no doubt a fuller meaning than
hitherto, when men regarded their adoption of the cloistered life as their " conversion.
But it is very significant that Gildas nowhere presses this life upon anyone, cleric or
layman, as a cure for the excesses which he denounces.

Wherefore we find him, in this, to be out of the fashion of his age, though we may see in
it also the keen moderation that is so evident in the " Fragments," and which the
correspondence of such men as Finnan, a sanctorum Hiberniac magister, shows to have been
valued in distant places (Columb., Kp. I, in M. Germ. H., iii, 159). His words, however,
imply----strange though it seems----that monasticism had not spread largely in Britain by
c. 540. See Introduction. 45. Mater ecclesia is of constant occurrence in ecclesiastical
Latin as early as Cyprian; matris sinus also in the same connection. 46. Damnonia in the
sixth century would correspond roughly to the present county of Devon. Aldhelm, between
675 and 705, addresses his letter of admonition to " Geruntius King and the priests (i.e..
bishops) of Damnonia." A poem addressed to Aldhelm about the same date reads---- " quando
profectus fueram Usque diram Domnoniam per carentem Cornubiam." Cornubia (Cornwall) seems
to have been a separate kingdom. 47. Aurelius Caninus: We have no place mentioned as
forming the kingdom of this prince. It seems natural, with Zimmer (Nenn. Fznd.,p. 307), to
regard it as lying between Damnonia and the next named Demetia. His kingdom might well
include parts of the present counties of Somerset, Gloucester, Monmouth, Glamorgan, and
Caermarthen, perhaps, with Caerlleon (Legionum urbs) as capital. Geoffrey of Monmouth
reads Conane. Dr. Guest is inclined to conclude that Constantine and Aurelius Conan were
the degenerated descendants of Ambrosius Aurelianus, mentioned in c. 25. This is not a
conclusion that one can well rest in.

48. Vortipori. Vortiporius is King of Demetia (Dyfed), which roughly corresponded to the
present county of Pembroke. The Welsh form of the name appears as Guortepir map Aircol map
Triphun in the Genealogies from Harleian MSS., edited by Mr. E. Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor,
vol. ix, p. 171. " Aircol must be the Welsh reduction of the Latin Agricola" Rhys' Celtic
Britain, p. 253. 49. Cuneglase. This name and the whole passage, present many
difficulties. Gune-glasus may have had an older form, Cuno-glasus, found in many names,
e.g., Cuno-maglus ( = Cynfael), Cuno-valus (Cynwal), Cuno-belinus (Cynfelyn), etc. The
first element of the compound is connected either with cuno- in the sense of high or
noble, as cun, a top, or summit, cynnu, to raise, or with cu, gen. cunos, a. dog. Maglo-
cunus may have the same root, with the meaning of "great lord." (See Holder, Alt-
Celtisches Sprachschatz, Rhys' Celtic Britain, p. 286, The Academy, October 12th and 19th,
1895). The meaning dog would connect itself better with butcher, but glas is an odd
addition in the sense of fulvus ---- deep reddish-yellow, or tawny; the green grass, the
blue sea, the gray mare, are each termedglas in modern Welsh, but we find it impossible to
connect the adjective with a colour that comprises red and yellow. It has been proposed to
take cunus as fulvus, i.e., honey-coloured, and glas as lanio: this hardly removes the
difficulty, while the order is decidedly unfavourable to it. I feel that Gildas must have
fallen into a mistake, in the heat of his desire to fasten an ugly nickname upon
Cuneglasus.

Later, the name took the form Cun-glas or Conglas; in the Genealogies it appears as
Cinglas, and may perhaps be found in Cynlas (Y Cymmrodor, ix, 172). Cinglas map Eugein
dant gwin, map Enniaun girt, map Cuneda," may be compared with " Mailcun map Catgolan
lauhir, map Ennian girt, map Cuneda;" so that we find Cinlas and Mailcun (Maglocunus of
next section) to be both descended from Cunedda, and both grandsons of Enniaun. With this
suggestion it seems fair to conclude that the kingdoms of the two were contiguous. Zimmer
places that of Cinglas in the district between the Teifi and the Dee, where descendants of
Cunnedda are known to have ruled. I have ventured to print urse and ursi, instead of Urse,
Ursi, as other editions do. The word appears to me to be employed by Gildas as an epithet,
parallel with the animal names----catulus for the king of Damnonia, catulus leoninus for
Aurelius Caninus, pardo for Vortiporius, and draco for Maglocunus. An attempt has been
made to connect Ursus with arth in the Welsh name Arthur, which is Welsh for Arturius
(Arcturius). (Academy, October 12th, 1895.)

Were we to adopt the reading cesor of A, we should find a meaning closely allied with
lanio, i.e., hewer of many, one who mangles or tears in pieces. Auriga currus receptaculi
ursi describes, probably, well-known habits of this prince; he drives a chariot, but in
the eyes of Gildas, that chariot is but the mean appanage of a bear's ugly den, his place
of retreat: hence the singular term, receptaculum. 50. The "authority to bind and loose"
is, we see, a settled, part of British ideas respecting Church discipline and life in the
sixth century. According to c. 109, it is given to " Peter and his successors," i.e., the
bishops, but Gildas draws a definite distinction; the priest must be a holy priest: the
promise is made omni sancto sacerdoti. Such men as he is writing against, though ordained
bishops, have by their unholy lives, he adds (c. 109), forfeited this authority. They are
barely Christians (c. 92).

51. Maglocune. Maglocunus is the Mailcun of the previous note, great-grandson of Cunedda
Wledig. The name appears as Maelgwn in modern Welsh, generally Maelgwn Gwynedd,
designating him as king of that portion of North Wales which was called Venedotia, and
later Gwenedotia. The ancient Gwynedd extended from the river Clwyd (according to some,
from the river Conway) westward, and to the south as far as the Mawddach or Dyfi. Maelgwn
had as teacher the celebrated Illtud, and may or may not have been at his monastery at the
same time as Gildas himself. The vow to take upon himself the secluded discipline of a
monk came after having a taste of the stormy life of a king: the monastery, however, was
abandoned, and Maelgwn seems----partly through his own brilliant qualities, partly as a
family right----to have attained a position of pre-eminence over the other princes, or, as
Gildas puts it, "te cunctis paene Britanniae ducibus tam regno fecit (Deus) quam status
liniamento editiorem...... On the legend, which gives at least an echo of this fact, see
Welsh Laws (1841), ii, 49-51. According to the Annales Cambriae, he died of the great
plague in the year 547: " An. [547] mortalitas magna in qua pausat Mailcun rex
Guenedotiae. The date, 547, can only be an approximate one. Petrie, in the first edition,
which appeared in the Monum. Hist.

Brit., supplied 444 as the year of the Christian reckoning corresponding to ANNUS I of the
Annalist, though, as he confesses, there is no certainty with respect to the era adopted
by him (De aera vero, unde in annalibus condendis exorsus sit chronographus, minime
constat). Some well-known dates of events are a few years wrong; others, especially the
later ones, correct, as given in the Annales. Dr. Stokes does not add the corresponding
years for the Irish Annals of Tigernach, which he edits in the Revue Critique (1896), but
gives in brackets those of other Annals. Now the Tigernachian Annals say: K. vn.
Mortalitas magna, which means that it occurred during a year in which the Kalends, or 1st
of January, was a Saturday. The Annals of Ulster place it in 551, those of Inisfallen in
541 (Rev. Celt., p. 140). Not one of the three Irish documents agrees quite with the
Welsh, but the errors cannot be important in any. We therefore adopt 547 as the
approximate date of Maelgwivs death. But, as he was alive when Gildas wrote, it has been
rightly concluded that the De Excidio must have been written before 547. On the whole
question of date, see Introduction.

Insularis draco is explained in Celtic Britain- as implying that "island" is Britain
itself, not Mona. When we reflect that "dragon" is the last of the opprobrious epithets
----cur, whelp, leopard, bear, dragon----applied to the five kings, one is drawn to the
belief that even the insularis is also intended to wound. If so, the reference must be to
Maelgwn in his island home, Mona. 52. This teacher is generally regarded to be Illtud, who
is not named owing to his pre-eminence, and from a feeling of reverence on the part of the
writer (see Introduction). 53. Gildas, when quoting elsewhere consecutively from the
Gospels, has a text almost identical with that of the Vulgate; but here, quoting probably
from memory, his text is the same as the partially revised Old Latin Codex Brixianus (f),
... 54. Although Gildas mingles his denunciatory message to the five princes with
affectionate appeals for reform, yet he ends each message with lavish threatening of the
torments of hell. The appellations used by him for the place of torment are inferno, or
infernum and tartarus. The Latin versions had made the former word familiar everywhere as
the name for "the grave," or Hades, the abode of the dead. In this sense it is the
equivalent of the plural inferi, as exaudivit me de venire inferni (Jonah, ii, 3), in the
Latin version of Irenaeus: descendant . ... in infernum (...) Gen. xxxvii, 35. Its Welsh
derivative, uffern, is employed with the same meaning in most places of the authorised Old
and New Testament. But it was used also as a name for a place of punishment (locus
supplicioriini atque cruciatorum, Jerome in Is. xiv, 7-11), and Jerome understood the
words of the creed, descendit ad inferna, in this sense. Cyprian seems to have used inferi
only, while inferus appears a few times in the Latin Bible, e.g., Rev. vi, 8, et inferus
(...) sequebatur eum, where the Welsh version has uffern, the English hell. Tartarus,
though not so frequently found, is employed for " hell " as early as Tertullian, and in
the letter of Roman presbyters to Cyprian: parauit caelum sed parauit et tartarum,Ep.,
xxx, 7. It is evident that neither inferi nor tartarus were in common use, because
infcrnus has given enfer to the French language and uffern, or yffern, to Welsh. Cornish
and Armorican have allied forms, ifarn, yffarn; iffern, iverus.

55. This "tearful narrative of complaint" (flebilis querulaque historia) includes the part
beginning, in c. 26, where the older men die and are succeeded by an age ignorant of the
earlier struggles with the Saxons, with experience only of the present time of quiet. The
story ends with c. 36. Bede's well-known words about Gildas, that he wrote " with tears in
his language" (flebili sermone, i, 22), may have been borrowed from this passage, as also
the name liber querulus, so frequently applied to this work. The phrase querula historia
means a narrative setting forth definite charges or complaints. In Col. iv, 13, we have
probably the Latin querela reproduced by the Authorised Versions, Welsh and English, in
the (now) archaic cweryl and quarrel. "If any man have a quarrel (= complaint) against
any." 56. Idolatria, idolatrae. "Omnino in libris scriptis frequentissimum, pallatim et
sermo vulgaris recepit et propagavit in linguas recentiores." Tisch. These forms, distinct
from the more correct idololatria, idololatra, are found in the writings of Cyprian, and
the Pseudo-Cyprian De Aleatoribus. Idolatria occurs twice in Salvian's Ad Eccles., i and
60. As a form of common Latin it passed, in English and French, into idolatry, idolatrie.

57. Nos inhiantes suscipimus: we with cupidity receive. It is difficult to decide who is
meant by this we. The reference may be to the clergy, of whom Gildas himself was one, in
their love of gifts, which, by being selfishly withheld from the needy, will bring about
the deserved reprobation and ruin. The use of the words sacrificia et dona in the previous
sentence supports such a view: et may, in this way, take the meaning although. 58.
Iniustitia. I have changed the punctuation of other editions by removing the note of
interrogation usually placed after ignis, retaining only the note at the end of the
sentence. It seems to me rendered necessary by the text of the LXX, and reads well. I have
ventured even to omit the m of the accu sative iniustitiam, though the MS. authority seems
altogether to favour its retention; but it is well known that in nothing do MSS. show so
much uncertainty as in the omission or insertion of this letter. Taking the LXX as one's
guide, and observing that such a phrase as " to treasure unrighteousness" is not in
keeping with Old Testament ideas, every hesitation as to the substitution of the
nominative case is almost entirely removed. ...

59. 4 Esdras xv, 22-27. 60. Et si non habemus . . . This sentence is a good instance of
the vein of real modesty which runs through this work; it does not in any way impress us
as the empty mannerism of conventional self-depreciation. Gildas halts with modest self-
fear at the saying: "I could wish that I were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake;
but with a full heart (toto corde) he can use other words, such as those of the prophet
Micah: "Alas! a soul is perishing. There is earnest grief in these touching words of that
prophet whose mission it was to rebuke the moral condition of both people and princes. The
reality of modest affectionate sorrow, on the part of Gildas, for those addressed by him
is clear, and it leads us to look at other words of his which will all the more be felt to
have the same ring of sincerity. "Constrained by my own reasonings or by the pious
entreaties of brethren, I now pay the debt long ago exacted. The work is indeed poor; but,
as I think, it is faithful and friendly to every disciple of Christ, though weighty and
hard to bear, for foolish apostates" (c. 1). We call to mind also his anxiety to help men
to carry the burden he brings, by words of encouragement and consolation (consolatorio
affatu) (c. 62). "Me, poor though I am, thou holdest of no moment, and yet I observe the
prophet's word with earnest affectionateness of soul" (c. 36).

"Surely I shall put forth what I feel: the denunciation might, no doubt, be softer, but
what boots it merely to touch the wound with the hand and smear it with ointment, when
there is need of the branding iron, and the open treatment of fire. I feel we have not
read Gildas in the right way, if we do not perceive and appreciate his earnest moderation,
as well as that something else, the fashion and temper of his time, which leads us to
speak of him only as rhetorical or declamatory. 61. Sedem Petri apostoli. We seem to have
in this phrase, as in Petri cathedra, the survival of a belief that had died out
elsewhere. It means that every bishop is regarded as a successor of Peter, just as every
bishop's chair is a sedes apostolica (c. 92): such appears to have been the faith of the
Church in Britain when Gildas wrote. If we look up the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian,
comparing them with the Tractate De Aleatoribus (supposed now to have been written at Rome
itself), we find a living conviction that every bishop is a successor of Peter; that his
position is marked by the cathedra Petri to which he has been called. Tertullian states,
in Scorp. 10, that "the Lord had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter, and by
him to the Church (per eum ecclesiae reliquisse). In the De Pudicitia, 21, he is indignant
that the bishop of Rome (Callistus) should appropriate to himself the power of binding and
loosing which really appertains " to every church belonging to Peter" (ad omnem ecclesiam
Petri propinquairi). It is true that these last passages are strongly marked by the
Montanist leanings of Tertullian, but the same idea is very prominent in Cyprian. To him
the bishop of Rome was the successor of Peter, nevertheless he has the whole episcopate in
mind; it was, " in ordering the office of the bishop and the course of his Church in the
Gospel, that he says to Peter" (quoting Matth.

xvi, 18, etc.), Ep. 33, i: "There is one God, one Christ, one Church, and one chair,
founded on Peter by the word of the Lord (una ecclesia et cathedra una super Petrum Domini
voce fundata), Ep. 43, 5. The question itself is not to be touched upon here, but the
historical survival of phrases that once had a peculiar meaning is of interest. One might
refer as to these views in the African and other Churches during the early third century,
to Sohm's Kirchenrecht, 251-256; Harnack, Texte und Unters., v, i, 73-76. There is
certainly a temptation to draw, as regards Britain, a conclusion which is evident in the
case of Tertullian and Cyprian. In their case, many such sayings as those quoted are
reminiscent of the fact, that the Church of Africa had received its teaching from Rome;
such a conclusion would hardly be contested. But may we not find in this use of the phrase
" chair of Peter," for the whole episcopate, an indication of very early Roman influence
upon the ideas prevailing among the Christian communities in Britain also?

62. Merito cupiditatis. We find merito here used as a preposition =propter with accus.
Instances may be found in ecclesiastical Latin, such as Cyprian, 711, 4 (Hartel). Cum
tamen merito benedictionis: Sulp. Sev., Chron., i, 12, 7; Artaxersi merito obsequiorum
carissimus, id., ii, n, I. One early instance I have met with (in a review of Hoppe, De
Sermone Tertulliano, in Wolfflin's Archiv.), Domitiamim saevitiae merito poenas luisse:
Suetonius, Vesp., 1. 63. Religiosam forte matrem sen sorores domo pellentes. Gildas has in
mind the rule established by the well-known Canon 3 of Nicaea: "The great Synod wholly
refuses to bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or in short anyone in the ranks of the clergy,
the right to have a strange woman (in their homes), only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or
solely such persons as incur no suspicion," Such a woman is termed ..., subintrodncta, in
this and in numerous canons repeatedly passed down into the eighth century. The habit
condemned, may-have included constant cases where there was no real ground of suspicion,
clerics and chaste women living under the same roof in strict purity. Yet gross
indecencies arose; under cover of a specious plea of spiritual intercourse, came the
secretius ministerium of which Gildas mockingly speaks. A "complaint of like nature is
made against two British presbyters in Armorica, by Licinius, Metropolitan of Tours
(509-521), before this work of Gildas had been written. The women in his letter are termed
conhospitae. The article on Subintroductae, in the Diet, of Chr. Ant., gives a full
account of the many canons that, time after time, sternly condemned a habit which, we see
from this passage, had taken deep root in Britain. But in other countries we hear the same
invective, so that Britain was by no means alone in this immoral custom. " Pudet dicere
proh nefas; triste sed verum est: Unde in ecclesias agapetarum pestis introiit? Unde sine
nuptiis aliud nomen uxorum? I mo unde novum concubinarum genus?" So wrote an earlier monk
than Gildas----Jerome----in 384. (See p. 155.)

64. Tyrannico ritu. The next chapter not only enlarges upon the simony practised by the
clergy, but explains also how their ordination is irregular and violent: the bishops and
presbyters "steal the title of priest" (rapto sacerdotali nomine), because when thwarted
in the church (parochia) for which they seek ordination, and there refused, they sail
across seas, to Gaul, perhaps, or Ireland, and secure their object by bribes. It is self-
seeking men (ambitores) that ordain them, against the will of those to whom it
legitimately belonged. We may surmise that, except where such base influences as are here
described operate and break through ecclesiastical usages, a bishop would be elected by
the whole community, so that " the episcopate should," in the words of Cyprian, "be
conferred upon him de universae fraternitatis suffragio" (Ep. 67, 5). The great Leo,
writing to the bishops of the province of Vienne in Gaul, just a hundred years before
Gildas, insists that the " consent of clergy and people" (ordinis consensus et plebis)
should be duly observed; adding that, "he who is to preside over all must be elected by
all" (Ep. 10, 6). Any bishop ordained otherwise is ordained by a tyrannicus ritus.

65. Praecepta sanctorum.......ineptas saecularium hominum fabulas. In this contrast we
have implied the great change that found its completion during the sixth century. With the
fall of the Empire fell also the schools of the rhetoricians, which had kept alive the
taste for the classic literature of antiquity. They were replaced by Christian schools
connected with the great churches, or with monasteries; and in these, reading was confined
to the works of Christian writers, and chiefly those writings which inculcated asceticism
and monastic retirement. The celebrated dream of Jerome, of which he gives a graphic
account in his letter to Eustochium (Ep. 22, 30), shows how the feeling of aversion to
Pagan literature was, at the end of the fourth century, beginning to carry even men of the
highest equipment away from the great writers of Greece and Rome. "What has Horace to do
with the Psalter? What has Maro in common with the Gospels? What has Cicero with the
Epistles? (cf. the 7th chapter in Ep. 53; Taceo, de mei similibus.....). In his dream he
found himself standing before the judgment-seat of Christ. He had been reading Cicero and
Plautus with delight, but felt a shudder at the uncouth language of the prophets; when
asked about his condition, his answer was: " I am a Christian; whereupon He who sat upon
the throne said; " Thou liest: thou art a Ciceronian, not a Christian. After the severe
flogging inflicted upon him by the Judge, he vows that he will never again read " secular
books " (codices seculares).

His antagonist Rufinus could well reproach him that the vow was badly kept. There was an
uneasy feeling in such men as Jerome, Augustine, Paulinus of Nola, with respect to the
reading of heathen writings; but such anxiety of mind before long disappeared; then came
likewise the abandonment of Homer, Virgil and Cicero. Another kind of reading spread
widely, with a taste newly formed, which eagerly scanned the praecepta sanctorum. Under
this term we may include the works of the ecclesiastical writers, but more especially such
writings as those of John Cassian and the popular Lives of Saints, a species of literature
introduced by Jerome. Eucher, about a hundred years before Gildas penned these words,
wrote a letter of advice to a relative (Epistola paraenetica ad Valerianum cognatum) in
which he exhorts him to abandon the works of secular writers, and devote himself to the
study of Christian doctrine, to the studies and writings of our men (ad studia te
nostrorum et scripta converte), and especially to approach as a searcher "ad fontes ipsos
sacri eloquii." Can. v of Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, c. A.D. 450-500, commonly observed in
Gaul, directs "That a bishop shall not read heathen books (gentilium libros), but those of
heretics, as demanded by the necessity of the times." The spirit of such admonitions
spread more and more, though several writers besides Boetius and Cassiodorus continued in
a feeble, declining way, to show that the old taste was still alive. The story told by
John of Salesbury, that Gregory the Great caused the valuable Palatine Library to be
burnt, lest the study of Scripture might be prejudiced by the perusal of its books, is at
least a true picture of the sentiments entertained by men of the monastery during the
fifth and sixth centuries. Gildas may be understood as presenting here the view held by a
fervent monk, of the men in Britain who still continued to read the ancient literature.

66. In flexibus mundialium negotiorum mendacibus doctissimos. The last word implies that
the clergy in Britain, or some of them, were engaged in some trade or other for their
maintenance. We need not refer to the frequent legislation upon this subject, such as the
exemption from trade dues granted by imperial edict in 343 and 353, but afterwards
limited; and the prohibition issued by Valentinian III, in 452, which forbade clerics to
pursue any trade: ut nihil prorsus negotiationis exerceant (Cod. Theod., xvi, 2, 36). But
Britain had long been outside the range of any edict. The Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, the
basis for Church law and custom in Gaul in the second half of the fifth century----it
might well have been so in Britain----in two canons reads as follows: " Clericus
quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus artificio victum quaeret" (can. 51). " Clericus victum et
vestimentum sibi artificiolo vel agricultura absque officii sui detrimento quaeret" (can.
52). A cleric's sustenance and clothing was to come to him by some trade or by
agriculture, provided it did not prejudice his own proper work.

67. Pecunia redimentes. Now begin the charges, frequently repeated, of simony, in addition
to the assumption of sacred office by violence, that is, against the will of the community
(rapto sacerdotali nomine). The office of bishop or presbyter was bought for an "earthly
price"; priesthoods are bought from "tyrants;" which means that princes----whom Gildas, a
thoroug imperialist as a civis Romanus, will only name as tyranni----were able to
influence appointments. 68. Summum . . . gradum: the simple episcopate only, would be tbe
highest gradus. There probably were never any metropolitans or archbishops in the British
Church. 69. Novatus Romae. The confusion of Novatus for Novatianus in so late a writer as
Gildas is curious. The Roman presbyter who led the opposition against the bishop
Cornelius, and caused a separation from the Church in the name of stricter discipline, was
Novatian: from Africa there came to Rome the Carthaginian presbyter Novatus, who joined
Novatian, and probably instigated him to his schismatic partition of the Church. (See
Langen, Gesch. der Rom. Kirche, i, 293.) This may be the implication of Prosper's words:
Novatus presbyter Cypriani Romam veniens Novatianum et ceteros confessores s'ibi' sociat,
eo quod Cornelius paenitentes apostatas recepisset. (Chron. M. Germ,. H., s. 439.) Now
Latin writers name Novatian as the leader of this separation, and call the schism by his
name, but Eusebius and other Greek writers ascribe the movement to "the Roman presbyter
Novatus." Rufinus, in his Latin version of Eusebius (H. E., vi, 43), repeats the mistake
of the original: Novatus Romanae ecclesiae presbyter. We have good reason to infer that
Gildas was acquainted with Jerome's works, the De viris illustribus in particular (which
work gives: Novatianus Romanae urbispresbyter); his present agreement with Rufinus,
therefore, leads us to infer that he is here borrowing from that writer's Latin version of
Eusebius.

70. Basilium Caesariensem episcopum. The two previous examples are those of early martyrs,
whose bold and steadfast spirit Gildas would fain find in the respectable clergy of his
time. Now he brings forward a different case: a man who by his firm dignified bearing
(A.D. 371), bewildered a cruel praefect----Modestus----and struck awe into the soul of
Valens, the persecuting emperor. Valens, as is said, had made an oath to convert all his
Christian subjects to Arianism. He is the iniquus princeps mentioned above; but the
fearless bishop, who knew how to speak with princes, filled him with admiration and
terror, and was almost able to save the province of Cappadocia. The two sayings of Basil,
and probably the bulk of what is narrated, Gildas owes to Rufinus, xi, 9, where he
continues the History of Eusebius; but there are some details found here which indicate a
wider knowledge than could be procured from Rufinus. The account of the persecution of
Basil at the hands of Valens is found in Theodoret, iv, 19; Socrates, iv, 26; Sozomen, vi,
16; as well as in the work of Rufinus. The facts are more fully given by Theodoret than by
the others, and he appears to have had Gregory of Nazianz' Oratio in laudem Basilii Magni
as an independent source; the Orationes of Gregory were also translated into Latin by
Rufinus, as he himself states in the very chapter from which Gildas quotes. Is it not
possible that Gildas was acquainted with the incidents of the persecution from either
Theodoret or Gregory, as well as from Rufinus? There is no mention in Rufinus of what is
implied in the words Arriano caeno; whereas, Theodoret expressly says that the emperor had
commanded the Praefect Modestus either to persuade Basil to communicate with Eudoxius (the
Arian bishop of Constantinople), or in case he refused, to exile him.

71. At this point, where Gildas makes lengthened extracts from the Minor Prophets, the
Vulgate version is abandoned, his codices being Old Latin. On this curious and interesting
fact, see Additional Notes, pp. 94,95. The order of the prophetic books is, as indicated
on p. 97, Joel (Habakkuk), Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah (Haggai), Zechariah, Malachi,
Ezekiel (Daniel). The books placed in brackets are not quoted, but, judging from the order
of Gildas' previous quotations, and from lists of scriptural books, we are probably
correct in assigning them the position indicated (see p. 137). As in cc. 38-62, the
peculiarities of words and constructions found here, cc. 83-91, belong not to Gildas
himself, but to the awkward, unwieldy literalness of the Old Latin version, with its
frequent Graecisms and provincialisms. We are, in fact, reading a production of the second
century. A. reads: quid quoque sanctus Johel propheta.


FRAGMENTS OF THE LETTERS OF GILDAS
==================================

FRAGMENTS OF THE LETTERS OF GILDAS Gildas the Wise

c. AD 500–570

These fragments are all that remains of a number of letters of Gildas on the discipline of
monks and clergy, preserved in later collections of canons.

FRAGMENTS OF LETTERS

I. OF EXCOMMUNICATION GILDAS SAYS: Noah did not wish to exclude his son Ham, the teacher
of the magic art, from the ark or the communion of his table. Abraham did not shrink back
from Aner and Eschol in the fight with the five kings. Lot cursed not the banquets of the
Sodomites. Isaac did not refuse to share his table with Abimelech, and Acarath, and
Phicol, the captain of the soldiers; but, after eating and drinking, they sware to one
another. Jacob had no fear to hold communion with his sons, whom he knew to worship idols.
Joseph did not refuse to share the table and cup of Pharaoh. Aaron did not cast away the
table of the priest of the idols of Midian. Moses also entered into hospitality and
peaceful entertainment with Jethro. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not avoid the feasts of
publicans, so that he might save all sinners and harlots.

II. RESPECTING ABSTINENCE FROM FOODS GILDAS SAYS: Abstinence from fleshly foods without
love is profitless. Better therefore are those who fast without great display, and do not
beyond measure abstain from what God has created, but anxiously preserve a clean heart
within (from which they know is the issue of life), than those who refuse to eat flesh or
delight themselves in worldly foods, who ride not in vehicles and on horseback, and
because of these things regard themselves as superior to others. To these men death enters
by the windows of pride. III. RESPECTING THE LAST DAYS GILDAS SAYS IN HIS EPISTLES:
Excessively evil times shall come, and men shall be lovers of self, covetous, boastful,
haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, impure, without natural affection,
without peace, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, holding the good in hate,
traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the
form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Many shall perish doing evil, as the
Apostle says having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of
God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they do not subject themselves to
the righteousness of God. They find fault with all brethren who have not, along with them,
carried out their inventions and presumptions. These, whilst they eat bread by measure,
glory on that account beyond measure: whilst they use water, they drink at the same time
of the cup of hatred: they take their enjoyment simultaneously of dry dishes and back-
biting; as they lengthen their vigils, they nevertheless brand certain men while soundly
sleeping, saying as if to the feet and other members: "If thou be not head, as I am, I
shall count thee as nothing. This assurance is given, not so much out of love as of
contempt, at the time when they are musing on their leading principles; they prefer
servants to lords, the common herd to kings, lead to gold, iron to silver, the prop (to
the vine).

In this way they give preference to fasting over love, to vigils over righteousness, to
their own imagination over harmony; they prefer the cell to the church, severity to
humility, in fine, man to God. They are bent not on what the Gospel, but on what their own
will commands; not what the Apostle, but what pride teaches; without observing that the
position of stars in heaven is unequal, and that the offices of angels are unequal. These
are men that fast, which, unless they follow after other virtues, profits nothing. The
others, taught of God, with full purpose follow after love, which is the highest fulness
of the law, since the harps of the Holy Spirit say All our righteousnesses are as a
polluted garment. But these bellows of the devil say, perhaps to better men whose angels
see the face of the Father, Hold aloof from us, for ye are unclean. To this the Lord makes
answer, These will be smoke in my wrath and fire burning continually. Not those that
despise brethren: the Lord calls the poor blessed, not the haughty poor but the meek;
neither the envious, but those that weep for either their own or others' sins; those who
hunger and thirst, not for water with scorn of other men, but for righteousness; nor those
who hold others in contempt, but the merciful; those not of a proud but of a pure heart;
not those severe to others, but the peace-makers;

not those who bring wars, but those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, are
certainly the men who possess the kingdom of heaven. IV. OF MONKS, GILDAS SAYS: Those who
come from a meaner monastery to a more perfect----from one whose abbot has so far
degenerated from God's work that he deserves not to be received to the table of saints,
but to be accused of the crime of fornication, not as a matter of suspicion but of patent
evil----such monks receive to you, without scruple, as men fleeing from the flame of hell,
holding no consultation whatever with their abbot. Those, however, whose abbot we do not
exclude from the table of the saints because of evil report, we ought not to receive
against his will. How much more ought we not to receive those coming from abbots that are
holy, and in no other way suspect except that they possess cattle and carriages, either
because of the custom of their country or their own weakness, things which do less injury
to their owners, if it be with humility and patience, than to those who hold ploughs and
fix mattocks in earth with prejudice and pride.

ITEM.----When the ship is wrecked, who can swim, let him swim. But whatever superabundance
there be of worldly things to a monk, must be referred to luxury and wealth; and what he
is driven to possess by necessity, not by choice, so that he shall not fall into want,
will not be counted to him for evil. For the principal ornaments of the body, belonging to
the head, ought not to scorn the inferior ones, and it is not right for the constant
utilities of the. hands to be haughty towards the higher things. Is it not the case, that
neither these nor those (the head), can say to each other, We have no need of you, being
things which appertain to the common benefit of the same body? I have said these things,
so that bishops may know, that, just as the inferior clergy ought not to despise them, so
also ought not they to despise the clergy, as the head ought not the other members.

Priests and bishops have in truth an awful judge, to whom, not to us, it appertains to
judge of them in both worlds. VI. GILDAS.----Cursed is he that moves boundaries, certainly
those of his neighbour. Let each abide wherein he was called with God, so that neither be
the chief changed, except by the will of those subject to him, nor the one that is subject
obtain the place of a superior, except with the advice of an older. What things are
honourable with us, we surround these with fuller honour. It is therefore salutary for
bishops and abbots to judge those subject to them, whose blood, if they rule them not
well, the Lord will ask at their hands: let those that are disobedient to fathers be as
the gentiles and the publicans; and to all men, both good and bad, besides those subject
to them, that word of the apostle applies, counting all men, etc. That judgment about the
uncertain issue of life has come to pass when we read in scripture of an apostle lost by
covetousness, and a thief, by confession, carried to heaven.

VII. ITEM.----It is better for co-bishops and co-abbots, as well as fellow-subjects, not
to judge. As to men of evil odour in anything bad, let men, however, in no way make fully
clear that they think of them by report, but gently rebuke them with patience. These men,
as far as they can conscientiously do it, they ought to avoid as men suspected (but
without excommunicating them as really guilty and excluding them from their table, or from
church communion) when some cause, arising from necessity, or agreement, or public
speaking, demands it. Let them reprove those men that they do not act rightly, because we
cannot pass condemnation upon them for this. While they communicate unworthily, it may be
that we, by our evil thoughts, arc communicating with demons. But those whom we know
without any doubt to be fornicators, unless they do penance in the regular way, we exclude
from communion and table, to whatever order they have belonged by rule. As that saying is,
If any man is named a brother and is a fornicator, etc. It is on account of well-proved
cases of great sins, for no other reason, that we ought to exclude brethren from the
communion of the altar and of our table, when the time demands it.

DOUBTFUL FRAGMENTS. X. GILDAS SAYS: The Britons are contrary to the whole world [enemies
to Roman usages not only in the mass, but also in tonsure, because, along with the Jews,
they serve the shadows of things to come rather than the truth]. XI. THE ROMANS SAY: The
tradition is that the tonsure of the British took its origin from Simon Magus, whose
tonsure reached only from ear to ear, following the very excellence of the tonsure of
sorcerers, by which only the fore part of the forehead was wont to be covered. But that
the first originator of this tonsure in Ireland was a swine-herd of King Loegaire mac
Neill, is made evident by the word of Patrick. From him nearly all the Irish assumed this
tonsure. [Selected footnotes renumbered and placed at the end]

Appendices.

APPENDIX A.----EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS (AND PROBABLY SHORT SERMONS) OF GILDAS. APPENDIX B.----A BRITISH PENITENTIAL BEARING THE NAME OF GILDAS. APPENDIX C.----THE "LORICA" OF GILDAS.

Appendices.

AN attempt is made in the Introduction to give an account of the pieces printed in the
three following appendices.----This contains (a) the history of the Fragments, which are
here printed from the text found in Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, i, 108, and
Wasserschleben's Irische Kanonensammlung, 2nd edition, 1885; (b) a survey of the place
occupied by Penitentials, as to origin and purpose, in the life of the Western Church, and
their probable rise among the Churches of Britain and Ireland; (c) a comparison of other
ancient Loricae with the one that has been preserved bearing the name of Gildas, together
with a statement of grounds upon which its authority has been favourably maintained. THE
text printed here is that found in Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, i, 108, which is based
upon a MS. preserved at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, written in the ninth or tenth
century. The second part of the MS. (pp. 11-109) contains a collection of Canons,
consisting chiefly of extracts from the writings of the leading ancient church writers,
but among them extracts from writings of Patricius and Gildas. These latter are introduced
by the simple praefatory note, dicit Gildas or Gildas ait. But the same words of Gildas,
though in briefer compass, are also found in a collection of Irish Canons, made at the end
of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, consisting of sixty-two Books with
capitula or sub-sections, which Wasserschleben has twice edited. I use the second edition
(1885). We shall call the Cambridge and the Irish collections C. and H. respectively. Now
it may be gathered that the compiler of these Irish Canons, about A.D. 700, and the writer
of the Cambridge MS., about A.D. 900, had both used an older collection first made in
Ireland. At that time certain writings of Gildas, besides the De Excidio, were well known
among the Irish, and, presumably, among his own countrymen. From H. we have the title
affixed to three, Gildas in his letters respecting the last days, that is, his own days:
Gildas was writing of what to him were modern times, when startling developments were
taking place, with the usual accompaniment of anxiety and sober joy.

There were thus extant Letters of Gildas that held a high place in the estimation of the
Churches of Britain and Ireland early in the seventh century. Of this we have confirmatory
evidence in a letter of Columbanus, written about A.D. 595-600, to Pope Gregory the Great.
(See the letter in full before Vita I. In that letter, while requesting the opinion of
Gregory on three points, he mentions the interesting fact that Gildas, or Giltas as he
calls him, had written of those bishops that were irregularly ordained, because guilty of
Simony. These words may be regarded as describing the second main part of Gildas' De
Excidio (cc. 62-110). But Columbanus further mentions a correspondence between Vennianus
and Gildas, respecting the monks who were abandoning their monasteries for the better
seclusion of desert places. Seebass, in Zeitschrift f. Kirchengeschichte, xiv, 437,
concludes that Vennianus must be, not Finnian, the founder of Clonard, who died about 549,
but Finnian of Maghbile (Moville), whose death is placed by some in 588, by others in 610.
The question is an exceedingly difficult one, as the evidence seems conflicting and
confused; yet one is certainly safe in the assertion that a considerable time must have
intervened between the writing of the De Excidio and the penning of letters that would
supply such extracts as these. The whole perspective is changed. Further, if Finnian, the
founder of Clonard, died about 549, then it is natural that we should find Gildas'
correspondent in the later Finnian of Moville.

One is almost tempted to seek the sources of some of these extracts in writings of a
different kind: there were published at Louvain, in 1667, a collection of the writings of
Columbanus made some five years previously by Fleming, and these contain short sermons or
addresses to monks, called Instructions. They have been lately edited separately by
Seebass, in the Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, xiv, 76-92. We know how faithfully
Columbanus clung in Gaul to the usages of his native Ireland; so that in these very
Instructiones, we may discern a usage which originally came from Wales, whence the newer
monastic institutions of Ireland had been, directly or indirectly, inspired. Such
addresses by Gildas, if preserved might furnish matter for quotation to a writer who was
drawing up a collection of Canons. One is particularly impressed by two features in these
extracts. In the first place, there breathes through all a strong spirit of moderation
that is quite unlike the character in which Gildas has been clothed by the imagination of
many writers; in the second place, they show that Monasticism and the Church, in its
regular organization, are drawing closer together than could have been the case at the
time when Gildas wrote his indignant appeal to bishops, and to clergy generally, in the De
Excidio.


THE LORICA
==========

THE LORICA Gildas the Wise

c. AD 500–570

A lorica is a breastplate, and here it means a prayer for protection. This Latin prayer,
ascribed to Gildas, calls on God to guard each part of the body against demons.

INTRODUCTION

THE name Lorica is applied to this Hymn and to a number of others of like character, as
implying a prayer of invocation for supernatural protection against the evils of life, but
more particularly against pestilence and other dangers of death. The idea underlying the
name is probably derived from Ephes. vi, 14, where the Apostle bids his readers stand,
"having put on the breast-plate of righteousness," which words in the Latin version read
induti lorica iustitiae. With these words in mind, the writer of the Hymn makes use of
lorica twice in the course of his prayer; so that, as the idea grew that the recitation of
the prayer, or similar ones, did provide protection against the dangers of pestilence or
sickness, the Hymn itself acquired this appellation. It is called a Lorica; it is called
the "Lorica of Gillas" in the Preface which precedes it in the Irish MS. called the
Leabhar Breac (in Welsh, Y Llyfr Brych, or Speckled Book), now in the library of the Royal
Irish Academy at Dublin. Now Gillas, or Gillus, is a common form for Gildas, especially in
Irish documents, as, for instance,

" The ite of Cluain Credail Gillasque," in the Annals of Tigernach, or "Gillas obiit," in
the Annals of Ulster; the Bern MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae,
xii, 6, reads, " cum Gillas historicus testatur." We may, therefore, take the evidence of
the writer of this Preface, so far as it goes, that there was an early tradition in
Ireland which connected the Lorica printed in this volume with Gildas, the author of the
De Excidio. The colophon in the MS. from which Mone first of all printed the Hymn
attributes it to " Lathacan the Irishman " (Explicit hymnus quem Lathacan Scotigena
fecit), and the same, we can hardly doubt, is the meaning of Lodgen .... constitute, in
the. Preface of another MS. If we look at the first-mentioned Preface, as printed below,
we see that it involves the chronological error of making Gildas and Laidcenn
contemporaries, whereas a whole century intervened between them. Zimmer suggests a way of
avoiding this by a very plausible conjectural emendation, but such errors are by no means
uncommon. If we accept another solution, which is, in fact, suggested in the punctuation
adopted by the editors of The Irish Liber Hymnorum, by supplying eam from hanc orationem
of the previous sentence as object to transtulit et portavit, we have a couple of probable
facts set before us. This means, in the first place, that the Hymn, or part of it, was
composed by Gildas sometime during the years 540-550, because of the plague which ravaged
Britain and Ireland about that time; then, secondly, that the Hymn was brought over from
Britain (venit ab eo) to Ireland by Laedcenn, son of Baeth the Victorious, and placed upon
the altar of St. Patrick for public or liturgic use. The words salvos nos facere (to give
us deliverance) appear to imply such a purpose.

It will be convenient to mention here the previous printed editions of this Lorica. 1. It
was first published by Mone, with the title Hymnus luricae, from a MS. preserved then at
Darmstadt, in his Hymni Latini Medii Aevi, Friburgi, vol. i, 367 (1853). In his notes he
refers to it as an interesting example of Irish hymnology of the seventh century. The MS.
he dates of the eighth century. 2. In 1855 Antonius Schmid helped Daniel to decipher a
Vienna MS. of the sixteenth century, from which the hymn was printed, with the title
Hymnum Lyricae, in vol. iv, 364, of the Thesaurus Hymnologicus. On p. 111 Daniel has also
printed Mone's transcript with notes. 3. Dr. Stokes published the text of the hymn found
in the Leabhar Breac, which belongs to " the latter part of the fourteenth century." This
MS. has numerous Irish glosses written between the lines and on the margin; these also Dr.
Stokes has printed in full, with translations and notes. Irish Glosses, Dublin, 1860.

4. In 1864 Mr. Cockayne published Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England,
Rolls Series; vol. i, p. lxviii, contains this Lorica from the Book of Cerne, a MS.
preserved in the University of Cambridge, belonging originally to the Abbey of Cerne in
Dorsetshire. 5. For the Hampshire Record Society, the Book of Nunitaminster was edited, in
1889, by Mr. de Gray Birch; this hymn appears on p. 91. 6. In 1893, Dr. Zimmer published
the hymn from Mone's MS., (which is now at Cologne), after a fresh collation, at the end
of his Anhang to Nenitius Vindicates (1893). 7. The hymn is published in The Irish Liber
Hymnorum (Henry Bradshaw Society), 1898, from the text of the Leabhar Breac, which the
editors call B, after a fresh collation of the same, as well as of the Book of Cerne and
the Book of Nunnaminster. The present edition is a transcript from No. 7.

We find the name Lorica applied to several hymns, or prayers in verse, for protection in
dangers of any kind----"Schutzgebete," as they are called by Bellesheim. But it seems
natural to infer that the name at first arose from this very Hymn that is ascribed to
Gildas. In the MS. from which Mone printed it, in his Hymni Latini Medii Aevi, and Zimmer
in Nennius Vindicatus (1893), as well as Daniel's MS. for his edition of it, in Thesaurus
Hymn. iv, 364, there appears the short suggestive title, " Hymn of the Lorica" (Hymnum
Loricae). The reason is evident from vv. 57, 61; God, in the former, is asked to be, for
him that prays, a breast-plate, or cuirass, or corslet, and the words " with the strong
lorica," of the latter verse, are understood in every petition of the fifteen succeeding
couplets beginning with " cover" (tege). At that time, therefore, the Hymn itself is not
called a Lorica. The preface to the Lorica of St. Patrick, as it is called on p. 381 of
the Tripartite Life? is thus translated: "Patrick made this Hymn. In the time of Loegaire
MacNeill it was made.

And the cause of its composition was to protect himself, with his monks, against the
deadly enemies that lay in ambush for the clerics. And this is a lorica of faith for the
protection of body and soul against demons and human beings and vices. When any person
shall recite it daily with pious meditation on God, demons shall not dare to face him; it
shall be a safeguard to him against all poison and envy; it shall be a guard to him
against sudden death; it shall be a Lorica for his soul after his decease. . . . And '
Deer's Cry ' is its name." The account of the deer incident, which is the foundation for
this explanation of the name Faed Fiada, is found on p. 48; but another interpretation is
also proposed, based on the fact that the MSS. read not faed but faeth, and that "feth
fiada was a spell peculiar to druids and poets, who by pronouncing certain verses made
themselves invisible"; the Irish title of this noted Lorica, in this way, arose from the
use of the Hymn " as a charm or incantation to secure invisibility." Here again, though
the hymn of prayer for protection is said to be a cuirass or corslet, a lorica (lurech,
cf. Welsh llurig), yet the latter word is no name for it; nevertheless, at the time when
the earlier Prefaces to Gildas' Hymn printed below were written, it had become the
ordinary appellation for it and for similar prayers, almost, it may be added, with the
constant implication of a charm or incantation.

Other specimens of this kind of Hymns, called Loricae, are given in the Irish Liber
Hymnorum, such as the Hymn Sen De of St. Colman mac Ui Cluasaig, written, as is supposed,
at the beginning of the "Yellow Plague," which spread over Ireland during the later years
of the seventh century. Others also are mentioned by Mone; some are unpublished; a
translation of a portion of one such, by Mr. E. J. Gwynn, is given on p. 210 of the Liber
Hymnorum, which will certainly be helpful for comparison with our Lorica: " God be with me
against every sorrow, even the One noble Three, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Trinity be my protection against swarms of plagues,
Against sudden death, against terror, against treacheries of marauders! May high Jesus
keep me against the Red Plague! Against demons of all times, the Son of God is my shield,
10 Against disease, against hurts, against thunder, against fire. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . 20 Every chaste disciple who was tortured for Christ, Every meek, every gentle,
every candid, every pure person, Every confessor, every soldier, who happens to live under
the sun, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 May they protect me henceforth from the demons
of the mist, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 May I be under the hand of God in every
danger."

But a fragment, without any title whatever, has come to light lately, which, in,some
respects, bears a far closer resemblance to the Lorica of Gildas than any known before. It
was published, with valuable comments, by Dr. V. H. Friedel in the Zeitschrift fur
Celtische Philologie, Band ii, I s., 64 ff. (1898), from a Leyden MS., under the title La
Lorica de Leyde. This valuable piece of Celtic Latinity has, certainly, remarkable points
of similarity when compared with our Lorica, chiefly in the detailed enumeration of parts
of the human body expressed in very rude Latin terms, of the origin of which, and the
meaning, in fact, it is extremely difficult to give account. Several of these are common
to the two Hymns, and, as we shall note presently, to other fragments and writings
acknowledged to be of Celtic origin and character. In addition to this, the style of
invocation has a partial resemblance to that of Gildas. with a notable difference: there
are the same invocations addressed to angelic hosts, patriarchs, confessors, apostles and
martyrs, but the invocation of the Trinity, found in Gildas' Lorica and found in other
Loricae, is wanting. I am strongly inclined to believe that the Leyden piece is not a
Lorica in the true sense, that is as a prayer for protection; it repeats two petitions
only, first, that the body in all its members be searched; secondly, that heavenly powers
and saints cleanse the heart of him (or her, n.b. illam) who makes use of the prayer.
There is here no idea that we connect with a Lorica. The direction, however, given in the
first line for the recitation or reading of Psalm 101 (102 of the English or Welsh
version) may imply that the Psalm itself is the Lorica, while the fragment is the prayer
of a penitent. ...

THE LORICA

GILDAS composed this lorica to drive away those demons which attacked him. To him an angel
came, and the angel said to him: If any man repeats that lorica often, there shall be
added a seven years' portion to his life, and the third part of his sins shall be blotted
out. Whatever day he recites this prayer . . . men or demons, and enemies can do him no
injury; death on that day touches him not. Laidcend, son of Buith the Victorious, came
from him to the island of Ireland; he brought over and carried it to be placed on the
altar of St. Patrick, bishop, to make us safe. Amen. The metre is of eleven syllables,
which is also called bracicatalecticon, because it consists of eleven syllables; the
scansion is so. Help unity of trinity, have pity trinity of unity; Help me, I pray, thus
placed as in the peril of a great sea, So that the plague of this year draw me not with
it, nor the vanity of the world. And this very petition I make unto the high powers of the
heavenly warfare, that they leave me not to be harried by enemies, but defend me with
their strong armour; that, before me in the battle, go those armies of the heavenly
warfare, Cherubim and Seraphim with their thousands, Gabriel and Michael with like ones.
May thrones, powers, archangels, principalities, dominions, angels, defend me with their
thick array, and be strong to overthrow my enemies. Then also the other arbiters of the
strife---- patriarchs four, prophets four, Apostles, watchmen of the ship of Christ, And
the athlete martyrs all----I ask, And adjure also all virgins, faithful widows, and
confessors, that safety compass me by them, and every evil perish from me. May Christ make
with me a strong covenant, He whose terror scares away the foul throngs.

[The end of the First Prologue, of grades of angels and patriarchs, apostles and martyrs
with Christ. Beginning of the Second Prologue, respecting all parts of the body down to
the knees.] God the unconquerable guardian, defend me on every side by thy power. Free
Thou all limbs of mine, with Thy safe shield protecting each, so that the fell demons
brandish not against my sides, as is their wont, their darts. Skull, head, hair and eyes,
forehead, tongue, teeth and their covering, neck, breast, side, bowels, waist, buttocks
and both hands. For the crown of my head with its hair, be Thou the helmet of salvation on
the head; For forehead, eyes, triform brain, nose, lip, face, temple, For chin, beard,
eye-brows, ears, cheeks, lower cheeks, internasal, nostrils, For the pupils, irides,
eyelashes, eyelids, chin, breathing, cheeks, jaws, For teeth, tongue, mouth, throat,
uvula, windpipe, bottom of tongue, nape, For the middle of the head, for cartilage, neck
----Thou kind One, be near for defence.

[I pray Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, by the Nine Orders of holy angels,] Lord be Thou safest
lorica, for my limbs, for my entrails, that thou mayest thrust back from me the invisible
nails of stakes, which enemies fashion. Cover, therefore, O God, with strong corslet,
along with shoulder blades, shoulders and arms. Cover elbows with elbow-joints and hands,
fists, palms, fingers with their nails. Cover back-bone and ribs with their joints, hind-
parts, back, nerves and bones. Cover surface, blood and kidneys, haunches, buttocks with
the thighs. Cover hams, calves, thighs, knee-caps, houghs and knees. Cover ankles, shins
and heels, legs, feet with the rests of the soles. Cover the branches that grow ten
together, with the toes with the nails ten. Cover chest, its join, the little breast,
paps, stomach, navel. Cover belly, reins, genitals, and paunch, and vital parts also of
the heart. Cover the triangular liver and fat, spleen, armpits with covering (?). Cover
stomach, chest with the lungs, veins, sinews, gall-bladder with...... Cover flesh, groin
with the inner parts, spleen with the winding intestines. Cover bladder, fat and all the
numberless orders of joints. Cover hairs, and the rest of my limbs, whose names, may be, I
have passed by. Cover me all in all with my five senses, and with the ten doors formed
(for me), so that, from my soles to the top of the head, in no member, without within, may
I be sick; that, from my body, life be not cast out by plague, fever, weakness, suffering,
Until, with the gift of old age from God, I blot out my sins with good works; And, in
departing from the flesh, be free from stain, and be able to fly to the heights, and, by
the mercy of God, be borne in joy to the heavenly cool retreats of His kingdom.


THE PENITENTIAL OF GILDAS
=========================

THE PENITENTIAL OF GILDAS Gildas the Wise

c. AD 500–570

A penitential lists sins with the penance the priest must set for each. This British
penitential was ascribed to Gildas in the Middle Ages.

INTRODUCTION

THE PENITENTIAL OF GILDAS. DE POENITENTIA. IT may be well here to remind the reader of a
few points that are treated of at greater length in the Introduction. The Church, for
purposes of discipline, had developed various modes of correction in the case of lapses
into sin, as well as of reconciliation by absolution. As we approach the sixth century, we
find a long development of very varying procedures along independent lines, and ending in
the very reverse of agreement throughout the Churches of different countries. In one
point, however, there seems to have been universal agreement, viz., that acts of
contrition and confession, together with the reconciliation which followed, were purely
ecclesiastical. While, for the most part, such acts of penance were, in the West, not
public but private, they certainly were subject to the judgment of the bishop; he, or the
presbyter representing him, was always the ministrant. Yet in Britain and Ireland there
had grown up a different system; the disciplinary measures were conducted from the
cloister. Different sins began to be catalogued after the manner of penal enactments, with
the corresponding penance to be undergone before reconciliation. In the opening words of
the Penitential of Columbanus, "there must be a mensura paenitentiae" calculated according
to the magnitude of the sins committed. What this missionary did not quite find in Gaul,
according to the words of his biographer Jonas, viz., poenitentiae medicamenta et
mortificationis amor, he brought to that country from his Irish home.

People from all parts soon flocked to his monastery at Luxeuil to partake of the benefit
of the "medicine of penance" (Vita Col., 2). Books containing such rules, by which sins
and the appointed penances were thus arranged in order, were called PENITENTIALS (Libri
Poenitentiales). They seem to have had their origin in Britain and Ireland, but, after the
seventh century, they are found both in the English Church, and in Churches far and wide
over the Continent. Some who read the present Penitential, assigned to Gildas, for the
first time, may be surprised, if not shocked, at some of the rules contained in it; but
let them reflect that what they read here might be found almost anywhere in the seventh
century, under the direction of men of singularly pure and saintly lives. The student of
history will look upon them as phases of a life that is gone for ever; he is not called
upon to censure what is embodied in Penitential Books, nor to set up a defence of them. It
is simply necessary that he should take a right position to view their strange and
elaborate directions. These must be looked upon as means through which men of deep moral
earnestness, such as Dewi Sant and Gildas in Wales, Finnian, Comgall and Columbanus in
Ireland and France, sought to take away the curse of uncleanness out of the lives of man.
In their method, they mention things to which we hardly ever allude, but so does St.

Augustine in his " Enquiries of Pope Gregory," and so before him did St. Jerome, in his
celebrated letter to a young lady of the highest family connections at Rome. We feel that
no pastor would now even think of what is detailed in Interrogatio Augustini VIII, as
given by Beda (1,27); that Epistola 22 of Jerome "handles, without the slightest reserve,
sins and temptations of the flesh to which we now hardly allude. It is absolutely
inconceivable that any moralist or preacher of our times, however earnest or fanatical,
should address a woman in such a style. The writer from whom I quote these words adds:
"The difference of tone between the ancients and ourselves should never be forgotten in
studying the character of a distant past. By keeping it in mind we may be saved alike from
pharisaism, and from an ungenerous judgment of times which have made a self-revelation of
which we should be incapable."

To me, these Penitentials are reminders of the fierce conflict waged against the wild
immorality of olden times: a conflict which, with many failures, proved that the clumsy
method of these rules turned out to be for good. Haupt, in his Kirchengeschichte Deutsch-
lands, describes the results of the method in the hands of Columbanus in Gaul as
"blissful" (segensreich). Yet it was doomed to die; in no way could it continue, however
useful for a time. References will be made in the Notes to several Penitentials, such as
the Penitentials of Finnian, of Columbanus and others; on that account it may be of
advantage to place here the following brief resume of facts. The monasteries of which we
read such fabulous accounts as to the number of monks congregated in them, belong to the
end of Gildas' time; belong, as may be conjectured, to the revival begun by him and his
friends. Such a one was Bangor is y Coed, in Flintshire, which, according to Beda's
description, had no less than 2,100 monks within its walls: such were Clonard, Clonfert,
Clon-macnoise, and Bangor, in Ireland. The founder of Clonard was Finnian, who is also
regarded as the father of the new monastic revival which led to the foundation of so vast
a number of monasteries in Ireland. But he is also said to have come, as a boy of thirteen
years, to Kilmuine (Cil-mynyw) in Wales, where he became a disciple of "the three holy
men, David, Cathmael, and Gildas." . This is the Finnian whose Penitential is extant,
which seems to form a further link in his connection with Gildas.

Bennchor, or Bangor (in county Down), was founded by Com-gall, who in his early training
had come in contact with the same Welshmen and Welsh traditions as Finnian. When,
therefore, we remember that Columbanus was a monk of Bangor, as he with twelve companions
left his native island for France, pro Deo peregrinantes, we are led to connect him also
with that band of Welshmen. For the use of his monastery at Luxeuil he drew up a Rule that
was notably Irish in its strictness; but besides this Regula, there goes under his name a
Penitential, which, with characteristic modifications and enlargements, is based upon that
of Finnian. I do not now touch upon the question of the non-genuineness of certain parts
of the Penitential in the form preserved to us, but refer to the fact that we have
certainly, in a large section of it, a code of rules closely connected with the Irish
Penitential of Finnian, and the Welsh Penitential of Gildas.

In the same line with these we find a fourth, which bears the name of Cummean, or Commean,
or Kumin. This Penitentiale Cummeani contains materials that have a British, Irish,
English and Frankish origin; for instance, the first four rules of the British Penitential
printed below, appear there, and in the same order (Cumm. Penit., ii, 23-26); but what
impresses one still more is, that rule 14 below (which is shown to be probably a quotation
from some early source, by its use of tamen), is found also in the middle of the Preface
attached to the Penitential of Cummean (vide Notes). Who this Cummean was, is not known,
though the influence of his collection appears to have spread over a very large area. Of
many so-called, the best known is one that was Abbot of Iona from 657 to 665, who is also
the author of the oldest Life of Columba. Another of the name, styled bishop, is found at
Bobbio (an Irish monastery at the foot of the Apennines, founded by Columbanus in 612),
about the first half of the eighth century, during the reign of the Longobard King
Luitprand. Wasserschleben is inclined to regard the latter as the author of the
Penitential that was so very extensively used on the continent.

In the English Church a collection of rules, that is a Penitential, is attributed to
Archbishop Theodore, and called the Penitential of Theodore. The influence of this book
seems to have been very wide, but it contains many traces of the three first named.
Another Penitential is ascribed to the historian Beda, while a third bears the name of
Egbert, Archbishop of York. Theodore died A.D. 690, Beda 735, Egbert 767. While the
question of authorship, or of the genuineness of certain portions need not be discussed
here, there can be no doubt as to the extensive use of these books in the English and
other Churches. One of doubtful authenticity has not been named; it is found with the
title The Book of David (Liber Davidis), and is ascribed to David of Menevia, or, as
better known, Dewi Sant: others have, as well, been left unmentioned. [All footnotes
renumbered and placed at the end]

THE PENITENTIAL

The present text is that found in Wasserschleben's "Bussordnungen" 1851. It has been
reprinted in Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils, etc." i, 113. Beginning of Gildas' preface
respecting penance. (A.) 1. A presbyter or deacon committing natural or sodomite
fornication, if he have taken a monk's vow previously, shall do penance for three years,
shall pray for forgiveness every hour, shall do superpositio every week with the exception
of the fifty days after Passio, shall have bread without measure and food fattened
slightly with butter on the Lord's day; but on other days, if he be a workman, a measure
of biscuit and broth slightly thickened, cabbages, a few eggs and British cheese, a Roman
half-pint of milk because of weakness of flesh at that time; but a Roman pint of whey or
butter-milk to quench his thirst, and the same quantity of water. He is not to have his
bed furnished with much straw; let him make some addition by three quadragesimae, as far
as his strength will admit. Let him from his deepest heart weep for his fault; let him
above all things follow after obedience; after one year and a half he may take the
Eucharist and come to communion; let him sing the Psalms with his brethren, lest his soul
be lost completely, by so long a time of the heavenly discipline.

2. If a monk placed in a lower grade commit the same sin, he is to do penance for three
years, but let the measure of his bread be heavier. If a workman, let him take a Roman
pint of milk and another of whey, and as much water as suffices to quench his thirst. 3.
But if a presbyter or deacon, without a monk's vow, sin, let his penance be similar to
that of a monk without orders. 4. If a monk intend to commit a sin, his penance shall be
for one year and a half. The Abbot, however, has authority to moderate in this matter, if
the monk's obedience be pleasing to God and to his Abbot. 5. The ancient fathers have
fixed twelve years of penance for a presbyter, seven for a deacon. 6. A monk that has
stolen a garment or any article shall do penance for two years in the way described above,
if he be a junior; if a senior for one whole year. If he is not a monk, let him do the
same for one year and, at most, three quadragesimae.

7. If a monk owing to a disordered stomach shall vomit the sacrifice during the day, he is
not to take his dinner, and if it be not on account of weakness, he shall atone for his
offence by seven superpositiones; if through weakness and not gluttony, by four. 8. If he
has not vomited the sacrifice, let him be punished by superpositio of a day and frequent
rebuke. 9. If any one in negligence lose any of the sacrifice, he shall do penance for
three quadragesimae, leaving it to be consumed by wild beasts and birds. 10. If any one
because of drunkenness is unable to sing the Psalms, being stupefied and without speech,
he is deprived of dinner. 11. A man that sins with an animal will do penance for one year:
if by himself alone, let him atone for his offence by three quadragesimae. 12. He that
shall hold communion with a man excommunicated by his Abbot shall do penance forty days.

13. A man eating carrion unknowingly (shall do penance), forty days. 14. It must, however,
be known that as long as a man delays in sins, penance must be proportionately increased
to him. (B.) 15. If a certain work is imposed upon any man, and he, in contempt, omits to
do that work, let him go without his dinner; if from real forgetfulness, he will have half
his daily share of food. 16. But if he undertake the work of another, let him make that
known to the Abbot with modesty, in the hearing of no one except the Abbot, and let him
perform it if commanded. 17. For he who retains anger in his heart a long time, is in
death. But if he confess his sin, let him fast forty days, and if he persist further in
his sin, two quadragesimae, and if he commit the same sin, let him be cut off from the
body as a decayed member, because anger nourishes homicide.

18. If a man is offended by anyone, he ought to make this known to the Abbot, not with the
feeling of an accuser, but of one desiring to heal, and let the Abbot decide. 19. Who does
not meet at the finishing [of the second Psalm], let him sing eight Psalms in order; if,
when roused, he comes in after the reading is finished, let him repeat whatever the
brethren have sung, in due order. But if he come to the second reading, let him go without
his dinner. 20. If any one by mistake change anything of the sacred words where "danger"
is marked, let him observe a three days' fast or three superpositiones. 21. If through
neglect the consecrated element fall to the ground, let him go without dinner. 22. He that
has of his own will defiled himself in his sleep, if the monastery have plenty of beer and
meat, shall keep vigil for three hours of the night standing, provided he is really a man
of strength. If, however, the food be poor, let him, standing as a suppliant, recite
twenty-eight or thirty Psalms, or make recompense by extraordinary work.

23. For good kings we ought to make the sacred offering, for the bad not. 24. Presbyters
are not prohibited from offering for their bishops. 25. He that is proved guilty of any
offence and is checked as one inconsiderate, let him go without dinner. 26. He that breaks
a hoe that had previously no fracture, should make restitution for it by extraordinary
work, or should . observe a superpositio. 27. Whoever shall see one of the brethren
breaking the commands of the Abbot, ought not to hide it from the Abbot; but let him
previously admonish the sinner to confess, himself, to the Abbot his evil deed; let him be
found not so much an informer, as a man who carries out the rule of truth. So far Gildas.
[Selected footnotes numbered and placed at the end]


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS Gregory of Tours

AD 538–594

Gregory’s ten books of history, written between about AD 575 and 594, run from the
creation through the conversion of Clovis to his own time. They are the main source for
the Frankish church and for the cult of the saints in sixth-century Gaul. The translator’s
introduction and notes are left out.

GREGORY’S PREFACES

By GREGORY BISHOP OF TOURS HERE BEGINS GREGORY’S FIRST PREFACE With liberal culture on the
wane, or rather perishing in the Gallic cities, there were many deeds being done both good
and evil: the heathen were raging fiercely; kings were growing more cruel; the church,
attacked by heretics, was defended by Catholics; while the Christian faith was in general
devoutly cherished, among some it was growing cold; the churches also were enriched by the
faithful or plundered by traitors—and no grammarian skilled in the dialectic art could be
found to describe these matters either in prose or verse; and many were lamenting and
saying: “Woe to our day, since the pursuit of letters has perished from among us and no
one can be found among the people who can set forth the deeds of the present on the
written page.” Hearing continually these complaints and others like them I [have
undertaken] to commemorate the past, in order that it may come to the knowledge of the
future; and although my speech is rude, I have been unable to be silent as to the
struggles between the wicked and the upright; and I have been especially encouraged
because, to my surprise, it has often been said by men of our day, that few understand the
learned words of the rhetorician but many the rude language of the common people. I have
decided also that for the reckoning of the years the first book shall begin with the very
beginning of the world, and I have given its chapters below.

BOOK I

As I am about to describe the struggles of kings with the heathen enemy, of martyrs with
pagans, of churches with heretics, I desire first of all to declare my faith so that my
reader may have no doubt that I am Catholic. I have also decided, on account of those who
are losing hope of the approaching end of the world, to collect the total of past years
from chronicles and histories and set forth clearly how many years there are from the
beginning of the world. But I first beg pardon of my readers if either in letter or in
syllable I transgress the rules of the grammatic art in which I have not been fully
instructed, since I have been eager only for this, to hold fast, without any subterfuge or
irresolution of heart, to that which we are bidden in the church to believe, because I
know that he who is liable to punishment for his sin can obtain pardon from God by
untainted faith.

I believe, then, in God the Father omnipotent. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our
Lord God, born of the Father, not created. [I believe] that he has always been with the
Father, not only since time began but before all time. For the Father could not have been
so named unless he had a son; and there could be no son without a father. But as for those
who say: “There was a time when he was not,” reject them with curses, and call men to
witness that they are separated from the church. I believe that the word of the Father by
which all things were made was Christ. I believe that this word was made flesh and by its
suffering the world was redeemed, and I believe that humanity, not deity, was subject to
the suffering. I believe that he rose again on the third day, that he freed sinful man,
that he ascended to heaven, that he sits on the right hand of the Father, that he will
come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that the holy Spirit proceeded from the
Father and the Son, that it is not inferior and is not of later origin, but is God, equal
and always co-eternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial in its nature, equal in
omnipotence, equally eternal in its essence, and that it has never existed apart from the
Father and the Son and is not inferior to the Father and the Son.

I believe that this holy Trinity exists with separation of persons, and one person is that
of the Father, another that of the Son, another that of the Holy Spirit. And in this
Trinity I confess that there is one Deity, one power, one essence. I believe that the
blessed Mary was a virgin after the birth as she was a virgin before. I believe that the
soul is immortal but that nevertheless it has no part in deity. And I faithfully believe
all things that were established at Nicæa by the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But
as to the end of the world I hold beliefs which I learned from our forefathers, that
Antichrist will come first. And Antichrist will first propose circumcision, asserting that
he is Christ; next he will place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem to be worshiped,
just as we read that the Lord said: “You shall see the abomination of desolation standing
in the holy place. But the Lord himself declared that that day is hidden from all men,
saying: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no one not even the angels in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father alone. Moreover we shall here make answer to the heretics
who attack us, asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of
this day. Let them learn then that Son here is the name applied to the Christian people,
of whom God says:

“I shall be to them a father and they shall be to me for sons. For if he had spoken these
words of the only-begotten Son he would never have given the angels first place. For he
uses these words: “Not even the angels in heaven nor the Son,” showing that he spoke these
words not of the only-begotten but of the people of adoption. But our end is Christ
himself, who will graciously bestow eternal life on us if we turn to him. As to the
reckoning of this world, the chronicles of Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, and of Jerome the
priest, speak clearly, and they reveal the plan of the whole succession of years. Orosius
too, searching into these matters very carefully, collects the whole number of years from
the beginning of the world down to his own time. Victor also examined into this in
connection with the time of the Easter festival. And so we follow the works of the writers
mentioned above and desire to reckon the complete series of years from the creation of the
first man down to our own time, if the Lord shall deign to lend his aid. And this we shall
more easily accomplish if we begin with Adam himself.

1. In the beginning the Lord shaped the heaven and the earth in his Christ, who is the
beginning of all things, that is, in his son; and after creating the elements of the whole
universe, taking a frail clod he formed man after his own image and likeness, and breathed
upon his face the breath of life and he was made into a living soul. And while he slept a
rib was taken from him and the woman, Eve, was created. There is no doubt that this first
man Adam before he sinned typified the Redeemer. For as the Redeemer slept in the stupor
of suffering and caused water and blood to issue from his side, he brought into existence
the virgin and unspotted church, redeemed by blood, purified by water, having no spot or
wrinkle, that is, washed with water to avoid a spot, stretched on the cross to avoid a
wrinkle. These first human beings, who were living happily amid the pleasant scenes of
Paradise, were tempted by the craft of the serpent. They transgressed the divine precepts
and were cast out from the abode of angels and condemned to the labors of the world.

2. Through intercourse with her companion the woman conceived and bore two sons. But when
God received the sacrifice of the one with honor, the other was inflamed with envy; he
rushed on his brother, overcame and killed him, becoming the first parricide by shedding a
brother’s blood. 3. Then the whole race rushed into accursed crime, except the just Enoch,
who walked in the ways of God and was taken up from the midst by the Lord himself on
account of his uprightness, and freed from a sinful people. For we read: “Enoch walked
with the Lord, and he did not appear for God took him.” 4. And so the Lord, being angered
against the iniquities of the people who did not walk in his ways, sent a flood, and by
its waters destroyed every living soul from the face of the earth; only Noah, who was most
faithful and especially belonged to him and bore the stamp of his image, he saved in the
ark, with his wife and those of his three sons, that they might restore posterity. Here
the heretics upbraid us because the holy Scripture says that the Lord was angry. Let them
know therefore that our God is not angry like a man; for he is aroused in order to inspire
fear; he drives away to summon back; he is angry in order to amend. Furthermore I have no
doubt that the ark typified the mother church. For passing amidst the waves and rocks of
this world it protects us in its motherly arms from threatening ills, and guards us with
its holy embrace and protection.

Now from Adam to Noah are ten generations, namely: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malalehel,
Jareth, Enoch, Mattusalam, Lamech, Noah. In these ten generations 2242 years are included.
The book Joshua clearly indicates that Adam was buried in the land of Enacim, which before
was called Hebron. 5. Noah had after the flood three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. From
Japheth issued nations, and likewise from Ham and from Shem. And, as ancient history says,
from these the human race was scattered under the whole heaven. The first-born of Ham was
Cush. He was the first inventor of the whole art of magic and of idolatry, being
instructed by the devil. He was the first to set up an idol to be worshipped, at the
instigation of the devil, and by his false power he showed to men stars and fire falling
from heaven. He passed over to the Persians. The Persians called him Zoroaster, that is,
living star. They were trained by him to worship fire, and they reverence as a god the man
who was himself consumed by the divine fire.

6. Since men had multiplied and were spreading over all the earth they passed out from the
East and found the grassy plain of Senachar. There they built a city and strove to raise a
tower which should reach the heavens. And God brought confusion both to their vain
enterprise and their language, and scattered them over the wide world, and the city was
called Babyl, that is, confusion, because there God had confused their tongues. This is
Babylonia, built by the giant Nebron, son of Cush. As the history of Orosius tells, it is
laid out foursquare on a very level plain. Its wall, made of baked brick cemented with
pitch, is fifty cubits wide, two hundred high, and four hundred and seventy stades in
circumference. A stade contains five agripennes. Twenty-five gates are situated on each
side, which make in all one hundred. The doors of these gates, which are of wonderful
size, are cast in bronze. The same historian tells many other tales of this city, and
says: “Although such was the glory of its building still it was conquered and destroyed.”

[7. Abraham, who is described as “the beginning of our faith.” 8. Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Job.
9. The twelve patriarchs, the story of Joseph, and the coming out of Egypt to the crossing
of the Red Sea.] 10. Since many authorities have made varying statements about this
crossing of the sea I have decided to give here some information concerning the situation
of the place and the crossing itself. The Nile flows through Egypt, as you very well know,
and waters it by its flood, from which the inhabitants of Egypt are named Nilicolæ. And
many travellers say its shores are filled at the present time with holy monasteries. And
on its bank is situated, not the Babylonia of which we spoke above, but the city of
Babylonia in which Joseph built wonderful granaries of squared stone and rubble. They are
wide at the base and narrow at the top in order that the wheat might be cast into them
through a tiny opening, and these granaries are to be seen at the present day. From this
city the king set out in pursuit of the Hebrews with armies of chariots and a great
infantry force. Now the stream mentioned above coming from the east passes in a westerly
direction towards the Red Sea; and from the west a lake or arm of the Red Sea juts out and
stretches to the east, being about fifty miles long and eighteen wide. And at the head of
this lake the city of Clysma is built, not on account of the fertility of the soil, since
there is nothing more barren, but because of the harbor, since ships coming from the
Indias lie there for the convenience of the harbor;

and the wares purchased there are carried through all Egypt. Toward this arm the Hebrews
hastened through the wilderness, and they came to the sea itself and encamped, finding
fresh water. It was in this place, shut in by the wilderness as well as by the sea, that
they encamped, as it is written: “Pharaoh, hearing that the sea and the wilderness shut
them in and that they had no way by which they could go, set out in pursuit of them. And
when they were close upon them and the people cried to Moses, he stretched out his wand
over the sea, according to the command of the Deity, and it was divided, and they walked
on dry ground, and, as the Scripture says, they crossed unharmed under Moses’ leadership,
a wall of water on either hand, to that shore which is before Mount Sinai, while the
Egyptians were drowned. And many tales are told of this crossing, as I have said. But we
desire to insert in this account what we have learned as true from the wise, and
especially from those who have visited the place. They actually say that the furrows which
the wheels of the chariots made remain to the present time and are seen in the deep water
as far as the eye can trace them. And if the roughness of the sea obliterates them in a
slight degree, when the sea is calm they are divinely renewed again as they were.

Others say that they returned to the very bank where they had entered, making a small
circuit through the sea. And others assert that all entered by one way; and a good many,
that a separate way opened to each tribe, giving this evidence from the Psalms: “Who
divided the Red Sea in parts. But these parts ought to be understood according to the
spirit and not according to the letter. For there are many parts in this world, which is
figuratively called a sea. For all cannot pass to life equally or by one way. Some pass in
the first hour, that is those who are born anew by baptism and are able to endure to the
departure from this life unspotted by any defilement, of the flesh. Others in the third
hour, plainly those who are converted later in life; others in the sixth hour, being those
who hold in check the heat of wanton living. And in each of these hours, as the evangelist
relates, they are hired for the work of the Lord’s vineyard, each according to his faith.
These are the parts in which the passage is made across this sea. As to the opinion that
upon entering the sea they kept close to the shore and returned, these are the words which
the Lord said to Moses: “Let them turn back and encamp before Phiahiroth which is between
Magdalum and the sea before Belsephon.

There is no doubt that this passage of the sea and the pillar of cloud typified our
baptism, according to the words of the blessed Paul the apostle: “I would not, brethren,
have you ignorant that our fathers were all under the cloud and all baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and in the sea. And the pillar of fire typified the holy Spirit. Now from the
birth of Abraham to the going forth of the children of Israel from Egypt and the crossing
of the Red Sea, which was in the eightieth year of Moses, there are reckoned four hundred
and sixty-two years. [11. The Israelites spend forty years in the wilderness. 12. From the
crossing of the Jordan to David. 13. Solomon. 14. Division of the kingdom into Judæa and
Israel. 15. The captivity. 16. From the captivity to the birth of Christ.] 17. In order
not to seem to have knowledge of the Hebrew race alone we shall tell what the remaining
kingdoms were in the time of the Israelites. In the time of Abraham Ninus ruled over the
Assyrians; Eorops over the Sitiones; among the Egyptians it was the sixteenth government,
which they call in their own tongue dynasty. In Moses’ time lived Trophas, seventh king of
the Argives; Cecrops, first in Attica; Cencris, who was overwhelmed in the Red Sea,
twelfth among the Egyptians; Agatadis, sixteenth among the Assyrians; Maratis was ruler of
the Sicionii…. [18. Beginning of the Roman empire; founding of Lyons, a city afterwards
ennobled by the blood of martyrs. 19. Birth of Christ. 20. Christ’s crucifixion. 21.
Joseph is imprisoned and escapes miraculously. 22. James fasts from the death of the Lord
to the resurrection. 23. The day of the Lord’s resurrection is the first, not the seventh.
24. Pilate transmits an account of Christ to Tiberius. The end of Pilate and of Herod. 25.
Peter and Paul are executed at Rome by order of Nero, who later kills himself. 26. The
martyrs, Stephen, James and Mark; burning of Jerusalem by Vespasian; death of John. 27.
Persecution under Trajan. 28. The rise of heresy. Further persecutions. 29. The martyrs of
Lyons. Irenæus, second bishop, converts the whole city. His death and that of “vast
numbers,” of whom Gregory knows of forty-eight.]

30. Under the emperor Decius many persecutions arose against the name of Christ, and there
was such a slaughter of believers that they could not be numbered. Babillas, bishop of
Antioch, with his three little sons, Urban, Prilidan and Epolon, and Xystus, bishop of
Rome, Laurentius, an archdeacon, and Hyppolitus, were made perfect by martyrdom because
they confessed the name of the Lord. Valentinian and Novatian were then the chief heretics
and were active against our faith, the enemy urging them on. At this time seven men were
ordained as bishops and sent into the Gauls to preach, as the history of the martyrdom of
the holy martyr Saturninus relates. For it says: “In the consulship of Decius and Gratus,
as faithful memory recalls, the city of Toulouse received the holy Saturninus as its first
and greatest bishop.” These bishops were sent: bishop Catianus to Tours; bishop Trophimus
to Arles; bishop Paul to Narbonne; bishop Saturninus to Toulouse; bishop Dionisius to
Paris; bishop Stremonius to Clermont; bishop Martial to Limoges.

And of these the blessed Dionisius, bishop of Paris, after suffering divers pains in
Christ’s name, ended the present life by the threatening sword. And Saturninus, already
certain of martyrdom, said to his two priests: “Behold, I am now to be offered as a victim
and the time of my death draws near. I ask you not to leave me at all before I come to the
end.” But when he was seized and was being dragged to the capitol he was abandoned by them
and was dragged alone. And so when he saw that he was abandoned he is said to have made
this prayer; “Lord Jesus Christ, grant my request from holy heaven, that this church may
never in all time have the merit to receive a bishop from among its citizens.” And we know
that to the present it has been so in this city. And he was tied to the feet of a mad
bull, and being sent headlong from the capitol he ended his life. Catianus, Trophimus,
Stremonius, Paul and Marcial lived in the greatest sanctity, winning people to the church
and spreading the faith of Christ among all, and died in peace, confessing the faith. And
thus the former by martyrdom, as well as the latter by confession, left the earth and were
united in the heavens.

31. One of their disciples went to the city of Bourges and carried to the people the news
of Christ the lord as the saviour of all. A few of them believed and were ordained priests
and learned the ritual of psalm-singing, and were instructed how to build a church and how
they ought to observe the worship of the omnipotent God. But as they had small means for
building as yet, the citizens asked for the house of a certain man to use for a church.
But the senators and the rest of the better class of the place were at that time devoted
to the heathen religion and the believers were of the poor, according to the word of the
Lord with which he reproached the Jews saying; “Harlots and publicans go into the kingdom
of God before you.” And they did not obtain the house from the person from whom they asked
it, but they found a certain Leocadius, the first senator of the Gauls, who was of the
family of Vectius Epagatus, who, we have said above, suffered in Lyons in Christ’s name.
And when they had made known to him at the same time their petition and their faith he
answered, “If my own house in the city of Bourges were worthy of this work I would not
refuse to offer it.” And when they heard this they fell at his feet and offered three
hundred gold pieces on a silver dish and said the house was very worthy of this mystery.
And he accepted three gold pieces from them for a blessing and kindly returned the rest,
although he was yet entangled in the error of idolatry, and he became a Christian and made
his house a church. This is now the first church in the city of Bourges, built with
marvelous skill and made illustrious by the relics of Stephen, the first martyr.

32. Valerian and Gallienus received the Roman imperial power in the twenty-seventh place,
and set on foot a cruel persecution of the Christians. At that time Cornelius brought fame
to Rome by his happy death, and Cyprian to Carthage. In their time also Chrocus the famous
king of the Alemanni raised an army and overran the Gauls. This Chrocus is said to have
been very arrogant. And when he had committed a great many crimes he gathered the tribe of
the Alemanni, as we have stated,—by the advice, it is said, of his wicked mother,—and
overran the whole of the Gauls, and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which
had been built in ancient times. And coming to Clermont he set on fire, overthrew and
destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatæ in the Gallic tongue. It had been built
and made strong with wonderful skill. And its wall was double, for on the inside it was
built of small stone and on the outside of squared blocks. The wall had a thickness of
thirty feet. It was adorned on the inside with marble and mosaics. The pavement of the
temple was also of marble and its roof above was of lead.

[33. Martyrs of Clermont. 34. The bishop of Gévaudan is maltreated by the Alemanni.] 35.
Under Diocletian, who was emperor of Rome in the thirty-third place, a cruel persecution
of the Christians was kept up for four years, at one time in the course of which great
numbers of Christians were put to death, on the sacred day of Easter, for worshiping the
true God. At that time Quirinus, bishop of the church of Sissek, endured glorious
martyrdom in Christ’s name. The cruel pagans cast him into a river with a millstone tied
to his neck, and when he had fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface
by a divine miracle, and the waters did not suck him down since the weight of crime did
not press upon him. And a multitude of people standing around wondered at the thing, and
despising the rage of the heathen they hastened to free the bishop. He saw this and did
not permit himself to be deprived of martyrdom, and raising his eyes to heaven he said:
“Jesus lord, who sittest in glory at the right hand of the Father, suffer me not to be
taken from this course, but receive my soul and deign to unite me with thy martyrs in
eternal peace.” With these words he gave up the ghost, and his body was taken up by the
Christians and reverently buried.

36. Constantine was the thirty-fourth emperor of the Romans, and he reigned prosperously
for thirty years. In the eleventh year of his reign, when peace had been granted to the
churches after the death of Diocletian, our blessed patron Martin was born at Sabaria, a
city of Pannonia, of heathen parents, who still were not of the lowest station. This
Constantine in the twentieth year of his reign caused the death of his son Crispus by
poison, and of his wife Fausta by means of a hot bath, because they had plotted to betray
his rule. In his time the venerated wood of the Lord’s cross was found, through the zeal
of his mother Helen on the information of Judas, a Hebrew who was called Quiriacus after
baptism. The historian Eusebius comes down to this period in his chronicle. The priest
Jerome continues it from the twenty-first year of Constantine’s reign. He informs us that
the priest Juvencus wrote the gospels in verse at the request of the emperor named above.

[37. James of Nisibis and Maximin of Trèves. 38. Hilarius bishop of Poitiers.] 39. At that
time our light arose and Gaul was traversed by the rays of a new lamp, that is, the most
blessed Martin then began to preach in the Gauls, and he overcame the unbelief of the
heathen, showing among the people by many miracles that Christ the Son of God was the true
God. He destroyed heathen shrines, crushed heresy, built churches, and while he was
glorious for many other miracles, he completed his title to fame by restoring three dead
men to life. At Poitiers, in the fourth year of Valentinian and Valens, Saint Hilarius
passed to heaven full of sanctity and faith, a priest of many miracles; for he too is said
to have raised the dead. [40. Melania’s journey to Jerusalem.] 41. After the death of
Valentinian, Valens, who succeeded to the undivided empire, gave orders that the monks be
compelled to serve in the army, and commanded that those who refused should be beaten with
clubs. After this the Romans fought a very fierce battle in Thrace, in which there was
such slaughter that the Romans fled on foot after losing their horses, and when they were
being cut to pieces by the Goths, and Valens was fleeing with an arrow wound, he entered a
small hut, the enemy closely pursuing, and the little dwelling was burned over him. And he
was deprived of the burial he desired. And thus the divine vengeance finally came for
shedding the blood of the saints. Thus far Jerome; from this period the priest Orosius
wrote at greater length.

[42. The pious emperor Theodosius. 43. The emperor Maximus with capital at Trèves. 44.
Urbicus, second bishop of Clermont, and his wife. 45. Hillidius, third bishop of Clermont,
and his miracles. 46. Nepotian and Arthemius, fourth and fifth bishops of Clermont. 47.
Legend of the two lovers of Clermont.] 48. In the second year of the reign of Arcadius and
Honorius, Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, departed this life at Candes, a village of his
diocese, and passed happily to Christ in the eighty-first year of his life and the twenty-
sixth of his episcopate, a man full of miracles and holiness, doing many services to the
infirm. He passed away at midnight of the Lord’s day, in the consulship of Atticus and
Cæsarius. Many heard at his passing away the sound of psalm-singing in heaven, which I
have spoken of at greater length in the first book of his Miracles. Now as soon as the
saint of God fell sick at the village of Candes, as we have related, the people of
Poitiers came to be present at his death, as did also the people of Tours. And when he
died, a great dispute arose between the two peoples. For the people of Poitiers said: “As
a monk, he is ours; as an abbot, he belonged to us; we demand that he be given to us. Let
it be enough for you that when he was a bishop on earth you enjoyed his conversation, ate
with him, were strengthened by his blessings and cheered by his miracles. Let all that be
enough for you. Let us be permitted to carry away his dead body. To this the people of
Tours replied:

“If you say that the working of his miracles is enough for us, let us tell you that while
he was placed among you he worked more miracles than he did here. For, to pass over most
of them, he raised two dead men for you, and one for us; and as he used often to say
himself, there was more virtue in him before he was bishop than after. And so it is
necessary that he complete for us after death what he did not finish in his lifetime. For
he was taken away from you and given to us by God. If a custom long established is kept, a
man shall have his tomb by God’s command in the city in which he was ordained. And if you
desire to claim him because of the right of the monastery, let us tell you that his first
monastery was at Milan. While they were arguing in this way the sun sank and night closed
in. And the body was placed in the midst, and the doors were barred and the body was
guarded by both peoples, and it was going to be carried off by violence by the people of
Poitiers in the morning. But omnipotent God was unwilling that the city of Tours should be
deprived of its protector. Finally at midnight the whole band from Poitiers were
overwhelmed with sleep and no one remained out of this multitude to keep watch.

Then when the people of Tours saw that they had fallen asleep they seized on the clay of
the holy body and some thrust it out the window and others received it outside, and
placing it in a boat they went down the river Vienne with all their people and entered the
channel of the Loire, and made their way to the city of Tours with great praises and
plentiful psalm-singing, and the people of Poitiers were waked by their voices, and having
no treasure to guard they returned to their own place greatly crestfallen. And if any one
asks why there was only one bishop, that is, Litorius, after the death of bishop Gatianus
to the time of Saint Martin, let him know that for a long time the city of Tours was
without the blessing of a bishop, owing to the resistance of the heathen. For they who
lived as Christians at that time celebrated the divine office secretly and in hiding. For
if any Christians were found by the heathen they were punished with stripes or slain by
the sword.

Now from the suffering of the Lord to the passing of Saint Martin, 412 years are included.
Here Ends the First Book Containing 5597 Years which are Reckoned from the Beginning of
the World to the Death of the Holy Bishop Martin.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK II

Following the order of time we shall mingle together in our tale the miraculous doings of
the saints and the slaughters of the nations. I do not think that we shall be condemned
thoughtlessly if we tell of the happy lives of the blessed together with the deaths of the
wretched, since it is not the skill of the writer but the succession of times that has
furnished the arrangement. The attentive reader, if he seeks diligently, will find in the
famous histories of the kings of the Israelites that under the just Samuel the wicked
Phineas perished, and that under David, whom they called Stronghand, the stranger Goliath
was destroyed. Let him remember also in the time of the great prophet Elias, who prevented
rains when he wished and when he pleased poured them on the parched ground, who enriched
the poverty of the widow by his prayer, what slaughters of the people there were, what
famine and what thirst oppressed the wretched earth. Let him remember what evil Jerusalem
endured in the time of Hezekiah, to whom God granted fifteen additional years of life.
Moreover under the prophet Elisha, who restored the dead to life and did many other
miracles among the peoples, what butcheries, what miseries crushed the very people of
Israel. So too Eusebius, Severus and Jerome in their chronicles, and Orosius also,
interwove the wars of kings and the miracles of the martyrs. We have written in this way
also, because it is thus easier to perceive in their entirety the order of the centuries
and the system of the years down to our day. And so, leaving the histories of the writers
who have been mentioned above, we shall describe at God’s bidding what was done in the
later time.

1. After the death of the blessed Martin, bishop of Tours, a very great and incomparable
man, whose miracles fill great volumes in our possession, Bricius succeeded to the
bishopric. Now this Bricius, when he was a young man and the saint was yet living in the
body, used to lay many traps for him, because he was often accused by Saint Martin of
following the easy way. And one day when a sick man was looking for the blessed Martin in
order to get medicine from him he met Bricius, at this time a deacon, in the square, and
he said to him in a simple fashion: “Behold I am seeking the blessed man, and I don’t know
where he is or what he is doing. And Bricius said: “If you are seeking for that crazy
person look in the distance; there he is, staring at the sky in his usual fashion, as if
he were daft. And when the poor man had seen him and got what he wanted, the blessed
Martin said to the deacon: “Well, Bricius, I seem to you crazy, do I? And when the latter,
in confusion at this, denied he had said so, the saint replied: “Were not my ears at your
lips when you said this at a distance? Verily I say unto you that I have prevailed upon
God that you shall succeed to the bishop’s office after me, but let me tell you that you
will suffer many misfortunes in your tenure of the office.

Bricius on hearing this laughed and said: “Did I not speak the truth that he uttered crazy
words? Furthermore, when he had attained to the rank of priest, he often attacked the
blessed man with abuse. But when he had become bishop by the choice of the citizens, he
devoted himself to prayer. And although he was proud and vain he was nevertheless
considered chaste in his body. But in the thirty-third year after his ordination there
arose against him a lamentable ground for accusation. For a woman to whom his servants
used to give his garments to be washed, one who had changed her garb on the pretext of
religion, conceived and bore a child. Because of this the whole population of Tours arose
in wrath and laid the whole blame on the bishop, wishing with one accord to stone him. For
they said: “The piety of a holy man has too long been a cover for your wantonness. But God
does not any longer allow us to be polluted by kissing your unworthy hands. But he denied
the charge forcibly. “Bring the infant to me,” said he. And when the infant, which was
thirty days old, was brought, the bishop said to it: “I adjure you in the name of Jesus
Christ, son of omnipotent God, to declare publicly to all if I begot you. And the child
said: “It is not you who are my father. When the people asked him to inquire who was the
father, the bishop said: “That is not my affair.

I was troubled in so far as the matter concerned me; inquire for yourselves whatever you
want. Then they asserted that this had been done by magic arts, and arose against him in a
conspiracy, and dragged him along, saying: “You shall not rule us any longer under the
false name of a shepherd. And to satisfy the people he placed red-hot coals in his cloak
and drawing it close to him he walked as far as the tomb of the blessed Martin along with
throngs of the people. And when the coals were cast down before the tomb his robe was seen
to be unburned. And he said: “Just as you see this robe uninjured by the fire, so too my
body is undefiled by union with a woman. And when they did not believe but denied it, he
was dragged, abused, and cast out, in order that the words of the saint might be
fulfilled: “Let me tell you that you will suffer many misfortunes in your episcopate. When
he was cast out they appointed Justinian to the office of bishop. Finally Bricius went to
see the pope of the city of Rome, weeping and wailing and saying: “Rightly do I suffer
this because I sinned against a saint of God and often called him crazy and daft; and when
I saw his miracles I did not believe. And after his departure the people of Tours said to
their bishop:

“Go after him and attend to your own interest, for if you do not attack him, you shall be
humiliated by the contempt of us all. And Justinian went forth from Tours and came to
Vercelli, a city of Italy, and was smitten by a judgment of God and died in a strange
country. The people of Tours heard of his death, and persisting in their evil course, they
appointed Armentius in his place. But bishop Bricius went to Rome and related to the pope
all that he had endured. And while he remained at the apostolic see he often celebrated
the solemn ceremony of the mass, weeping for the wrong he had done to the saint of God. In
the seventh year he left Rome and by the authority of that pope purposed to return to
Tours. And when he came to the village called Mont-Louis at the sixth mile-stone from the
city, he resided there. Now Armentius was seized with a fever and died at midnight. This
was at once revealed to bishop Bricius in a vision, and he said to his people: “Rise
quickly, so that we may go to bury our brother, the bishop of Tours. And when they came
and entered one gate of the city, behold they were carrying his dead body out by another.
And when he was buried, Bricius returned to the bishop’s chair and lived happily seven
years after. And when he died in the forty-seventh year of his episcopate, Saint
Eustochius, a man of magnificent holiness, succeeded him.

2. After this the Vandals left their own country and burst into the Gauls under king
Gunderic. And when the Gauls had been thoroughly laid waste they made for the Spains. The
Suebi, that is, Alamanni, following them, seized Gallicia. Not long after, a quarrel arose
between the two peoples, since they were neighbors. And when they had gone armed to the
battle, and were already at the point of fighting, the king of the Alemanni said: “Why are
all the people involved in war? Let our people, I pray, not kill one another in battle,
but let two of our warriors go to the field in arms and fight with one another. Then he
whose champion wins shall hold the region without strife.” To this all the people agreed,
that the whole multitude might not rush on the edge of the sword. In these days king
Gunderic had died and in his place Thrasamund held the kingdom. And in the conflict of the
champions the side of the Vandals was overcome, and, his champion being slain, Thrasamund
promised to depart, and so, when he had made the necessary preparations for the journey,
he removed from the territories of Spain.

About the same time Thrasamund persecuted the Christians, and by torture and different
sorts of death tried to force all Spain to consent to the perfidy of the Arian sect. And
it so happened that a certain maiden bound by religious vows was brought to trial. She was
very rich and of the senatorial nobility according to the ranking of the world, and what
is nobler than all this, strong in the catholic faith and a blameless servant of Almighty
God. And when she was brought before the eyes of the king he first began to coax her with
kind words to be baptized again. And when she repelled his venomous shaft by the armor of
the faith, the king commanded that wealth be taken from her who already in her heart
possessed the kingdom of paradise, and later that she should be tortured without hope of
this life. Why make a long story? After long examinations, after losing the treasure of
earthly riches, when she could not be forced to attack the blessed Trinity she was led
against her will to be re-baptized. And when she was being forcibly immersed in that
filthy bath and was crying loudly; “I believe that the Father and the holy Spirit are of
one substance with the Son,” when she said this she stained the water with a worthy
ointment, that is, she defiled it with excrement. Then she was taken to the examination
according to the law, and after the needle, flame and claw, she was beheaded for Christ
the lord. After this the Vandals crossed the sea, the Alemanni following as far as
Tangier, and were dispersed throughout all Africa and Mauretania.

[3. Persecutions of Catholics by Arians under the Vandal king Honeric of Africa. 4. The
same, under the Gothic king Athanaric of Spain. 5. Journey of Bishop Aravatius of Tongres
to Rome that he might avert by prayer the threatened invasion of the Huns. But there he
learns that “it was sanctioned in the council of the Lord that the Huns must come into the
Gauls and ravage them.” He returns to Tongres and dies.] 6. Now the Huns left Pannonia
and, as certain say, on the very watch-night of holy Easter arrived at the city of Metz,
after devastating the country, and gave the city over to burning, slaying the people with
the edge of the sword and killing the very priests of the Lord before the holy altars. And
there remained in the city no place unburned except the oratory of the blessed Stephen,
the deacon and first martyr. And I do not hesitate to tell what I have heard from certain
persons about this oratory. For they say that before these enemies came, a man of the
faith saw in a vision the blessed levite Stephen as if conferring with the holy apostles
Peter and Paul, and speaking as follows about this disaster: “I beg you, my lords, to
prevent by your intercession the burning of the city of Metz by the enemy, because there
is a place in it in which the relics of my life on earth are preserved; rather let the
people learn that I have some influence with God. But if the wickedness of the people has
grown too great, so that nothing else can be done except deliver the city to burning, at
least let this oratory not be consumed.” And they replied to him: “Go in peace, beloved
brother, your oratory alone the fire shall not burn. But as for the city, we shall not
prevail, because the sentence of the will of the Lord has already gone out over it. For
the sin of the people has grown great, and the outcry of their wickedness ascends to the
presence of God; therefore this city shall be burned with fire.” Whence it is certain that
it was by the intercession of these that when the city was burned the oratory remained
unharmed.

7. And Attila king of the Huns went forth from Metz and when he had crushed many cities of
the Gauls he attacked Orleans and strove to take it by the mighty hammering of battering
rams. Now at that time the most blessed Annianus was bishop in the city just mentioned, a
man of unequaled wisdom and praiseworthy holiness, whose miracles are faithfully
remembered among us. And when the people, on being shut in, cried to their bishop, and
asked what they were to do, trusting in God he advised all to prostrate themselves in
prayer, and with tears to implore the ever present aid of God in their necessities. Then
when they prayed as he had directed, the bishop said: “Look from the wall of the city to
see whether God’s mercy yet comes to your aid. For he hoped that by God’s mercy Ætius was
coming, to whom he had recourse before at Arles when he was anxious about the future. But
when they looked from the wall, they saw no one. And he said: “Pray faithfully, for God
will free you this day. When they had prayed he said: “Look again. And when they looked
they saw no one to bring aid. He said to them a third time: “If you pray faithfully, God
comes swiftly. And they besought God’s mercy with weeping and loud cries.

When this prayer also was finished they looked from the wall a third time at the old man’s
command, and saw afar off a cloud as it were arising from the earth. When they reported
this the bishop said: “It is the aid of the Lord. Meanwhile, when the walls were now
trembling from the hammering of the rams and were just about to fall, behold, Ætius came,
and Theodore, king of the Goths and Thorismodus his son hastened to the city with their
armies, and drove the enemy forth and defeated him. And so the city was freed by the
intercession of the blessed bishop, and they put Attila to flight. And he went to the
plain of Moirey and got ready for battle. And hearing this, they made manful preparations
to meet him…. Ætius with the Goths and Franks fought against Attila. And the latter saw
that his army was being destroyed, and escaped by flight. And Theodore, king of the Goths,
was slain in the battle. Now let no one doubt that the army of Huns was put to flight by
the intercession of the bishop mentioned above. And so Ætius the patrician, along with
Thorismodus, won the victory and destroyed the enemy. And when the battle was finished,
Ætius said to Thorismodus: “Make haste and return swiftly to your native land, for fear
you lose your father’s kingdom because of your brother.” The latter, on hearing this,
departed speedily with the intention of anticipating his brother, and seizing his father’s
throne first. At the same time Ætius by a stratagem caused the king of the Franks to flee.
When they had gone, Ætius took the spoils of the battle and returned victoriously to his
country with much booty. And Attila retreated with a few men. Not long after Aquileia was
captured by the Huns and burned and altogether destroyed. Italy was overrun and plundered.
Thorismodus, whom we have mentioned above, overcame the Alans in battle, and was himself
defeated later on by his brothers, after many quarrels and battles, and put to death.

[8. The history of Renatus Frigeridus is quoted for the character of Ætius and an account
of his death.] 9. The question who was the first of the kings of the Franks is disregarded
by many writers. Though the history of Sulpicius Alexander tells much of them, still it
does not name their first king, but says that they had dukes. However, it is well to
relate what he says of them. For when he tells that Maximus, losing all hope of empire,
remained within Aquileia, almost beside himself, he adds: “At that time the Franks burst
into the province of Germany under Genobaud, Marcomer, and Sunno, their dukes, and having
broken through the boundary wall they slew most of the people and laid waste the fertile
districts especially, and aroused fear even in Cologne. And when word was carried to
Trèves, Nanninus and Quintinus, the military officers to whom Maximus had intrusted his
infant son and the defense of the Gauls, assembled an army and met at Cologne. Now the
enemy, laden with plunder after devastating the richest parts of the provinces, had
crossed the Rhine, leaving a good many of their men on Roman soil all ready to renew their
ravages. An attack upon these turned to the advantage of the Romans, and many Franks
perished by the sword near Carbonnière. And when the Romans were consulting after their
success whether they ought to cross into Francia, Nanninus said no, because he knew the
Franks would not be unprepared and would doubtless be stronger in their own land.

And since this displeased Quintinus and the remainder of the officers, Nanninus returned
to Mayence, and Quintinus crossed the Rhine with his army near the stronghold of Neuss,
and at his second camp from the river he found dwellings abandoned by their occupants and
great villages deserted. For the Franks pretended to be afraid and retired into the more
remote tracts, where they built an abattis on the edge of the woods. And so the cowardly
soldiers burned all the dwellings, thinking that to rage against them was the winning of
victory, and they passed a wakeful night under the burden of their arms. At the first
glimmer of dawn they entered the wooded country under Quintinus as commander of the
battle, and wandered in safety till nearly mid-day, entangling themselves in the winding
paths. At last, when they found everything solidly shut up by great fences, they struggled
to make their exit into the marshy fields which were adjacent to the woods, and the enemy
appeared here and there, and sheltered by trunks of trees or standing on the abattis as if
on the summit of towers, they sent as if from engines a shower of arrows poisoned by the
juices of herbs, so that sure death followed even superficial wounds inflicted in places
that were not mortal. Later the army was surrounded by the enemy in greater number, and it
eagerly rushed into the open places which the Franks had left unoccupied.

And the horsemen were the first to plunge into the morasses, and the bodies of men and
animals fell indiscriminately together, and they were overwhelmed by their own confusion.
The foot soldiers also who had escaped the hoofs of the horses were impeded by the mud,
and extricated themselves with difficulty, and hid again in panic in the woods from which
they had struggled a little before. And so the ranks were thrown into disorder and the
legions cut in pieces. Heraclius, tribune of the Jovinians, and nearly all the officers
were slain, when night and the lurking places of the woods offered a safe escape to a few.
This he narrated in the third book of his History. And in the fourth book, when he tells
of the killing of Victor, son of Maximus, the tyrant, he says: “At that time Carietto and
Sirus who had been appointed in place of Nanninus, were absent in the province of Germany
with the army opposed to the Franks. And a little later when the Franks had taken booty
from Germany, he added: “Arbogastes, wishing no further delay, warned Cæsar that the
punishment due must be exacted from the Franks, unless they speedily restored all the
plunder they had taken the previous year when the legions were destroyed, and delivered up
the instigators of the war to be punished for their treachery in breaking the peace. He
related that this had been done under the leadership of dukes and says further: “A few
days later he held a hasty conference with Marcomer and Sunno, princes of the Franks and
required hostages of them as usual, and then retired to Trèves to spend the winter. But
when he calls them princes, we do not know whether they were kings or held in the place of
kings. Still the same writer, when he told of the hard straits of the emperor Valentinian,
added this: “While events of various sorts were taking place in the East throughout
Thrace, the public order was disturbed in Gaul.

Valentinian the emperor was shut up in Vienne in the palace, and reduced almost below the
position of a private person, and the military command was given over to the Frankish
allies, and even the civil offices fell under the control of Arbogast’s faction, and no
one of all the oath-bound soldiery was found to dare to heed the familiar speech or obey
the command of the emperor. Then he says: “In the same year Arbogast pursued with
heathenish hate the princes of the Franks, Sunno and Marcomer, and hastened to Cologne in
the depth of winter, since he knew that all the retreats of Francia could be safely
penetrated and ravaged with fire when the woods, left bare and dry by the fall of the
leaves, could not conceal men lying in ambush. And so he gathered an army and crossed the
Rhine, and devastated the country of the Brictori, near the bank, and also the district
which the Chamavi inhabit, and no one met him anywhere, except that a few of the
Ampsivarii and Chatti appeared with Marcomer as duke on the ridges of distant hills. At
another time this writer, no longer mentioning dukes and princes, openly asserts that the
Franks had a king, and without mentioning his name he says: “Then the tyrant Eugenius
undertook a military expedition, and hastened to the Rhine to renew in the customary way
the old alliances with the kings of the Alemanni and the Franks and to threaten the
barbarian nations at that time with a great army.

So much the historian mentioned above wrote about the Franks. Renatus Profuturus
Frigeridus, whom we have already mentioned, in his story of the capture and destruction of
Rome by the Goths, says: “Meantime when Goare had gone over to the Romans, Respendial,
king of the Alamanni, turned the army of his people from the Rhine, since the Vandals were
getting the worse of the war with the Franks, having lost their king Godegisil, and about
20,000 of the army, and all the Vandals would have been exterminated if the army of the
Alamanni had not come to their aid in time.” It is surprising to us that when he names the
kings of the other nations he does not name the king of the Franks as well. However, when
he says that Constantine, after seizing imperial power, commanded his son Constantius to
come to him from the Spains, he speaks as follows: “The tyrant Constantine summoned from
the Spains his son Constans, also a tyrant, in order to consult with him about their
general policy; and so Constans left at Saragossa his court and his wife, and gave
Gerontius charge over all in the Spains, and hastened to his father without breaking his
journey. And when they met, many days passed and there was no danger from Italy, and
Constantine gave himself up to gluttony and urged his son to return to Spain. And while
Constans was sending his troops forward, being still with his father, news came from Spain
that Maximus, one of his clients, had been given imperial authority by Gerontius, and was
securing a following of the barbarians. Alarmed at this, they sent Edobeccus forward to
the German tribes, and Constans and Decimus Rusticus, now a prefect,—he had been master of
the offices,—hastened to the Gauls, with the intention of presently returning to
Constantine with the Franks and Alamanni and all the soldiers.”

Again, when he writes that Constantine was being besieged, he uses these words: “The
fourth month of the siege of Constantine was scarcely yet under way, when news came
suddenly from farther Gaul that Iovinus had assumed royal state, and was threatening the
besiegers with the Burgundians, Alamanni, Franks, Alans, and all his army. So the attack
on the walls was hastened, the city opened its gates, and Constantine surrendered. He was
sent hastily into Italy, and was slain at the river Mincio by assassins sent to meet him
by the emperor.” And a little later the same writer says: “At the same time Decimus
Rusticus, prefect of the tyrants, Agrœtius, one of the chief secretaries of Jovinus, and
many nobles, were captured in Auvergne by the commanders of Honorius and cruelly put to
death. The city of Trèves was plundered and burnt in a second inroad of the Franks.” And
when Asterius had been made a patrician by an imperial letter, he adds this: “At the same
time Castinus, count of the body-guard, undertook an expedition against the Franks and was
sent into the Gauls.” This is what these have told of the Franks. And the historian
Horosius says in the seventh book of his work: “Stilico gathered the nations, crushed the
Franks, crossed the Rhine, wandered through the Gauls, and made his way as far as the
Pyrenees.”

This is the evidence that the historians who have been named have left us about the
Franks, and they have not mentioned kings. Many relate that they came from Pannonia and
all dwelt at first on the bank of the Rhine, and then crossing the Rhine they passed into
Thuringia, and there among the villages and cities appointed long-haired kings over them
from their first or, so to speak, noblest family. This title Clovis’ victories afterwards
made a lasting one, as we shall see later on. We read in the Fasti Consulares that
Theodomer, king of the Franks, son of Richimer, and Ascyla his mother, were once on a time
slain by the sword. They say also that Chlogio, a man of ability and high rank among his
people, was king of the Franks then, and he dwelt at the stronghold of Dispargum which is
within the borders of the Thuringians. And in these parts, that is, towards the south, the
Romans dwelt as far as the Loire. But beyond the Loire the Goths were in control; the
Burgundians also, who belonged to the sect of the Arians, dwelt across the Rhone in the
district which is adjacent to the city of Lyons. And Chlogio sent spies to the city of
Cambrai, and they went everywhere, and he himself followed and overcame the Romans and
seized the city, in which he dwelt for a short time, and he seized the land as far as the
river Somme. Certain authorities assert that king Merovech, whose son was Childeric, was
of the family of Chlogio.

10. Now this people seems to have always been addicted to heathen worship, and they did
not know God, but made themselves images of the woods and the waters, of birds and beasts,
and of the other elements as well. They were wont to worship these as God and to offer
sacrifice to them. O! would that that terrible voice had touched the fibers of their
hearts which spoke through Moses to the people saying, “Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image nor worship any likeness of
anything that is in heaven or on earth or in the water; thou shalt not make them and shalt
not worship them.”… And in Isaiah he speaks a second time: “I am the first, and I am the
last, and besides me there is no god and creator whom I do not know. They that fashion a
graven image are all of them vanity, and the things that they delight in shall not profit
them. They are themselves witnesses of what they are, that they do not see nor have
understanding, and they are confounded in them. Behold all his fellows shall be put to
shame, for the workmen are of men. On the coals and with hammers did he form it, and he
worked it with his strong arm. In like manner, too, the carpenter fashioned it with
compasses, and made the likeness of a man as if of a comely man dwelling in a house. He
hewed down the wood, he worked and made a graven image, and worshiped it as a god, he
fastened it with nails and hammers so that it should not fall to pieces. They are carried
because they cannot walk; and the remainder of the wood is prepared by men for the hearth
and they are warmed. And from another he made a god, and a graven image for himself. He
bends before it and worships it and prays, saying: ‘Deliver me, for thou art my god. I
burned half of it with fire; and baked bread upon its coals; I baked flesh and ate, and
from the residue I shall make an idol, I shall worship before a wooden trunk; part of it
is ashes.’ The foolish heart worshiped it, and did not deliver his soul. And he does not
say: ‘Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand?’” The nation of the Franks did not
understand at first; but it understood later, as the following history relates.

[11. Avitus, citizen of Clermont, emperor of Rome, and bishop of Placentia.] 12. Childeric
was excessively wanton and being king of the Franks he began to dishonor their daughters.
And they were angry with him on this account and took his kingdom from him. And when he
learned that they wished also to kill him he hastened to Thuringia, leaving there a man
who was dear to him to calm their furious tempers; he arranged also for a sign when he
should be able to return to his country, that is, they divided a gold piece between them
and Childeric took one half and his friend kept the other part, saying: “Whenever I send
you this part and the joined parts make one coin, then you shall return securely to your
native place. Accordingly Childeric went off to Thuringia and remained in hiding with king
Basinus and Basina his wife. The Franks, after he was driven out, with one accord selected
as king Egidius, whom we have mentioned before as the commander of the troops sent by the
republic. And when he was in the eighth year of his reign over them that faithful friend
secretly won the good will of the Franks and sent messengers to Childeric with the part of
the divided coin which he had kept, and Childeric learned by this sure sign that he was
wanted by the Franks, and returned from Thuringia at their request and was restored to his
kingdom. Now when these princes were reigning at the same time, the Basina whom we have
mentioned above left her husband and came to Childeric.

And when he asked anxiously for what reason she had come so far to see him it is said that
she answered: “I know your worth,” said she, “and that you are very strong, and therefore
I have come to live with you. For let me tell you that if I had known of any one more
worthy than you in parts beyond the sea I should certainly have sought to live with him.
And he was glad and united her to him in marriage. And she conceived and bore a son and
called his name Clovis. He was a great and distinguished warrior. [13. Artemius, bishop of
Clermont, is succeeded by Venerandus, and he by Rusticus.] 14. In the city of Tours after
the death of bishop Eustochius in the 17th year of his episcopate, Perpetuus was ordained
fifth bishop after the blessed Martin. And when he saw that miracles were being worked
continually at Saint Martin’s tomb, and that the chapel which had been built over it was a
tiny one, he judged it unworthy of such miracles, and moving it away he built there a
great church which remains to the present day, situated 550 paces from the city. It is 160
feet long and 60 wide and 45 high to the vault; it has 32 windows in the part around the
altar, 20 in the nave; 41 columns; in the whole building 52 windows; 120 columns; 8 doors,
three in the part around the altar and five in the nave. The feast of the church is given
sanctity by a triple virtue; that is, the dedication of the temple, the transfer of the
body of the saint, and his ordination as bishop. This feast you shall observe four days
before the Nones of July, and remember that his burial is the third day before the Ides of
November. And if you celebrate these faithfully, you will merit the protection of the
blessed bishop both in the present life and that to come. And since the ceiling of the
former chapel was of choice workmanship the bishop thought it unworthy that this work
should perish, and he built another church in honor of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul
in which he placed the ceiling. He built many other churches which remain to the present
time in Christ’s name.

[15. Eufronius, bishop of Autun, who “piously sent the block of marble which is placed
above the holy tomb of the blessed Martin.”] 16. Now after the death of the bishop
Rusticus, saint Namatius became the eighth bishop of Clermont. He undertook the task of
building the older church which is still standing and is contained within the walls of the
city, one hundred and fifty feet in length, sixty in width,—that is, the nave,—fifty in
height to the vault, with a round apse in front and on each side aisles finely built; the
whole building is laid out in the form of a cross; it has forty-two windows, seventy
columns, eight doors. The fear of God is in it and a great brightness is seen, and in the
spring a very pleasant fragrance as if of spices is perceived there by the devout. It has
near the altar walls of variegated work adorned with many kinds of marble. The blessed
bishop on finishing the building in the twelfth year, sent priests to Bologna in Italy, to
procure relics of saints Agricola and Vitalis, who we know very certainly were crucified
in the name of Christ our God.

17. His wife built the church of Saint Stephen in the outskirts of the city. And wishing
to adorn it with colors she used to carry a book in her bosom, reading the histories of
ancient times and describing to the painters what they were to represent on the walls. It
happened one day that while she sat in the church and read, a certain poor man came to
pray, and seeing her in black clothing, already an old woman, he thought she was one of
the needy, and he took out part of a loaf and put it in her lap and went off. But she did
not disdain the gift of the poor man who did not know her, but took it and thanked him and
put it away, and setting it before her at meals used it as holy bread until it was used
up. 18. Now Childeric fought at Orleans and Odoacer came with the Saxons to Angers. At
that time a great plague destroyed the people. Egidius died and left a son, Syagrius by
name. On his death Odoacer received hostages from Angers and other places. The Britanni
were driven from Bourges by the Goths, and many were slain at the village of Déols. Count
Paul with the Romans and Franks made war on the Goths and took booty. When Odoacer came to
Angers, king Childeric came on the following day, and slew count Paul, and took the city.
In a great fire on that day the house of the bishop was burned.

19. After this war was waged between the Saxons and the Romans; but the Saxons fled and
left many of their people to be slain, the Romans pursuing. Their islands were captured
and ravaged by the Franks, and many were slain. In the ninth month of that year, there was
an earthquake. Odoacer made an alliance with Childeric, and they subdued the Alamanni, who
had overrun part of Italy. 20. Euric, king of the Goths, in the 14th year of his reign,
placed duke Victorius in command of seven cities. And he went at once to Clermont, and
desired to add it to the others, and writings concerning this exist to the present. He
gave orders to set up at the church of Saint Julian the columns which are placed there. He
gave orders to build the church of Saint Laurentius and saint Germanus at the village of
Licaniacus. He was at Clermont nine years. He brought charges against Euchirius, a
senator, whom he ordered to be put in prison and taken out at night, and after having him
bound beside an old wall he ordered the wall to be pushed over upon him. As for himself,
since he was over-wanton in his love for women, and was afraid of being killed by the
people of Auvergne, he fled to Rome, and there was stoned to death because he wished to
practise a similar wantonness. Euric reigned four years after Victorius’s death, and died
in the twenty-seventh year of his reign. There was also at that time a great earthquake.

[21. Bishop Eparchius of Clermont finds his church at night full of demons.] 22. The holy
Sidonius was so eloquent that he generally improvised what he wished to say without any
hesitation and in the clearest manner. And it happened one day that he went by invitation
to a fête at the church of the monastery which we have mentioned before, and when his
book, by which he had been wont to celebrate the holy services, was maliciously taken
away, he went through the whole service of the fête improvising with such readiness that
he was admired by all, and it was believed by the bystanders that it was not a man who had
spoken there but an angel. And this we have set forth more fully in the preface of the
book which we have composed about the masses written by him. Being a man of wonderful
holiness and, as we have said, one of the first of the senators, he often carried silver
dishes away from home, unknown to his wife, and gave them to poor people. And whenever she
learned of it, she was scandalized at him, and then he used to give the value to the poor
and restore the dishes to the house.

[23. Terrible fate of priests who rebelled against their bishop. 24. In time of famine in
Burgundy Ecdicius feeds more than four thousand persons. 25. The Gothic king Evatrix
persecutes the Christians in southwestern Gaul. 26. A bishop being “suspected by the
Goths” is carried a captive into Spain.] 27. After these events Childeric died and Clovis
his son reigned in his stead. In the fifth year of his reign Siagrius, king of the Romans,
son of Egidius, had his seat in the city of Soissons which Egidius, who has been mentioned
before, once held. And Clovis came against him with Ragnachar, his kinsman, because he
used to possess the kingdom, and demanded that they make ready a battle-field. And
Siagrius did not delay nor was he afraid to resist. And so they fought against each other
and Siagrius, seeing his army crushed, turned his back and fled swiftly to king Alaric at
Toulouse. And Clovis sent to Alaric to send him back, otherwise he was to know that Clovis
would make war on him for his refusal. And Alaric was afraid that he would incur the anger
of the Franks on account of Siagrius, seeing it is the fashion of the Goths to be
terrified, and he surrendered him in chains to Clovis’ envoys. And Clovis took him and
gave orders to put him under guard, and when he had got his kingdom he directed that he be
executed secretly. At that time many churches were despoiled by Clovis’ army, since he was
as yet involved in heathen error. Now the army had taken from a certain church a vase of
wonderful size and beauty, along with the remainder of the utensils for the service of the
church.

And the bishop of the church sent messengers to the king asking that the vase at least be
returned, if he could not get back any more of the sacred dishes. On hearing this the king
said to the messenger: “Follow us as far as Soissons, because all that has been taken is
to be divided there and when the lot assigns me that dish I will do what the father asks.
Then when he came to Soissons and all the booty was set in their midst, the king said: “I
ask of you, brave warriors, not to refuse to grant me in addition to my share, yonder
dish,” that is, he was speaking of the vase just mentioned. In answer to the speech of the
king those of more sense replied: “Glorious king, all that we see is yours, and we
ourselves are subject to your rule. Now do what seems well-pleasing to you; for no one is
able to resist your power. When they said this a foolish, envious and excitable fellow
lifted his battle-ax and struck the vase, and cried in a loud voice: “You shall get
nothing here except what the lot fairly bestows on you. At this all were stupefied, but
the king endured the insult with the gentleness of patience, and taking the vase he handed
it over to the messenger of the church, nursing the wound deep in his heart.

And at the end of the year he ordered the whole army to come with their equipment of
armor, to show the brightness of their arms on the field of March. And when he was
reviewing them all carefully, he came to the man who struck the vase, and said to him: “No
one has brought armor so carelessly kept as you; for neither your spear nor sword nor ax
is in serviceable condition. And seizing his ax he cast it to the earth, and when the
other had bent over somewhat to pick it up, the king raised his hands and drove his own ax
into the man’s head. “This,” said he, “is what you did at Soissons to the vase. Upon the
death of this man, he ordered the rest to depart, raising great dread of himself by this
action. He made many wars and gained many victories. In the tenth year of his reign he
made war on the Thuringi and brought them under his dominion.

28. Now the king of the Burgundians was Gundevech, of the family of king Athanaric the
persecutor, whom we have mentioned before. He had four sons; Gundobad, Godegisel,
Chilperic and Godomar. Gundobad killed his brother Chilperic with the sword, and sank his
wife in water with a stone tied to her neck. His two daughters he condemned to exile; the
older of these, who became a nun, was called Chrona, and the younger Clotilda. And as
Clovis often sent embassies to Burgundy, the maiden Clotilda was found by his envoys. And
when they saw that she was of good bearing and wise, and learned that she was of the
family of the king, they reported this to King Clovis, and he sent an embassy to Gundobad
without delay asking her in marriage. And Gundobad was afraid to refuse, and surrendered
her to the men, and they took the girl and brought her swiftly to the king. The king was
very glad when he saw her, and married her, having already by a concubine a son named
Theodoric.

29. He had a first-born son by queen Clotilda, and as his wife wished to consecrate him in
baptism, she tried unceasingly to persuade her husband, saying: “The gods you worship are
nothing, and they will be unable to help themselves or any one else. For they are graven
out of stone or wood or some metal. And the names you have given them are names of men and
not of gods, as Saturn, who is declared to have fled in fear of being banished from his
kingdom by his son; as Jove himself, the foul perpetrator of all shameful crimes,
committing incest with men, mocking at his kinswomen, not able to refrain from intercourse
with his own sister as she herself says: Jovisque et soror et conjunx. What could Mars or
Mercury do? They are endowed rather with the magic arts than with the power of the divine
name. But he ought rather to be worshipped who created by his word heaven and earth, the
sea and all that in them is out of a state of nothingness, who made the sun shine, and
adorned the heavens with stars, who filled the waters with creeping things, the earth with
living things and the air with creatures that fly, at whose nod the earth is decked with
growing crops, the trees with fruit, the vines with grapes, by whose hand mankind was
created, by whose generosity all that creation serves and helps man whom he created as his
own.

But though the queen said this the spirit of the king was by no means moved to belief, and
he said: “It was at the command of our gods that all things were created and came forth,
and it is plain that your God has no power and, what is more, he is proven not to belong
to the family of the gods. Meantime the faithful queen made her son ready for baptism; she
gave command to adorn the church with hangings and curtains, in order that he who could
not be moved by persuasion might be urged to belief by this mystery. The boy, whom they
named Ingomer, died after being baptized, still wearing the white garments in which he
became regenerate. At this the king was violently angry, and reproached the queen harshly,
saying: “If the boy had been dedicated in the name of my gods he would certainly have
lived; but as it is, since he was baptized in the name of your God, he could not live at
all. To this the queen said: “I give thanks to the omnipotent God, creator of all, who has
judged me not wholly unworthy, that he should deign to take to his kingdom one born from
my womb. My soul is not stricken with grief for his sake, because I know that, summoned
from this world as he was in his baptismal garments, he will be fed by the vision of God.”

After this she bore another son, whom she named Chlodomer at baptism; and when he fell
sick, the king said: “It is impossible that anything else should happen to him than
happened to his brother, namely, that being baptized in the name of your Christ, he should
die at once.” But through the prayers of his mother, and the Lord’s command, he became
well. 30. The queen did not cease to urge him to recognize the true God and cease
worshiping idols. But he could not be influenced in any way to this belief, until at last
a war arose with the Alamanni, in which he was driven by necessity to confess what before
he had of his free will denied. It came about that as the two armies were fighting
fiercely, there was much slaughter, and Clovis’s army began to be in danger of
destruction. He saw it and raised his eyes to heaven, and with remorse in his heart he
burst into tears and cried: “Jesus Christ, whom Clotilda asserts to be the son of the
living God, who art said to give aid to those in distress, and to bestow victory on those
who hope in thee, I beseech the glory of thy aid, with the vow that if thou wilt grant me
victory over these enemies, and I shall know that power which she says that people
dedicated in thy name have had from thee, I will believe in thee and be baptized in thy
name. For I have invoked my own gods, but, as I find, they have withdrawn from aiding me;
and therefore I believe that they possess no power, since they do not help those who obey
them. I now call upon thee, I desire to believe thee, only let me be rescued from my
adversaries.” And when he said this, the Alamanni turned their backs, and began to
disperse in flight. And when they saw that their king was killed, they submitted to the
dominion of Clovis, saying: “Let not the people perish further, we pray; we are yours
now.” And he stopped the fighting, and after encouraging his men, retired in peace and
told the queen how he had had merit to win the victory by calling on the name of Christ.
This happened in the fifteenth year of his reign.

31. Then the queen asked saint Remi, bishop of Rheims, to summon Clovis secretly, urging
him to introduce the king to the word of salvation. And the bishop sent for him secretly
and began to urge him to believe in the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and to cease
worshiping idols, which could help neither themselves nor any one else. But the king said:
“I gladly hear you, most holy father; but there remains one thing: the people who follow
me cannot endure to abandon their gods; but I shall go and speak to them according to your
words. He met with his followers, but before he could speak the power of God anticipated
him, and all the people cried out together: “O pious king, we reject our mortal gods, and
we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi preaches. This was reported to the
bishop, who was greatly rejoiced, and bade them get ready the baptismal font. The squares
were shaded with tapestried canopies, the churches adorned with white curtains, the
baptistery set in order, the aroma of incense spread, candles of fragrant odor burned
brightly, and the whole shrine of the baptistery was filled with a divine fragrance: and
the Lord gave such grace to those who stood by that they thought they were placed amid the
odors of paradise. And the king was the first to ask to be baptized by the bishop.

Another Constantine advanced to the baptismal font, to terminate the disease of ancient
leprosy and wash away with fresh water the foul spots that had long been borne. And when
he entered to be baptized, the saint of God began with ready speech: “Gently bend your
neck, Sigamber; worship what you burned; burn what you worshipped. The holy bishop Remi
was a man of excellent wisdom and especially trained in rhetorical studies, and of such
surpassing holiness that he equalled the miracles of Silvester. For there is extant a book
of his life which tells that he raised a dead man. And so the king confessed all-powerful
God in the Trinity, and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son and holy Spirit, and
was anointed with the holy ointment with the sign of the cross of Christ. And of his army
more than 3000 were baptized. His sister also, Albofled, was baptized, who not long after
passed to the Lord. And when the king was in mourning for her, the holy Remi sent a letter
of consolation which began in this way: “The reason of your mourning pains me, and pains
me greatly, that Albofled your sister, of good memory, has passed away. But I can give you
this comfort, that her departure from the world was such that she ought to be envied
rather than mourned.

Another sister also was converted, Lanthechild by name, who had fallen into the heresy of
the Arians, and she confessed that the Son and the holy Spirit were equal to the Father,
and was anointed. 32. At that time the brothers Gundobad and Godegisel were kings of the
country about the Rhone and the Saône together with the province of Marseilles. And they,
as well as their people, belonged to the Arian sect. And since they were fighting with
each other, Godegisel, hearing of the victories of King Clovis, sent an embassy to him
secretly, saying: “If you will give me aid in attacking my brother, so that I may be able
to kill him in battle or drive him from the country, I will pay you every year whatever
tribute you yourself wish to impose. Clovis accepted this offer gladly, and promised aid
whenever need should ask. And at a time agreed upon he marched his army against Gundobad.
On hearing of this, Gundobad, who did not know of his brother’s treachery, sent to him,
saying: “Come to my assistance, since the Franks are in motion against us and are coming
to our country to take it. Therefore let us be united against a nation hostile to us, lest
because of division we suffer in turn what other peoples have suffered. And the other
said: “I will come with my army, and will give you aid. And these three, namely, Clovis
against Gundobad and Godegisel, were marching their armies to the same point, and they
came with all their warlike equipment to the stronghold named Dijon. And they fought on
the river Ouche, and Godegisel joined Clovis, and both armies crushed the people of
Gundobad.

And he perceived the treachery of his brother, whom he had not suspected, and turned his
back and began to flee, hastening along the banks of the Rhone, and he came to the city of
Avignon. And Godegisel having won the victory, promised to Clovis a part of his kingdom,
and departed quietly and entered Vienne in triumph, as if he now held the whole kingdom.
King Clovis increased his army further, and set off after Gundobad to drag him from his
city and slay him. He heard it, and was terrified, and feared that sudden death would come
to him. However he had with him Aridius, a man famed for energy and wisdom, and he sent
for him and said: “Difficulties wall me in on every side, and I do not know what to do,
because these barbarians have come upon us to slay us and destroy the whole country. To
this Aridius answered: “You must soften the fierceness of this man in order not to perish.
Now if it is pleasing in your eyes, I will pretend to flee from you and to pass over to
his side, and when I come to him, I shall prevent his harming either you or this country.
Only be willing to do what he demands of you by my advice, until the Lord in his goodness
deigns to make your cause successful. And Gundobad said: “I will do whatever you direct.
When he said this, Aridius bade him good-by and departed, and going to King Clovis he
said:

“Behold I am your humble servant, most pious king, I come to your protection, leaving the
wretched Gundobad. And if your goodness condescends to receive me, both you and your
children shall have in me a true and faithful servant. Clovis received him very readily,
and kept him by him, for he was entertaining in story-telling, ready in counsel, just in
judgment, and faithful in what was put in his charge. Then when Clovis with all his army
sat around the walls of the city, Aridius said: “O King, if the glory of your loftiness
should kindly consent to hear the few words of my lowliness, though you do not need
counsel, yet I would utter them with entire faithfulness, and they will be advantageous to
you and to the cities through which you purpose to go. Why,” said he, “do you keep your
army here, when your enemy sits in a very strong place? If you ravage the fields, lay
waste the meadows, cut down the vineyards, lay low the olive-yards, and destroy all the
produce of the country, you do not, however, succeed in doing him any harm. Send an
embassy rather and impose tribute to be paid you every year, so that the country may be
safe and you may rule forever over a tributary. And if he refuses, then do whatever
pleases you. The king took this advice, and commanded his army to return home. Then he
sent an embassy to Gundobad, and ordered him to pay him every year a tribute.

And he paid it at once and promised that he would pay it for the future. 33. Later he
regained his power, and now contemptuously refused to pay the promised tribute to king
Clovis, and set his army in motion against his brother Godegisel, and shut him up in the
city of Vienne and besieged him. And when food began to be lacking for the common people,
Godegisel was afraid that the famine would extend to himself, and gave orders that the
common people be expelled from the city. When this was done, there was driven out, among
the rest, the artisan who had charge of the aqueduct. And he was indignant that he had
been cast out from the city with the rest, and went to Gundobad in a rage to inform him
how to burst into the city and take vengeance on his brother. Under his guidance an army
was led through the aqueduct, and many with iron crowbars went in front, for there was a
vent in the aqueduct closed with a great stone, and when this had been pushed away with
crowbars, by direction of the artisan, they entered the city, and surprised from the rear
the defenders who were shooting arrows from the wall. The trumpet was sounded in the midst
of the city, and the besiegers seized the gates, and opened them and entered at the same
time, and when the people between these two battle lines were being slain by each army,
Godegisel sought refuge in the church of the heretics, and was slain there along with the
Arian bishop. Finally the Franks who were with Godegisel gathered in a tower. But Gundobad
ordered that no harm should be done to a single one of them, but seized them and sent them
in exile to king Alaric at Toulouse, and he slew the Burgundian senators who had conspired
with Godegisel. He restored to his own dominion all the region which is now called
Burgundy. He established milder laws for the Burgundians lest they should oppress the
Romans.

[34. King Gundobad is converted to the doctrine of the Trinity but will not confess it in
public. The writings of bishop Avitus are described.] 35. Now when Alaric, king of the
Goths, saw Clovis conquering nations steadily, he sent envoys to him saying: “If my
brother consents, it is the desire of my heart that with God’s favor we have a meeting.”
Clovis did not spurn this proposal but went to meet him. They met in an island of the
Loire which is near the village of Amboise in the territory of Tours, and they talked and
ate and drank together, and plighted friendship and departed in peace. Even at that time
many in the Gauls desired greatly to have the Franks as masters. 36. Whence it happened
that Quintian, bishop of Rodez, was driven from his city through ill-will on this account.
For they said: “It is your desire that the rule of the Franks be extended over this land.”
A few days later a quarrel arose between him and the citizens, and the Goths who dwelt in
the city became suspicious when the citizens charged that he wished to submit himself to
the control of the Franks; they took counsel and decided to slay him with the sword. When
this was reported to the man of God he rose in the night and left the city of Rodez with
his most faithful servants and went to Clermont. There he was received kindly by the holy
bishop Eufrasius, who had succeeded Aprunculus of Dijon, and he kept Quintian with him,
giving him houses as well as fields and vineyards, and saying: “The wealth of this church
is enough to keep us both; only let the charity which the blessed apostle preaches endure
among the bishops of God.” Moreover the bishop of Lyons bestowed upon him some of the
possessions of the church which he had in Auvergne. And the rest about the holy Quintian,
both the plottings which he endured and the miracles which the Lord deigned to work
through him, are written in the book of his life.

37. Now Clovis the king said to his people: “I take it very hard that these Arians hold
part of the Gauls. Let us go with God’s help and conquer them and bring the land under our
control. Since these words pleased all, he set his army in motion and made for Poitiers
where Alaric was at that time. But since part of the host was passing through Touraine, he
issued an edict out of respect to the blessed Martin that no one should take anything from
that country except grass for fodder, and water. But one from the army found a poor man’s
hay and said: “Did not the king order grass only to be taken, nothing else? And this,”
said he, “is grass. We shall not be transgressing his command if we take it. And when he
had done violence to the poor man and taken his hay by force, the deed came to the king.
And quicker than speech the offender was slain by the sword, and the king said: “And where
shall our hope of victory be if we offend the blessed Martin? It would be better for the
army to take nothing else from this country. The king himself sent envoys to the blessed
church saying: “Go, and perhaps you will receive some omen of victory from the holy
temple. Then giving them gifts to set up in the holy place, he said:

“If thou, O Lord, art my helper, and hast determined to surrender this unbelieving nation,
always striving against thee, into my hands, consent to reveal it propitiously at the
entrance to the church of St. Martin, so that I may know that thou wilt deign to be
favorable to thy servant. Clovis’ servants went on their way according to the king’s
command, and drew near to the place, and when they were about to enter the holy church,
the first singer, without any prearrangement, sang this response: “Thou hast girded me, O
Lord, with strength unto the battle; thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against
me, and hast made mine enemies turn their backs unto me, and thou hast utterly destroyed
them that hated me. On hearing this singing they thanked the Lord, and paying their vow to
the blessed confessor they joyfully made their report to the king. Moreover, when he came
to the river Vienne with his army, he did not know where he ought to cross. For the river
had swollen from the rains. When he had prayed to the Lord in the night to show him a ford
where he could cross, in the morning by God’s will a hind of wonderful size entered the
river before them, and when it passed over the people saw where they could cross.

When the king came to the neighborhood of Poitiers and was encamped some distance off, he
saw a ball of fire come out of the church of Saint Hilarius and pass, as it were, over
him, to show that, aided by the light of the blessed confessor Hilarius, he should more
boldly conquer the heretic armies, against which the same bishop had often fought for the
faith. And he made it known to all the army that neither there nor on the way should they
spoil any one or take any one’s property. There was in these days a man of praiseworthy
holiness, the abbot Maxentius, who had become a recluse in his own monastery in Poitou
because of his fear of God. We have not put the name of the monastery in this account
because the place is called to the present day Cellula sancti Maxentii. And when his monks
saw a division of the host approaching the monastery, they prayed to the abbot to come
forth from his cell to consult with them. And as he stayed, they were panic-stricken and
opened the door and dragged him from his cell. And he hastened boldly to meet the enemy to
ask for peace. And one of them drew out his sword to launch a stroke at his head, and when
he had raised his hand to his ear it became rigid and the sword fell. And he threw himself
at the feet of the blessed man, asking pardon. And the rest of them seeing this returned
in great fear to the army, afraid that they should all perish together. The man’s arm the
holy confessor rubbed with consecrated oil, and made over it the sign of the cross and
restored it to soundness. And owing to his protection the monastery remained uninjured. He
worked many other miracles also, and if any one diligently seeks for them he will find
them all in reading the book of his Life. In the twenty-fifth year of Clovis.

Meantime king Clovis met with Alaric, king of the Goths, in the plain of Vouillé at the
tenth mile-stone from Poitiers, and while the one army was for fighting at a distance the
other tried to come to close combat. And when the Goths had fled as was their custom, king
Clovis won the victory by God’s aid. He had to help him the son of Sigibert the lame,
named Chloderic. This Sigibert was lame from a wound in the leg, received in a battle with
the Alemanni near the town of Zülpich. Now when the king had put the Goths to flight and
slain king Alaric, two of the enemy suddenly appeared and struck at him with their lances,
one on each side. But he was saved from death by the help of his coat of mail, as well as
by his fast horse. At that time there perished a very great number of the people of
Auvergne, who had come with Apollinaris and the leading senators. From this battle
Amalaric, son of Alaric, fled to Spain and wisely seized his father’s kingdom. Clovis sent
his son Theodoric to Clermont by way of Albi and Rodez. He went, and brought under his
father’s dominion the cities from the boundaries of the Goths to the limit of the
Burgundians. Alaric reigned twenty-two years. When Clovis had spent the winter in Bordeaux
and taken all the treasures of Alaric at Toulouse, he went to Angoulême. And the Lord gave
him such grace that the walls fell down of their own accord when he gazed at them. Then he
drove the Goths out and brought the city under his own dominion. Thereupon after
completing his victory he returned to Tours, bringing many gifts to the holy church of the
blessed Martin.

38. Clovis received an appointment to the consulship from the emperor Anastasius, and in
the church of the blessed Martin he clad himself in the purple tunic and chlamys, and
placed a diadem on his head. Then he mounted his horse, and in the most generous manner he
gave gold and silver as he passed along the way which is between the gate of the entrance
[of the church of St. Martin] and the church of the city, scattering it among the people
who were there with his own hand, and from that day he was called consul or Augustus.
Leaving Tours he went to Paris and there he established the seat of his kingdom. There
also Theodoric came to him. [39. Licinius was bishop of Tours at the time of Clovis’
visit. His travels.] 40. When King Clovis was dwelling at Paris he sent secretly to the
son of Sigibert saying: “Behold your father has become an old man and limps in his weak
foot. If he should die,” said he, “of due right his kingdom would be yours together with
our friendship. Led on by greed the son plotted to kill his father. And when his father
went out from the city of Cologne and crossed the Rhine and was intending to journey
through the wood Buchaw, as he slept at midday in his tent his son sent assassins in
against him, and killed him there, in the idea that he would get his kingdom. But by God’s
judgment he walked into the pit that he had cruelly dug for his father. He sent messengers
to king Clovis to tell about his father’s death, and to say: “My father is dead, and I
have his treasures in my possession, and also his kingdom. Send men to me, and I shall
gladly transmit to you from his treasures whatever pleases you. And Clovis replied: “I
thank you for your good will, and I ask that you show the treasures to my men who come,
and after that you shall possess all yourself. When they came, he showed his father’s
treasures. And when they were looking at the different things he said: “It was in this
little chest that my father used to put his gold coins. “Thrust in your hand,” said they,
“to the bottom, and uncover the whole.

When he did so, and was much bent over, one of them lifted his hand and dashed his battle-
ax against his head, and so in a shameful manner he incurred the death which he had
brought on his father. Clovis heard that Sigibert and his son had been slain, and came to
the place and summoned all the people, saying: “Hear what has happened. When I,” said he,
“was sailing down the river Scheldt Cloderic, son of my kinsman, was in pursuit of his own
father, asserting that I wished him killed. And when his father was fleeing through the
forest of Buchaw, he set highwaymen upon him, and gave him over to death, and slew him.
And when he was opening the treasures, he was slain himself by some one or other. Now I
know nothing at all of these matters. For I cannot shed the blood of my own kinsmen, which
it is a crime to do. But since this has happened, I give you my advice, if it seems
acceptable; turn to me, that you may be under my protection. They listened to this, and
giving applause with both shields and voices, they raised him on a shield, and made him
king over them. He received Sigibert’s kingdom with his treasures, and placed the people,
too, under his rule. For God was laying his enemies low every day under his hand, and was
increasing his kingdom, because he walked with an upright heart before him, and did what
was pleasing in his eyes.

41. After this he turned to Chararic. When he had fought with Siagrius this Chararic had
been summoned to help Clovis, but stood at a distance, aiding neither side, but awaiting
the outcome, in order to form a league of friendship with him to whom victory came. For
this reason Clovis was angry, and went out against him. He entrapped and captured him and
his son also, and kept them in prison, and gave them the tonsure; he gave orders to ordain
Chararic priest and his son deacon. And when Chararic complained of his degradation and
wept, it is said that his son remarked: “It was on green wood,” said he, “that these twigs
were cut, and they are not altogether withered. They will shoot out quickly, and be able
to grow; may he perish as swiftly who has done this.” This utterance was reported to the
ears of Clovis, namely, that they were threatening to let their hair grow, and kill him.
And he ordered them both to be put to death. When they were dead, he took their kingdom
with the treasures and people.

42. Ragnachar was then king at Cambrai, a man so unrestrained in his wantonness that he
scarcely had mercy for his own near relatives. He had a counsellor Farro, who defiled
himself with a like vileness. And it was said that when food, or a gift, or anything
whatever was brought to the king, he was wont to say that it was enough for him and his
Farro. And at this thing the Franks were in a great rage. And so it happened that Clovis
gave golden armlets and belts, but all only made to resemble gold—for it was bronze gilded
so as to deceive—these he gave to Ragnachar’s leudes to be invited to attack him.
Moreover, when Clovis had set his army in motion against him, and Ragnachar was
continually sending spies to get information, on the return of his messengers he used to
ask how strong the force was. And they would answer: “It is a great sufficiency for you
and your Farro. Clovis came and made war on him, and he saw that his army was beaten and
prepared to slip away in flight, but was seized by his army, and with his hands tied
behind his back, he was taken with Ricchar his brother before Clovis. And Clovis said to
him: “Why have you humiliated our family in permitting yourself to be bound? It would have
been better for you to die. And raising his ax he dashed it against his head, and he
turned to his brother and said:

“If you had aided your brother, he would not have been bound. And in the same way he smote
him with his ax and killed him. After their death their betrayers perceived that the gold
which they had received from the king was false. When they told the king of this, it is
said that he answered: “Rightly,” said he, “does he receive this kind of gold, who of his
own will brings his own master to death; it ought to suffice them that they were alive,
and were not put to death, to mourn amid torments the wicked betrayal of their masters.
When they heard this, they prayed for mercy, saying it was enough for them if they were
allowed to live. The kings named above were kinsmen of Clovis, and their brother, Rignomer
by name, was slain by Clovis’ order at the city of Mans. When they were dead Clovis
received all their kingdom and treasures. And having killed many other kings and his
nearest relatives, of whom he was jealous lest they take the kingdom from him, he extended
his rule over all the Gauls. However he gathered his people together at one time, it is
said, and spoke of the kinsmen whom he had himself destroyed. “Woe to me, who have
remained as a stranger among foreigners, and have none of my kinsmen to give me aid if
adversity comes.

But he said this not because of grief at their death but by way of a ruse, if perchance he
should be able to find some one still to kill. 43. After all this he died at Paris, and
was buried in the church of the holy apostles, which he himself had built together with
his queen Clotilda. He passed away in the fifth year after the battle of Vouillé, and all
the days of his reign were thirty years, and his age was forty-five. From the death of St.
Martin to the death of king Clovis, which happened in the eleventh year of the episcopate
of Licinius, bishop of Tours, one hundred and twelve years are reckoned. Queen Clotilda
came to Tours after the death of her husband and served there in the church of St. Martin,
and dwelt in the place with the greatest chastity and kindness all the days of her life,
rarely visiting Paris.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK III

I wish, if it is agreeable, to make a brief comparison of the successes that have come to
Christians who confess the blessed Trinity and the ruin which has come to heretics who
have tried to destroy the same. And let us omit how Abraham worshipped the Trinity at the
oak, and Jacob preached it in his blessing, and Moses recognized it in the bush, and the
people followed it in the cloud and dreaded the same in the mountain, and how Aaron
carried it on his breastplate, or how David made it known in the Psalms, praying to be
made new by a right spirit and that the holy spirit should not be taken from him and that
he be comforted by the chief spirit. And, for my part, I consider this a great mystery,
namely that the voice of the prophet proclaimed as the chief spirit that which the
heretics assert to be the lesser. But passing over these, as we have said, let us return
to our times. For Arius, who was the first wicked inventor of this wicked sect, was
subjected to infernal fires after he had lost his entrails in a privy. But Hilarius, the
blessed defender of the undivided Trinity, though sent into exile for its sake, was
restored both to his native land and to Paradise. King Clovis confessed it, and crushed
the heretics by its aid and extended his kingdom over all the Gauls;

Alaric, on the other hand, who denied it, was deprived of kingdom and people, and what is
more, of eternal life itself. And to true believers, even if through the plots of the
enemy they lose something, the Lord restores it a hundred fold, but heretics do not gain
any advantage, but what they seem to have is taken from them. This is proved by the deaths
of Godegisel, Gundobad, and Godomar, who at the same time lost their country and their
souls. But we confess one God, invisible, infinite, incomprehensible, glorious, always the
same, and everlasting, one in Trinity in respect to the number of persons, that is, the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; we confess him also triple in unity in respect to
equality of substance, deity, omnipotence or power, the one greatest omnipotent God ruling
for eternal centuries. 1. Now on the death of king Clovis, his four sons, namely,
Theodoric, Chlodomer, Childebert and Chlothar, received his kingdom and divided it among
them in equal parts. Theodoric had already at that time a handsome and valiant son named
Theodobert. And since they were very brave and had abundant strength in their army,
Amalaric, son of Alaric, king of Spain, asked for their sister in marriage, and they
kindly granted his request, and sent her into the Spanish country with a great quantity of
beautiful things. [2. Quintianus, ex-bishop of Rodez, is rewarded for his faithfulness to
the Franks by being made bishop of Clermont. 3. The Danes plunder the coast of Theodoric’s
kingdom. 4. Hermenfred becomes sole king of the Thuringi by Theodoric’s help.]

5. Now on Gundobad’s death his son Sygismund held his kingdom, and he built with great
skill the monastery of St. Maurice, with its dwellings and churches. And losing his first
wife, the daughter of Theodoric, king of Italy, he married another, and she began to
malign his son bitterly and make charges against him as is the custom of stepmothers. From
this it came about that on a day of ceremonial when the boy recognized his mother’s dress
on her, he was filled with anger, and said to her: “You are not worthy to have on your
back those garments which are known to have belonged to your mistress, that is, my mother.
And she was set on fire with rage and she stirred her husband up with crafty words,
saying: “The wicked boy wishes to possess your kingdom, and he plans when you are killed
to extend it as far as Italy, forsooth, that he may possess the kingdom which his
grandfather Theodoric held in Italy. For he knows that while you live he cannot accomplish
this; and unless you fall he will not rise. Sygismund was aroused by these words, and
taking the advice of his wicked wife he became a wicked parricide. For when his son had
been made drowsy by wine he bade him sleep in the afternoon; and while he slept a napkin
was placed under his neck and tied under his chin, and he was strangled by two servants
who drew in opposite directions.

When it was done the father repented too late, and falling on the lifeless corpse began to
weep most bitterly. And a certain old man is reported to have spoken to him in these
words: “Henceforth wail for yourself,” said he, “that you have become a most cruel
parricide through base counsel. For there is no need to wail for this innocent boy who has
been strangled. Nevertheless he went off to the holy Saint Maurice and spending many days
in weeping and fasting he prayed for pardon. After establishing there a perpetual service
of song he returned to Lyons, the divine vengeance attending on his footsteps. King
Theodoric had married his daughter. 6. Queen Clotilda spoke to Chlodomer and her other
sons, saying: “Let me not repent, dearest sons, that I have nursed you lovingly; be angry,
I beg you, at the insult to me, and avenge with a wise zeal the death of my father and
mother. They heeded this; and they hastened to the Burgundies and marched against
Sygismund and his brother Godomar. Their army was completely routed and Godomar fled. But
Sygismund was taken by Chlodomer when he was endeavoring to make his escape to the holy
St. Maurice, and led away captive with his wife and sons, and was placed under guard and
kept prisoner in the territory of the city of Orleans. When the kings departed Godomar
recovered his courage and gathered the Burgundians and gained his kingdom back. And
Chlodomer was making preparations to march against him a second time and determined to
kill Sygismund. And the blessed abbot Avitus, a great priest of that time, said to him:
“If,” said he, “you would look to God and amend your counsel so as not to allow these men
to be killed, God will be with you and you shall go and win the victory; but if you kill
them you shall be surrendered yourself into the hands of your enemies and shall perish in
the same way. And what you do to Sygismund and his wife and children shall be done to you
and your wife and sons. But he despised listening to this counsel, and said:

“I think it is foolish advice to leave enemies at home and march against the rest, and
when the former rise up in the rear and the latter in front I shall fall between two
armies. The victory will be won better and more easily if one is separated from the other;
if one is slain it will be possible to doom the others to death easily. He gave orders to
slay Sygismund at once, with his wife and children, by casting them into a well in the
village Columna, of the city Orleans, and hastened to the Burgundies, summoning to his aid
king Theodoric. And the latter promised to go, not caring to avenge the wrong done to his
father-in-law. And when they met near Visorontia, a place of the city of Vienne, they
fought with Godomar. And when Godomar had fled with his army and Chlodomer was pursuing
and was separated a considerable distance from his men, the others, imitating his rallying
cry, called to him saying: “This way, come this way, we are your men. And he believed it
and went, and fell into the midst of his enemies, and cutting off his head and setting it
on a pike they raised it aloft. The Franks saw this and perceived that Chlodomer was dead,
and rallying, they put Godomar to flight and crushed the Burgundians and reduced their
country to subjection, and Clothar immediately married his brother’s wife, Guntheuca by
name. And queen Clotilda, after the period of mourning was past, took his sons and kept
them;

and one of these was called Theodoald, a second, Gunther, a third, Chlodovald. Godomar
recovered his kingdom a second time. 7. Afterward Theodoric, remembering the wrongs done
by Hermenfred, king of the Thuringi, called his brother Clothar to his aid and prepared to
march against him, promising that a share of the plunder should be given to king Clothar,
if by God’s help the gift of victory should come to them. So he called the Franks together
and said to them: “Be angry, I beg of you, both because of my wrong and because of the
death of your kinsmen, and recollect that the Thuringi once made a violent attack upon our
kinsmen and inflicted much harm on them. And they gave hostages and were willing to
conclude peace with them, but the Thuringi slew the hostages with various tortures, and
made an attack upon our kinsmen, took away all their property, and hung youths by the
sinews of their thighs to trees, and cruelly killed more than two hundred maidens, tying
them by their arms to the necks of horses, which were then headed in opposite directions,
and being started by a very sharp goad tore the maidens to pieces. And others were
stretched out upon the city streets and stakes were planted in the ground, and they caused
loaded wagons to pass over them, and having broken their bones they gave them to dogs and
birds for food. And now Hermenfred has deceived me in what he promised, and refuses to
perform it at all. Behold, we have a plain word. Let us go with God’s aid against them.

They heard this and were angry at such a wrong, and with heart and mind they attacked
Thuringia. And Theodoric took his brother Clothar and his son Theodobert to help him and
went with his army. And the Thuringi prepared stratagems against the coming of the Franks.
For they dug pits in the plain where the fight was to take place, and covering the
openings with thick turf they made it seem a level plain. So when they began to fight,
many of the Frankish horsemen fell into these pits and it was a great obstacle to them,
but when this stratagem was perceived they began to be on their guard. When finally the
Thuringi saw that they were being fiercely cut to pieces and when their king Hermenfred
had taken to flight, they turned their backs and came to the stream Unstrut. And there
such a slaughter of the Thuringi took place that the bed of the stream was filled with
heaps of corpses, and the Franks crossed upon them as if on a bridge to the further shore.
The victory being won they took possession of that country and brought it under their
control. And Clothar went back, taking with him as a captive Radegunda, daughter of king
Berthar, and he married her, and her brother he afterwards killed unjustly by the hands of
wicked men. She also turned to God, changing her garments, and built a monastery for
herself in the city of Poitiers.

And being remarkable for prayer, fasting and charity, she attained such fame that she was
considered great by the people. And when the kings who have been mentioned were still in
Thuringia, Theodoric wished to kill his own brother Clothar, and preparing armed men
secretly, he summoned him on the pretext that he wished to consult him privately. And
stretching a tent-cloth in one part of the house from one wall to the other, he ordered
the armed men to stand behind it. And since the cloth was somewhat short the feet of the
armed men were in full sight. Clothar learned of this, and came into the house with his
men armed also. And Theodoric perceived that he had learned of these things and he made a
pretence, and talked of one thing after another. Finally, not knowing how to put a good
appearance on his stratagem, he gave him as a favor a great silver dish. And Clothar said
good-by and thanked him for the gift and returned to his place of encampment. But
Theodoric complained to his people that he had lost his dish for no evident reason, and he
said to his son Theodobert; “Go to your uncle and ask him to give you of his own free will
the gift I gave him. He went, and got what he asked for. In such stratagems Theodoric was
very skilful.

8. He returned to his own country and urged Hermenfred to come to him boldly, pledging his
faith, and he enriched him with honorable gifts. It happened, however, when they were
talking one day on the walls of the city of Tolbiac that Hermenfred was pushed by some one
or other, and fell from the height of the wall to the ground and there died. But we do not
know who cast him down from there; many however assert that a stratagem of Theodoric was
plainly revealed in this. [9. King Childebert takes possession of Auvergne on a false
report of Theodoric’s death. 10. He leaves Auvergne and makes an expedition into Spain to
avenge the ill-treatment of his sister Chlotchild by her husband Amalaric. 11-13. King
Theodoric takes vengeance on the people of Auvergne for receiving Childebert.] 14. Now
Munderic, who asserted that he was a kinsman of the king, was puffed up with pride and
said: “What have I to do with king Theodoric. For the throne of the kingdom is as much my
due as his. I shall go out and gather my people, and exact an oath from them, that
Theodoric may know that I am king just as much as he. And he went out, and began to lead
the people astray, saying: “I am a chief, follow me, and it will be well with you. A
multitude of country people followed him, as one might expect from the frailty of mankind,
taking the oath of fidelity and honoring him as a king. And when Theodoric found this out
he sent a command to him, saying: “Come to see me, and if any share of my kingdom is due
you, take it. Now Theodoric said this deceitfully, thinking that he would kill him when he
came. But the other was unwilling and said: “Go, bear back word to your king that I am
king just as he is. Then the king gave orders to set his army in motion, in order to crush
him by force and punish him. And he learned this, and not being strong enough to defend
himself, he hastened to the walls of the stronghold of Vitry, and strove to fortify
himself in it with all his property, gathering together those whom he had led astray.

Now the army got under way, and surrounded the stronghold, and besieged it for seven days.
And Munderic resisted with his people, saying: “Let us make a brave stand, and fight
together even to death, and not submit to the enemy. And when the army kept hurling
javelins against them on every side, and accomplished nothing, they reported this to the
king. And he sent for a certain one of his people, named Aregyselus, and said to him: “You
see,” said he, “what this traitor is able to do in his arrogance. Go and swear an oath to
him that he shall go forth safe. And when he has come forth, kill him, and blot out his
memory from our kingdom. He went away and did as he had been ordered. He had however first
given a sign to the people, saying: “When I speak words thus and so, rush upon him
immediately and kill him. Now Aregyselus went in and said to Munderic: “How long will you
sit here like one without sense? You will not be able to resist the king long, will you?
Behold, your food has been cut off. When hunger overcomes you, you will come forth whether
or no, and surrender yourself into the hands of the enemy, and you will die like a dog.
Listen rather to my advice, and submit to the king, that you may be able to live, you and
your sons. Then the other, disheartened by these words, said:

“If I go out, I shall be seized by the king and slain, both I and my sons and all my
friends who are gathered with me. And Aregyselus said to him: “Do not be afraid, but if
you decide to go forth, receive my oath as to your crime, and stand securely before the
king. Do not be afraid. You shall be on the same terms with him as you were before. To
this Munderic answered: “I wish I were sure I should not be killed. Then Aregyselus put
his hands on the holy altar, and swore to him that he should go out safely. So when the
oath had been taken, Munderic went out from the gate of the stronghold, holding
Aregyselus’ hand, and the people gazed at him from a distance. Then as a sign Aregyselus
said: “Why do you gaze so intently, O people? Did you never see Munderic before? And at
once the people rushed upon him. But he understood and said: “I see very plainly that by
these words you gave a sign to the people to kill me, but I tell you who have deceived me
by perjury, no one shall ever see you alive again. And he drove his lance into his back,
and thrust it through him and he fell and died. Then Munderic unsheathed his sword, and
with his followers made great slaughter of the people, and until he died did not shrink
back from any one he could reach.

And after he had been slain his property was added to the treasury. 15. Theodoric and
Childebert made a treaty, and swearing to each other that neither would attack the other,
they took hostages from each other, in order that their agreement might be more secure.
Many sons of senators were given as hostages on that occasion, but a quarrel arose later
between the kings, and they were given over to servitude and those who had taken them to
guard now made slaves of them. Many of them however escaped by flight, and returned to
their native place, but a good many were kept in slavery. Among these was Attalus, nephew
of the blessed Gregory, bishop of Langres, who became a slave and was appointed keeper of
horses. He was in servitude to a certain barbarian in the territory of Trèves. Now the
blessed Gregory sent servants to inquire for him, who found him, and offered presents to
the man, but he rejected them contemptuously, saying: “This fellow, belonging to such a
family, ought to be ransomed with ten pounds of gold. And when they had returned, a
certain Leo, belonging to the kitchen of his master, said: “I wish you would give me
permission, and perhaps I might be able to bring him back from captivity. His master was
glad of the offer, and he went straight to the place, and desired to carry the youth away
secretly, but could not. Then bargaining with a certain man he said:

“Come with me, and sell me in the house of that barbarian, and take the profit of my
price, only let me have a freer opportunity of doing what I have decided. After taking an
oath, the man went and sold him for twelve gold pieces, and departed. The purchaser asked
the new slave what work he could do, and he answered: “I am very skilled in preparing all
the things that ought to be eaten at the tables of masters, and I am not afraid that my
equal in skill can be found. For I tell you that even if you desire to make ready a feast
for the king, I can prepare kingly viands, and no one better than I. And he said: “The day
of the sun is near,”—for thus the Lord’s day is usually named in the barbarian fashion—“on
this day my neighbors and kinsmen shall be invited to my house. I ask you to make me such
a feast as to make them wonder and say ‘we have not seen better in the king’s palace.’”
And the other said: “Let my master order a great number of fowls, and I will do what you
command. Accordingly the preparations which the slave had asked for were made, and the
Lord’s day dawned, and he made a great feast full of delicacies. And when all had feasted
and praised the viands, the master’s kinsmen went away.

The master thanked this slave, and gave him authority over the food that he had ready for
use, and he loved him greatly, and the slave used to serve food to all who were with his
master. After the space of a year, when his master was now certain of him, Leo went out
into a meadow which was near the house, with the slave Attalus, the keeper of the horses,
and lying on the ground with him a long distance off, with their backs turned so they
would not be recognized as together, he said to the youth: “It is time that we ought to be
thinking of our native place. Therefore I advise you not to allow yourself to go to sleep
to-night when you bring the horses to be shut in, but as soon as I call you, come, and let
us undertake the journey. Now the barbarian had invited many of his kinsmen to a feast,
and among them was his son-in-law, who had married his daughter. And at midnight they rose
from the banquet and retired to rest, and Leo attended his master’s son-in-law to the
place assigned and offered him drink. The man said to him: “Tell me, if you can, trusted
servant of my father-in-law, when will you decide to take his horses and go to your own
country. He said this in a joking way. In the same way the other jokingly gave the
truthful answer: “To-night, I think, if it is God’s will. And he said:

“I hope my attendants will be on the watch that you take nothing of mine. They parted
laughingly. And when all were asleep, Leo called Attalus, and when the horses were
saddled, he asked him if he had a sword. He answered: “I do not need one, I have only a
small lance. But the other went into his master’s house, and took his shield and spear.
And when he asked who it was, and what he wanted, he answered: “I am Leo, your slave, and
I am waking Attalus, so that he may rise quickly and take the horses to pasture; for he is
sleeping as soundly as if he were drunk. And he said: “Do as you please. And saying this
he fell asleep. The other went out of doors and armed the youth, and found unbarred, by
divine help, the gates of the yard, which at nightfall he had barred with wedges driven by
a hammer, to keep the horses safe; thanking God they took the remaining horses and went
off, taking also a roll of garments. They came to the river Moselle in order to cross it,
and being detained by certain persons they left their horses and clothes and swam over the
river, supported on a shield, and climbing the further bank they hid themselves in the
woods amid the darkness of the night. The third night was come since they had been on
their way without tasting food.

Then by God’s will they found a tree full of the fruit which is commonly called plums, and
ate and were strengthened somewhat, and began the journey through Champagne. And as they
hastened, they heard the tramping of horses going at a rapid gait, and they said: “Let us
throw ourselves down on the ground, so as not to be seen by the men who are coming. And
behold they suddenly came upon a great bramble bush, and they passed behind and threw
themselves on the ground with their swords unsheathed, in order to defend themselves
quickly from wicked men if they should be noticed. And when the others had come to the
thorn-bush they stopped; and one of them said, while their horses were making water: “Woe
is me that these accursed wretches are escaped and cannot be found; but by my salvation,
if they are found I command one to be condemned to the gallows, and the other to be cut to
fragments by strokes of the sword. Now the barbarian who said this was their master who
was coming from the city of Rheims seeking for them, and he would certainly have found
them on the way if night had not prevented. Then starting their horses, they went off. The
fugitives reached the city on this very night, and going in, they found a man of whom they
made inquiries, and he told them where the house of the priest Paulellus was.

And while they were passing through the square, the bell was rung for matins—for it was
the Lord’s day—and knocking at the priest’s door, they went in, and Leo told about his
master. And the priest said to him: “It was a true vision I had. For last night I saw two
doves fly toward me and settle on my hand, and one of them was white, and the other black.
And Leo said to the priest: “May the Lord be kind as the day is holy. For we ask you to
give us some food; for the fourth day is dawning since we have tasted bread and meat. He
hid the slaves, and gave them bread soaked in wine, and went away to matins. The barbarian
followed them, asking for the boys a second time, but he was deceived by the priest, and
he went back. For the priest had an old friendship with the blessed Gregory. Then the
youths, after refreshing their strength with food, and remaining two days in the home of
the priest, departed, and thus they came to the holy Gregory. The bishop rejoiced at
seeing them, and wept on the neck of Attalus his nephew; he set Leo free from the yoke of
slavery with all his family, and gave him land of his own, on which he lived a free man
with his wife and children all the days of his life.

[16. Sigivald, duke of Auvergne, is miraculously punished for taking church property. 17.
Seven successive bishops of Tours are mentioned, one of them, Leo, being “a man of energy
and skill in the building of wooden structures.”] 18. While queen Clotilda was staying at
Paris, Childebert saw that his mother loved with especial affection the sons of Chlodomer,
whom we have mentioned above, and being envious and fearful that they would have a share
in the kingdom through the favor of the queen, he sent secretly to his brother king
Clothar, saying: “Our mother keeps our brother’s sons with her, and wishes them to be
kings. You must come swiftly to Paris, where we will take counsel together and discuss
what ought to be done about them, whether their hair shall be cut and they be treated like
the rest of the common people, or whether we shall kill them and divide our brother’s
kingdom between ourselves equally. And Clothar was very glad at these words, and came to
Paris. Now Childebert had spread the report among the people that the kings were meeting
for the purpose of raising the little ones to the throne. And when they met, they sent to
the queen, who was then dwelling in the city, saying: “Send the little ones to us, that
they may be raised to the throne. And she rejoiced, not knowing their treachery, and
giving the boys food and drink, she sent them saying: “I shall not think that I have lost
my son, if I see you occupy his place in the kingdom. And they went, and were seized at
once, and were separated from their servants and tutors, and they were guarded separately,
in one place the servants, in another these little ones.

Then Childebert and Clothar sent Arcadius, whom we have mentioned before, to the queen,
with a pair of scissors and a naked sword. And coming he showed both to the queen, and
said: “Most glorious queen, your sons, our masters, ask your decision as to what you think
ought to be done with the boys, whether you give command for them to live with shorn hair,
or for both to be put to death. She was terrified by the news and at the same time
enraged, especially when she saw the naked sword and the scissors, and being overcome with
bitterness, and not knowing in her grief what she was saying, she said imprudently: “It is
better for me to see them dead rather than shorn, if they are not raised to the kingship.
But he wondered little at her grief, and did not think what she would say later in less
haste, but went swiftly, taking the news and saying: “Finish the task you have begun with
the queen’s favor; for she wishes your design to be accomplished. There was no delay.
Clothar seized the older boy by the arm, and dashed him to the earth, and plunging his
hunting knife into his side, he killed him pitilessly. And while the child was screaming,
his brother threw himself at Childebert’s feet and seized his knees and said: “Help me,
kind father, lest I perish like my brother. Then Childebert, his face covered with tears,
said:

“Dearest brother, I ask you to grant his life to me in your generosity, and let me pay for
his life what you wish, only let him not be killed. But the other attacked him with abuse,
and said: “Cast him from you, or you shall surely die in his place. It is you,” said he,
“that are the guilty instigator of this matter. Do you so easily break faith? Childebert
heeded this and cast the boy away from him to the other, who seized him and plunged his
knife into his side and slew him as he had his brother before: then they killed the
servants and the tutors. When they were killed Clothar mounted his horse and went off,
making a small matter of the killing of his nephews. And Childebert retired to the
outskirts of the city. And the queen placed their little bodies on a bier and followed
them to the church of St. Peter with loud singing and unbounded grief, and buried them
side by side. One was ten years old, the other seven. But the third, Clodoald, they were
unable to seize, since he was freed by the aid of brave men. He gave up his earthly
kingdom and passed to the Lord’s service, and cutting his hair with his own hand he became
a clerk, busied with good works, and as a priest passed from this life. The two kings
divided equally between them the kingdom of Chlodomer. And queen Clotilda showed herself
such that she was honored by all;

she was always diligent in alms, able to endure the whole night in watching, unstained in
chastity and uprightness; with a generous and ready good-will she bestowed estates on
churches, monasteries, and holy places wherever she saw there was need, so that she was
believed to serve God diligently, not as a queen but as his own handmaid, and neither her
royal sons, nor worldly ambition, nor wealth, raised her up for destruction, but her
humility exalted her to grace. 19. There lived at that time in the city of Langres the
blessed Gregory, a great bishop of God, renowned for his signs and miracles. And since we
have spoken of this bishop, I think it not unpleasing to insert in this place an account
of the site of Dijon, where he was especially active. It is a stronghold with very solid
walls, built in the midst of a plain, a very pleasant place, the lands rich and fruitful,
so that when the fields are ploughed once the seed is sown and a great wealth of produce
comes in due season. On the south it has the Ouche, a river very rich in fish, and from
the north comes another little stream, which runs in at the gate and flows under a bridge
and again passes out by another gate, flowing around the whole fortified place with its
quiet waters, and turning with wonderful speed the mills before the gate. The four gates
face the four regions of the universe, and thirty-three towers adorn the whole structure,
and the wall is thirty feet high and fifteen feet thick, built of squared stones up to
twenty feet, and above of small stone. And why it is not called a city I do not know. It
has all around it abundant springs, and on the west are hills, very fertile and full of
vineyards, which produce for the inhabitants such a noble Falernian that they disdain wine
of Ascalon. The ancients say this place was built by the emperor Aurelian.

[20. Betrothal of Theodoric’s son Theodobert to Visigard. 21. The Franks retake some of
the cities taken by Clovis from the Goths. 22. Theodobert falls in love with Deoteria.]
23. In those days Theodoric killed his kinsman Sigivald with the sword, sending secretly
to Theodobert that he should slay Sigivald’s son Sigivald whom he had with him. But he was
unwilling to destroy him, because he had taken him from the sacred font. But he gave him
the letter to read which his father had sent, saying: “Flee from here, because I have
received my father’s command to kill you; and if he dies and you hear that I am reigning,
then return to me safely.” On hearing this Sigivald thanked him, said good-by, and
departed. Now at that time the Goths had taken possession of the city of Arles, from which
Theodobert still had hostages. To it Sigivald fled. But he saw that he was not safe there,
and went to Latium, and remained hidden there. While this was going on, word was brought
to Theodobert that his father was seriously ill, and that if he did not hasten swiftly to
him so as to find him alive, he would be excluded by his uncles, and would never be
allowed to return. And he postponed everything on hearing this, and hastened thither,
leaving Deoteria with her daughter at Clermont. And not many days after he had gone,
Theodoric died, in the twenty-third year of his reign. And Childebert and Clothar rose
against Theodobert and wished to take the kingdom from him, but he was defended by his
leudes, after they had received gifts from him, and was established in his kingdom. He
sent later to Clermont and summoned Deoteria thence, and married her.

24. Childebert saw that he was not able to prevail, and sent an embassy to him, and bade
him come to him, saying: “I have no sons, I wish to treat you as a son.” And when he came
he bestowed such rich gifts upon him that all wondered. For he presented him with three
pairs of all the articles of armor, vestments, and other equipments that it becomes a king
to have, and likewise with horses and chains. Sigivald heard this, namely, that Theodobert
had received his father’s kingdom, and returned to him from Italy. And Theodobert
rejoiced, and kissed him, and bestowed upon him a third part of the gifts which he had
received from his uncle, and he gave orders that all that his father had seized of the
property of Sigivald’s father, should be returned to him. 25. And he was established in
his kingdom, and showed himself great, and distinguished by every goodness. For he ruled
his kingdom with justice, respecting the bishops, making gifts to the churches, relieving
the poor, and doing kindnesses to many persons with a pious and generous heart. He kindly
remitted all the tribute which was payable to his treasury from the churches situated in
Auvergne.

26. Now Deoteria saw that her daughter was quite grown up, and was afraid that the king
would desire and take her. She placed her in a litter to which wild oxen were yoked, and
sent her headlong over a bridge; and she lost her life in the river. This happened in the
city of Verdun. 27. As it was now the seventh year since Theodobert and Visigard had been
betrothed, and he was unwilling to take her on account of Deoteria, the Franks, when they
met, were greatly scandalized at him because he had abandoned his betrothed. Then he was
alarmed, and abandoning Deoteria, by whom he had a little son named Theodobald, he married
Visigard. And when she died not long after, he took another wife. But he did not have
Deoteria after that. [28. Childebert and Theodobert march against Chlothar but are turned
back by a miraculous hailstorm sent by St. Martin.]

29. Later king Childebert set out for Spain. And entering the country with Clothar, they
surrounded the city of Saragossa with their army, and besieged it. But the besieged turned
to God in such humility that they put on haircloth, abstained from food and drink, and
made the round of the walls of the city with psalm-singing, carrying the tunic of the
blessed Vincent, the martyr; the women, too, followed wailing, clothed in black robes,
with their hair hanging loose and ashes upon it, so that one would think they were
attending the funerals of their husbands. And to such a degree did that city place its
whole hope in God’s mercy that it was said they were celebrating the fast of the Ninevites
there, and there was no idea of any other possibility than that the divine mercy might be
won by prayers. But the besiegers did not know what was going on, and when they saw them
go around the wall in such a way they supposed they were engaged in some sorcery. Then
seizing one of the common people of the place, they asked him what it was they were doing.
And he said: “They are carrying the blessed Vincent’s tunic, and at the same time they are
praying the Lord to pity them.” And they were afraid at this, and went away from that
city. However, they acquired a very large part of Spain, and returned to the Gauls with
great spoils.

30. After Amalaric, Theoda was ordained king in the Spains. But when he was slain they
raised Theodegisil to the throne. When he was dining with his friends and was very
cheerful, suddenly the lights were put out in the dining hall and he was slain by his
enemies, being thrust through with a sword. After him Agila became king. For the Goths had
formed the detestable habit of attacking with the sword any one of their kings who did not
please them, and they would appoint as king any one that took their fancy. 31. Theodoric
of Italy having married a sister of king Clovis, died, and left his wife and a little
daughter. When this girl was grown, because of her fickle temper she refused the counsel
of her mother, who was looking out for a king’s son for her, and took her slave named
Traguilanis, and fled with him to a city where she hoped to defend herself. And when her
mother raged at her furiously, and begged her not to disgrace further a noble family, and
said it was her duty to send the slave off and take one of equal rank with herself from a
royal family, whom her mother had provided, she was by no means willing to agree to it.
Then her mother, still raging at her, set an army in motion. And they came upon them, and
killed Traguilanis with the sword, chastised the girl herself, and took her to her
mother’s house. Now they belonged to the Arian sect, and as it is their custom that of
those going to the altar the kings receive one cup and the lesser people another, she put
poison in the cup from which her mother was going to receive the communion. And she drank
it and died forthwith. There is no doubt that such harm is from the devil. What shall the
wretched heretics answer to this charge that the enemy dwells in their holy place?

But as for us who confess the Trinity in one similar equality and omnipotence, even if we
should drink a deadly draught in the name of the Father, Son and holy Spirit, the true and
incorruptible God, it would not do us any harm. The Italians were indignant at this woman,
and they invited Theodad, king of Tuscia, and made him king over them. When he learned
what the harlot had been guilty of, how she had slain her mother on account of a slave
whom she had taken, he gave orders that a bath be raised to a great heat, and that she be
shut in the same with one maid. And when she entered the hot vapors she fell at once on
the pavement, and died, and was consumed. And when the kings Childebert and Chlothar, her
cousins, as well as Theodobert, learned this, namely, that she had been put to death in so
shameful a manner, they sent an embassy to Theodad, blaming him for her death, and saying:
“If you do not make an arrangement with us for what you have done, we will take your
kingdom from you, and condemn you to a like punishment. Then he was afraid, and sent to
them fifty thousand gold pieces. And Childebert, being as ever envious of king Clothar,
and deceitful, joined with Theodobert his nephew, and they divided the gold between them,
and refused to give any of it to king Clothar.

But he made an attack upon the treasures of Chlodomer, and took much more from them than
that of which they had defrauded him. 32. Theodobert went to Italy, and there made great
gains. But as those places according to report are full of diseases, his army was attacked
by various fevers, and many of them died there. Seeing this, Theodobert returned from the
country and brought much spoil, himself and his men. It is related that at that time he
went as far as the city of Pavia to which he again sent Buccelenus. And he captured lesser
Italy and brought it under the sway of the king who has been mentioned, and attacked
greater Italy; here he fought against Belsuarius many times and won the victory. And when
the emperor saw that Belsuarius was being beaten more frequently he removed him, and put
Narses in his place, and, as a humiliation, he made Belsuarius count of the stable, a
place he had held before. But Buccelenus fought great battles against Narses: capturing
all Italy he extended his boundaries to the sea, and he sent great treasures from Italy to
Theodobert. When Narses made this known to the emperor, the emperor hired nations and sent
aid to Narses, and in the battle later he was defeated. Then Buccelenus seized Sicily and
exacting tribute from it he sent it to the king. He enjoyed great prosperity in these
matters.

[33. Feud between Asteriolus and Secundinus, advisers of King Theodobert.] 34.
Desideratus, bishop of Verdun, to whom king Theodoric had done many wrongs, was restored
to liberty at the Lord’s command, after many losses and reverses and griefs, and received
the office of bishop, as we have said, at the city of Verdun, and seeing its inhabitants
very poor and destitute he grieved for them, and since he was left without his own
property because of Theodoric, and had nothing of his own with which to relieve them,
knowing the goodness and kindness to all of king Theodobert, he sent an embassy to him
saying: “The fame of your goodness is spread over all the earth, since your generosity is
such that you give aid even to those who do not seek it. I beg of your kindness if you
have any money, that you lend it to us that we may be able to relieve our fellow-citizens;
and when those in charge of business secure a return in our city such as the rest have, we
will repay your money with lawful interest.” Then Theodobert was stirred with pity and
furnished seven thousand gold pieces, which the bishop received and paid out among his
fellow-citizens. And they who were engaged in business were made rich through this and are
considered great to the present day. And when the bishop who has been just mentioned
offered the money which was due to the king, the king answered: “I have no need to take
this; it is enough for me if the poor men who were suffering want have been relieved by
your care because of your suggestion and my generosity.” And he whom we have mentioned
made the citizens rich without demanding anything.

[35. Syagrius avenges wrongs done to his father by killing Syrivald.] 36. After this king
Theodobert began to be sick. And the physicians gave him much care; but he did not get
well because the Lord was already bidding him be summoned. And so after a very long
illness he died of his infirmity. And as the Franks hated Parthenius intensely, because he
had subjected them to tribute in the time of the king just mentioned, they began to attack
him. He saw that he was in danger, and fled from the city, and humbly begged two bishops
to conduct him to the city of Trèves, and check the sedition of the frenzied people by
their preaching. While they were on their way he was lying on his bed at night, and
suddenly he made a loud cry in his sleep, saying: “Ho! Ho! Help, you who are here, and
assist one who is perishing. By this shouting those who were there were awakened, and they
asked him what the matter was. He answered: “Ausanius, my friend, and my wife Papianella,
whom I slew long ago, were summoning me to judgment, saying: ‘Come to defend yourself,
since you are going to plead with us in the presence of the Lord.’” Now he had slain his
innocent wife and his friend some years before, under the influence of jealousy.

Accordingly, the bishops approached the city just mentioned, and since they could not calm
the sedition among the rebellious people, they wished to hide him in the church, placing
him in a chest, and strewing above him vestments which were used in the church. The people
came in, and after searching every corner of the church, went out in a rage when they
found nothing. Then one said suspiciously: “Behold a chest in which our enemy has not been
sought for. And when the guards said that there was nothing in it except that it contained
furniture of the church, they demanded the key, saying: “Unless you quickly unlock it we
will break it open ourselves. Finally the chest was unlocked, the linen cloths were
removed, and they found him and dragged him out, rejoicing and saying: “God has delivered
our enemy into our hands. Then they struck him with their fists, and spat on him, and
tying his hands behind his back, they stoned him to death beside a column. He was very
voracious in eating, and what he ate he digested speedily, taking aloes in order to be
made hungry soon again…. And so he perished, meeting this kind of end.

37. In that year the winter was a grievous one and more severe than usual, so that the
streams were held in the chains of frost and furnished a path for the people like dry
ground. Birds, too, were affected by the cold and hunger, and were caught in the hand
without any snare when the snow was deep. Now from the death of Clovis to the death of
Theodobert there are reckoned thirty-seven years. When Theodobert died in the fourteenth
year of his reign, Theodoald his son reigned in his stead. Here ends the Third Book.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK IV

[1. Queen Clotilda dies at Tours and is buried at Paris.] 2. King Clothar had ordered all
the churches of his kingdom to pay into his treasury a third of their revenues. But when
all the other bishops, though grudgingly, had agreed to this and signed their names, the
blessed Injuriosus scorned the command and manfully refused to sign, saying, “If you
attempt to take the things of God the Lord will take away your kingdom speedily because it
is wrong for your storehouses to be filled with the contributions of the poor whom you
yourself ought to feed.” He was irritated with the king and left his presence without
saying farewell. Then the king was alarmed and being afraid of the power of the blessed
Martin he sent after him with gifts, praying for pardon and admitting the wrongfulness of
what he had done, and asking also that the bishop avert from him by prayer the power of
the blessed Martin.

3. The king had seven sons by several wives; namely, by Ingunda, Gunthar, Childeric,
Charibert, Gunthram, Sigibert, and a daughter Chlotsinda; by Aregunda, sister of Ingunda,
Chilperic; and by Chunsina he had Chramnus. I will tell why it was he married his wife’s
sister. When he was already married to Ingunda and loved her alone, he received a hint
from her saying: “My Lord has done with his handmaid what he pleased and has taken me to
his couch. Now let my lord the king hear what his servant would suggest to make his favor
complete. I beg that you consent to find a husband for my sister, a man who will be of
advantage to your servant and possess wealth, so that I shall not be humiliated but rather
exalted and shall be able to serve you more faithfully.” To this request he gave heed and
being of a wanton nature he fell in love with Aregunda and went to the estate on which she
was living and married her himself. Having done this he returned to Ingunda and said: “I
have tried to do the favor which your sweet self asked of me. I sought for a man of riches
and wisdom to unite to your sister but I found no one better than myself. And so allow me
to tell you that I have married her, which I think will not displease you.” And she
replied; “Let my Lord do what seems good in his eyes; only let his handmaid live in favor
with the king.”

Now Gunthar, Chramnus and Childeric died in their father’s lifetime. Of the death of
Chramnus I shall write later. And Albin, king of the Lombards, married Chlotsinda, his
daughter. Injuriosus, bishop of Tours, died in the seventeenth year of his episcopate and
Baudinus, a former official of king Clothar, succeeded him, the sixteenth after the death
of the blessed Martin. 4. Chanao, count of the Bretons, killed three of his brothers. He
wished to kill Macliavus also, and seized him and kept him in prison loaded with chains.
But he was freed from death by Felix, bishop of Nantes. After this he swore that he would
be faithful to his brother, but from some reason or other he became inclined to break his
oath. Chanao was aware of this and began to attack him again and when Macliavus saw that
he could not escape, he fled to another count of that district, Chonomor by name. When
Chonomor learned that Macliavus’ pursuers were near at hand, he hid him in a box
underground and heaped a mound over it in the regular way leaving a small airhole so that
he could breathe. And when his pursuers came, they said: “Behold here lies Macliavus dead
and buried.” On hearing this they were glad and drank on his tomb and reported to his
brother that he was dead. And his brother took the whole of his kingdom. For since
Clovis’s death the Bretons have always been under the dominion of the Franks and their
rulers have been called counts, not kings. Macliavus rose from underground and went to the
city of Vannes and there received the tonsure and was ordained bishop. But when Chanao
died he left the priesthood, let his hair grow long, and took back not only his brother’s
kingdom but also the wife whom he had abandoned when he became a priest. However he was
excommunicated by the bishops. What his end was I shall describe later. Now bishop
Baudinus died in the sixth year of his episcopate, and the abbot Gunthar was appointed in
his place, the seventeenth after the passing of the blessed Martin.

[5. How St. Gall, bishop of Clermont, averted the plague from his people.] And when Saint
Gall had departed from this world and his body had been washed and carried to the church,
Cato the priest immediately received the congratulations of the clergy on becoming bishop.
And as if he were already bishop he took under his control all the church property,
removed the superintendents and cast the lesser officials out and regulated everything
himself. 6. The bishops who came to St. Gall’s funeral said to Cato the priest after the
funeral: “We see that you are the choice of by far the largest part of the people; come
then, join us, and we will bless and ordain you as bishop. The king is very young and if
any fault is found with you, we will take you under our protection and deal with the
leading men of Theodovald’s kingdom so that no wrong shall be done you. Trust us
faithfully, since we promise that even if some loss shall come to you, we will make it all
good from our own properties.” But he was puffed up with the pride of vainglory and said:
“You know from widespread report that from the beginning of my life I have always lived
religiously, that I have fasted, delighted in almsgiving, often kept watch without ceasing
and have frequently continued the singing of psalms without a break the whole night
through. The Lord God to whom I have paid such service will not allow me to be deprived of
this office. For I attained all the grades of the clergy as directed in the canons. I was
reader ten years, I performed the duties of sub-deacon five years, I have been priest now
for twenty years. What more is left for me except to receive the office of bishop which my
faithful service deserves. You then return to your cities and busy yourselves with
whatever tends to your advantage. For I intend to gain this office in the manner
prescribed by the canons.” The bishops heard this and departed cursing his empty boasting.

7. He was accordingly designated to be bishop by the choice of the clergy, and when he had
taken charge of everything though he was not yet ordained, he began to make various
threats against the archdeacon Cautinus, saying: “I will cast you out, I will degrade you,
I will cause many sorts of violent death to threaten you. And he answered: “I wish to have
your favor, pious master; and if I win it, there is one kindness I can do. Without any
trouble on your part and without any deceit I will go to the king and obtain the office of
bishop for you, asking no reward except to win your favor. But the other was suspicious
that he meant to make a mock of him and rejected the offer with great disdain. And when
Cautinus perceived that he was in disgrace and was the object of ill report he pretended
sickness, and left the city by night, going to king Theodovald and reporting the death of
Saint Gall. And when he and his court were informed of it they assembled the bishops at
the city of Metz, and Cautinus the archdeacon was ordained bishop. And on the arrival of
the messengers of the priest Cato he was already bishop. Then by the king’s order these
clerks were delivered over to him and all that they had brought from the property of the
church, and bishops and officials of the treasury were appointed to accompany him, and
they sent him on his way to Clermont.

And he was gladly received by the clergy and citizens and was thus made bishop of
Clermont. But later enmity arose between him and Cato the priest because no one was ever
able to influence Cato to submit to his bishop. A division of the clergy appeared and some
followed the bishop Cautinus and others the priest Cato. This was a great drawback to
them. And Cautinus saw that Cato could not be forced in any way to submit to him and took
all church property from him and his friends and whoever took his part, and left them weak
and empty. But whoever of them returned to him, again received what he had lost. [8. King
Agila of Spain loses cities to the emperor which his successor Athanagild recovers.] 9.
When Theodovald had grown up he married Vuldetrada. This Theodovald, they say, had a bad
disposition so that when he was angry with any one whom he suspected of taking his
property he would make up a fable, saying: “A snake found a jar full of wine. He went in
by its neck and greedily drained what was inside. But being puffed out by the wine he
could not go out by the opening by which he had entered. And the owner of the wine came,
and when the snake tried to get out but could not, he said to him: ‘First vomit out what
you have swallowed and then you will be able to go free.’” This fable made him greatly
feared and hated. Under him Buccelenus after bringing all Italy under the rule of the
Franks was slain by Narses, and Italy was taken by the emperor’s party and there was no
one to recover it later. In his time we saw grapes grow on the tree we call saucum [elder-
tree] without having any vine on it, and the blossoms of the same trees, which as you know
usually produce black seeds, yielded the seeds of grapes. At that time a star coming from
the opposite direction was seen to enter the disk of the fifth moon. I suppose these signs
announced the death of the king. He became very sick and could not move from the waist
down. He gradually grew worse and died in the seventh year of his reign, and king Clothar
took his kingdom, taking Vuldetrada his wife to his bed. But being rebuked by the bishops
he left her, giving her to duke Garivald and sending his son Chramnus to Clermont.

[10. King Clothar destroys the greater part of the rebellious Saxons and lays Thuringia
waste.] 11. Bishop Gunthar died at Tours, and at a suggestion, it is said, of bishop
Cautinus the priest Cato was requested to undertake the government of the church at Tours.
And the clergy accompanied by Leubastes, keeper of the relics and abbot, went in great
state to Clermont. And when they had declared the king’s will to Cato he would not answer
them for a few days. But they wished to return and said: “Declare your will to us so that
we may know what we ought to do; otherwise we will return home. For it was not of our own
will that we came to you but at the command of the king. And Cato in his greed for
vainglory got together a crowd of poor men and instructed them to shout as follows: “Good
father, why do you abandon us your children, whom you taught until now? Who will
strengthen us with food and drink if you go away? We beg you not to leave us whom you are
wont to support. Then he turned to the clergy of Tours and said: “You see now, beloved
brothers, how this multitude of the poor loves me; I cannot leave them to go with you.
They received this answer and returned to Tours. Now Cato had made friends with Chramnus
and got a promise from him that if king Clothar should die at that time, Cautinus was to
be cast out at once from the bishop’s office and Cato was to be given control of the
church.

But he who despised the chair of the blessed Martin did not get what he desired, and in
this was fulfilled that which David sang, saying: “He refused the blessing and it shall be
kept far from him. He was puffed up with vanity thinking that no one was superior to him
in holiness. Once he hired a woman to cry aloud in the church as if possessed and say that
he was holy and great and beloved by God, but Cautinus the bishop was guilty of every
crime and unworthy to hold the office of bishop. 12. Now Cautinus on taking up the duties
of bishop became greatly addicted to wine, and proved to be of such a character that he
was loathed by all. He was often so befuddled by drink that four men could hardly take him
away after dinner. Because of this habit he became an epileptic later on—a disease which
frequently showed itself in public. He was also so avaricious that if he could not get
some part of the possessions of those whose boundaries touched him he thought it was ruin
for him. He took from the stronger with quarrels and abuse, and violently plundered the
weaker. And as our Sollius says, he would not pay the price because he despised doing so,
and would not accept deeds because he thought them useless.

There was at that time a priest Anastasius, of free birth, who held some property secured
by deeds of queen Clotilda of glorious memory. Usually when he met him the bishop would
entreat him to give him the deeds of the queen mentioned above, and place the property
under his charge. And when Anastasius postponed complying with the will of his bishop, the
latter would try now to coax him with kind words and now to terrify him with threats. When
he continued unwilling to the end, he ordered him to be brought to the city and there
shamelessly detained, and unless he surrendered the deeds, he was to be loaded with
insults and starved to death. But the other made a spirited resistance and never
surrendered the deeds, saying it was better for him to waste away with hunger for a time
than to leave his children in misery. Then by the bishop’s command he was given over to
the guards with instructions to starve him to death if he did not surrender these
documents. Now there was in the church of St. Cassius the martyr a very old and remote
crypt, in which was a great tomb of Parian marble wherein it seems the body of a certain
man of long ago had been placed. In this tomb upon the dead body the living priest was
placed and the tomb was covered with the stone with which it had been covered before, and
guards were placed at the entrance.

But the faithful guards seeing that he was shut in by a stone as it was winter lit a fire
and under the influence of hot wine fell asleep. But the priest like a new Jonah prayed
insistently to the Lord to pity him from the interior of the tomb as from the belly of
hell, and the tomb being large, as we have said, he was able to extend his hands freely
wherever he wished although he could not turn his whole body. There came from the bones of
the dead, as he used to relate, a killing stench, which made him shudder not only
outwardly but in his inward parts as well. While he held his robe tightly against his nose
and could hold his breath his feelings were not the worst, but when he thought that he was
suffocating and held the robe a little away from his face he drank in the deadly smell not
merely through mouth and nose but even, so to speak, through his very ears. Why make too
long a story! When he had suffered, as I suppose, like the Divine Nature, he stretched out
his right hand to the side of the sarcophagus and found a crowbar which had been left
between the cover and the edge of the tomb when the cover sank into place.

Moving this by degrees he found that with God’s help the stone could be moved, and when it
had been moved so far that the priest could get his head out he made a larger opening with
greater ease and so came out bodily. Meanwhile the darkness of night was overspreading the
day though it had not spread everywhere as yet. So he hastened to another entrance to the
crypt. This was closed with the strongest bars and bolts, but was not so smoothly fitted
that a man could not see between the planks. The priest placed his head close to this
entrance and saw a man go by. He called to him in a low voice. The other heard, and having
an ax in his hand he at once cut the wooden pieces by which the bars were held and opened
the way for the priest. And he went off in the darkness and hastened home after vigorously
urging the man to say nothing of the matter to any one. He entered his home and finding
the deeds which the queen mentioned before had given him took them to king Clothar,
informing him at the same time how he had been committed to a living burial by his own
bishop. All were amazed and said that never had Nero or Herod done such a deed as to place
a live man in the grave. Then bishop Cautinus appeared before king Clothar but upon the
priest’s accusation he retreated in defeat and confusion.

The priest, according to directions received from the king, maintained his property as he
pleased and kept possession of it and left it to his children. In Cautinus there was no
holiness, no quality to be esteemed. He was absolutely without knowledge of letters both
ecclesiastical and secular. He was a great friend of the Jews and subservient to them, not
for their salvation, as ought to be the anxious care of a shepherd, but in order to
purchase their wares which they sold to him at a higher price than they were worth, since
he tried to please them and they very plainly flattered him. 13. At this time Chramnus
lived at Clermont. He did many things contrary to reason and for this his departure from
the world was hastened; and he was bitterly reviled by the people. He made friends with no
one from whom he could get good and useful counsel, but he gathered together young men of
low character and no stability and made friends of them only, listening to their advice
and at their suggestion he even directed them to carry off daughters of senators by force.
He offered serious insults to Firmin and drove him out of his office as count of the city,
and placed Salust son of Euvodius in his place. Firmin with his mother-in-law took refuge
in the church. It was Lent and bishop Cautinus had made preparations to go in procession
singing psalms to the parish of Brioude, according to the custom established by St. Gall
as we described above. And so the bishop went forth from the city with loud weeping,
afraid that he would meet some danger on the way. For king Chramnus had been uttering
threats against him. And while he was on the way the king sent Innachar and Scaphthar his
chief adherents, saying: “Go and drag Firmin and Cæsaria his mother-in-law away from the
church by force. So when the bishop had departed with psalm singing, as I have said
before, the men sent by Chramnus entered the church and strove to calm the suspicions of
Firmin and Cæsaria with many deceitful words.

And when they had talked over one thing after another for a long time, walking to and fro
in the church, and the fugitives had their attention fixed on what was being said, they
drew near to the doors of the sacred temple which were then open. Then Innachar seized
Firmin in his arms and Scaphthar Cæsaria, and cast them out from the church, where their
slaves were ready to lay hold of them. And they sent them into exile at once. But on the
second day their guards were overcome with sleep and they saw that they were free and
hastened to the church of the blessed Julian, and so escaped from exile. However their
property was confiscated. Now Cautinus had suspected that he himself would be subjected to
outrage, and as he walked along on the journey I have told of, he kept near by a saddled
horse, and looking back he saw men coming on horseback to overtake him and he cried: “Woe
is me, for here are the men sent by Chramnus to seize me. And he mounted his horse and
gave up his psalm singing and plying his steed with both heels arrived all alone and half
dead at the entrance of Saint Julian’s church. As I tell this tale I am reminded of
Sallust’s saying which he uttered with reference to the critics of historians. He says:
“It seems difficult to write history;

first because deeds must be exactly represented in words and second because most men think
that the condemnation of wrong-doing is due to ill will and envy. However let us continue.
14. Now when Clothar after Theodovald’s death had received the kingdom of Francia and was
making a progress through it, he heard from his people that the Saxons were engaged in a
second mad outburst and were rebelling against him and contemptuously refusing to pay the
tribute which they had been accustomed to pay every year. Aroused by the reports he
hastened toward their country, and when he was near their boundary the Saxons sent legates
to him saying: “We are not treating you contemptuously, and we do not refuse to pay what
we have usually paid to your brothers and nephews, and we will grant even more if you ask
for it. We ask for only one thing, that there be peace so that your army and our people
shall not come into conflict. King Clothar heard this and said to his followers: “These
men speak well. Let us not go against them for fear that we sin against God. But they
said: “We know that they are deceitful and will not do at all what they have promised. Let
us go against them. Again the Saxons offered half of their property in their desire for
peace. And Clothar said to his men: “Give over, I beg you, from these men, lest the anger
of God be kindled against us. But they would not agree to it. Again the Saxons brought
garments, cattle and every kind of property, saying:

“Take all this together with half of our land, only let our wives and little ones remain
free and let war not arise between us. But the Franks were unwilling to agree even to
this. And king Clothar said to them: “Give over, I beseech you, give over from this
purpose; for we have not the right word; do not go to war in which we may be destroyed. If
you decide to go of your own will I will not follow. Then they were enraged at king
Clothar and rushed upon him and tore his tent in pieces and overwhelmed him with abuse and
dragged him about violently and wished to kill him if he would not go with them. Upon this
Clothar went with them though unwillingly. And they began the battle and were slaughtered
in great numbers by their adversaries and so great a multitude from both armies perished
that it was impossible to estimate or count them. Then Clothar in great confusion asked
for peace, saying that it was not of his own will that he had come against them. And
having obtained peace he returned home.

15. The people of Tours heard that the king had returned from the battle with the Saxons
and making choice of the priest Eufronius they hastened to him. When their suggestion had
been made the king replied: “I had given directions for Cato the priest to be ordained
there; why has my command been slighted?” They answered: “We invited him but he refused to
come.” And while they were speaking Cato the priest suddenly appeared to request the king
to expel Cautinus and command that he himself be appointed in Clermont. When the king
laughed at him he made a second request, that he should be ordained at Tours which he had
contemptuously refused before. And the king said to him: “I at first gave directions that
they should ordain you bishop of Tours, but as I hear, you looked down on that church;
therefore you shall be kept from becoming master of it.” And so he went off in confusion.
When the king asked about the holy Eufronius they told him that he was grandson of the
blessed Gregory, whom I have mentioned before. The king answered: “It is a great and
leading family. Let the will of God and the blessed Martin be done; let the choice be
confirmed.” And according to his command the holy Eufronius was ordained bishop, the
eighteenth after the blessed Martin.

[16. Chramnus, king Clothar’s son, opposes bishop Cautinus at Clermont. He goes to
Poitiers and enters into an agreement with his uncle Childebert against Clothar. He
assumes authority over part of Clothar’s realm and Clothar sends two other sons, Charibert
and Gunthram, against him. When they are ready to fight Chramnus causes a report of
Clothar’s death to be circulated and Charibert and Gunthram hasten off; Chramnus marches
to Dijon where he consults the Bible as to his future. King Clothar meanwhile fights the
Saxons. 17. Chramnus joins Childebert in Paris. Childebert ravages Clothar’s territory as
far as Rheims. 18. Duke Austrapius takes refuge in St. Martin’s church in fear of
Chramnus. Chramnus orders him to be starved in the church. But he obtains drink
miraculously and is saved. He later becomes a priest. 19. Medard bishop of Soissons dies.]
20. King Childebert fell ill and after being bedridden for a long time died at Paris. He
was buried in the church of the blessed Vincent which he had built. King Clothar took his
kingdom and treasures and sent into exile Vulthrogotha and her two daughters. Chramnus
presented himself before his father, but later he proved disloyal. And when he saw he
could not escape punishment he fled to Brittany and there with his wife and daughters
lived in concealment with Chonoober count of the Bretons. And Wilichar, his father-in-law,
fled to the church of Saint Martin. Then because of Wilichar and his wife the holy church
was burned for the sins of the people and the mockeries which occurred in it. This we
relate not without a heavy sigh. Moreover the city of Tours had been burned the year
before and all the churches built in it were deserted. Then by order of king Clothar the
church of the blessed Martin was roofed with tin and restored in its former beauty. Then
two hosts of locusts appeared which passed through Auvergne and Limousin and, they say,
came to the plain of Romagnac where a battle took place between them and there was great
destruction. Now king Clothar was raging against Chramnus and marched with his army into
Brittany against him. Nor was Chramnus afraid to come out against his father.

And when both armies were gathered and encamped on the same plain and Chramnus with the
Bretons had marshaled his line against his father, night fell and they refrained from
fighting. During the night Chonoober, count of the Bretons, said to Chramnus: “I think it
wrong for you to fight against your father; allow me to-night to rush upon him and destroy
him with all his army. But Chramnus would not allow this to be done, being held back I
think by the power of God. When morning came they set their armies in motion and hastened
to the conflict. And king Clothar was marching like a new David to fight against Absalom
his son, crying aloud and saying: “Look down, Lord, from heaven and judge my cause since I
suffer wicked outrage from my son; look down, Lord, and judge justly, and give that
judgment that thou once gavest between Absalom and his father. When they were fighting on
equal terms the count of the Bretons fled and was slain. Then Chramnus started in flight,
having ships in readiness at the shore; but in his wish to take his wife and daughters he
was overwhelmed by his father’s soldiers and was captured and bound fast. This news was
taken to king Clothar and he gave orders to burn Chramnus with fire together with his wife
and daughters. They were shut up in a hut belonging to a poor man and Chramnus was
stretched on a bench and strangled with a towel;

and later the hut was burned over them and he perished with his wife and daughters. 21. In
the fifty-first year of his reign king Clothar set out for the door of the blessed Martin
with many gifts and coming to the tomb of the bishop just mentioned at Tours, and
repeating all the deeds he had perhaps done heedlessly, and praying with loud groaning
that the blessed confessor of God would obtain God’s forgiveness for his faults and by his
intercession blot out what he had done contrary to reason, he then returned, and in the
fifty-first year of his reign, while hunting in the forest of Cuise, he was seized with a
fever and returned thence to a villa in Compiègne. There he was painfully harassed by the
fever and said: “Alas! What do you think the king of heaven is like when he kills such
great kings in this way?” Laboring under this pain he breathed his last, and his four sons
carried him with great honor to Soissons and buried him in the church of St. Medard. He
died the next day in the revolving year after Chramnus had been slain.

[22. The four sons of Clothar make “a lawful division” of his kingdom. To Charibert is
assigned Paris for his capital, to Gunthram, Orleans, to Chilperic, Soissons, to Sigibert,
Rheims. 23. The Huns attack Sigibert and Chilperic takes the opportunity to seize some of
his cities. Sigibert recovers them.] 24. When king Gunthram had taken his part of the
realm like his brothers, he removed the patrician Agricola and gave the office of
patrician to Celsus, a man of tall stature, strong shoulders, strong arms and boastful
words, ready in retort and skilled in the law. And then such a greed for possessing came
upon him that he often took the property of the churches and made it his own. Once when he
heard a passage from the prophet Isaiah being read in the church, which says: “Woe to
those who join house to house and unite field to field even to the boundaries of the
place,” he is said to have exclaimed: “It is out of place to say; woe to me and my sons.”
But he left a son who died without children and left the greater part of his property to
the churches which his father had plundered.

25. The good king Gunthram first took a concubine Veneranda, a slave belonging to one of
his people, by whom he had a son Gundobad. Later he married Marcatrude, daughter of
Magnar, and sent his son Gundobad to Orleans. But after she had a son Marcatrude was
jealous, and proceeded to bring about Gundobad’s death. She sent poison, they say, and
poisoned his drink. And upon his death, by God’s judgment she lost the son she had and
incurred the hate of the king, was dismissed by him, and died not long after. After her he
took Austerchild, also named Bobilla. He had by her two sons, of whom the older was called
Clothar and the younger Chlodomer. 26. Moreover king Charibert married Ingoberga, by whom
he had a daughter who afterwards married a husband in Kent and was taken there. At that
time Ingoberga had in her service two daughters of a certain poor man, of whom the first
was called Marcovefa, who wore the robe of a nun, and the other was Merofled. The king was
very much in love with them. They were, as I have said, the daughters of a worker in wool.
Ingoberga was jealous that they were loved by the king and secretly gave the father work
to do, thinking that when the king saw this he would dislike his daughters. While he was
working she called the king. He expected to see something strange, but only saw this man
at a distance weaving the king’s wool. Upon this he was angry and left Ingoberga and
married Merofled. He also had another, a daughter of a shepherd, named Theodogild, by whom
he is said to have had a son who when he came from the womb was carried at once to the
grave. In this king’s time Leontius gathered the bishops of his province at the city of
Saintes and deposed Emeri from the bishopric, saying that this honor had not been given
him in accordance with the canons. For he had had a decree of king Clothar that he should
be ordained without the consent of the metropolitan who was not present.

When he had been expelled from his office they made choice of Heraclius, then a priest of
the church of Bordeaux, and they sent word of these doings in their own handwriting by the
priest just named to king Charibert. He came to Tours and related to the blessed Eufronius
what had been done, begging him to consent to subscribe to this choice. But the man of God
flatly refused to do so. Now after the priest had come to the gates of the city of Paris
and approached the king’s presence he said: “Hail, glorious king. The apostolic see sends
to your eminence the most abundant greetings. But the king replied: “You haven’t been at
Rome, have you, to bring us the greeting of the pope? “It is your father Leontius” the
priest went on, “who, together with the bishops of his province, sends you greeting and
informs you that Cymulus—this was what they used to call Emeri as a child—has been
expelled from the episcopate because he neglected the sacred authority of the canons and
sought actively for the office of bishop in the city of Saintes. And so they have sent you
their choice in order that his place may be filled, so that when men who violate the
canons are condemned according to rule, the authority of your kingdom will be extended
into distant ages.

When he said this the king gnashed his teeth and ordered him to be dragged from his sight,
and placed on a wagon covered with thorns and thrust off into exile, saying: “Do you think
that there is no one left of the sons of king Clothar to uphold his father’s acts, since
these men have cast out without our consent the bishop whom he chose? And he at once sent
men of religion and restored the bishop to his place, sending also certain of his officers
of the treasury who exacted from bishop Leontius 1000 gold pieces and fined the other
bishops up to the limit of their power of payment. And so the insult to the prince was
avenged. After this he married Marcovefa, sister of Merofled. For which reason they were
both excommunicated by the holy bishop Germanus. But since the king did not wish to leave
her, she was struck by a judgment of God and died. Not long after the king himself died.
And after his death, Theodogild, one of his queens, sent messengers to king Gunthram
offering herself in marriage to him. To which the king sent back this answer: “Let her not
be slow to come to me with her treasures. For I will take her and make her great among the
people, so that she will surely have greater honor with me than with my brother who has
just died. And she was glad and gathered all together and set out to him. And the king
seeing this said:

“It is better for these treasures to be in my control than in the hands of this woman who
has unworthily gone to my brother’s bed. Then he took away much and left little, and sent
her to a convent at Arles. But she took it very hard to be subject to fasts and watches,
and made proposals to a Goth by secret messengers, promising that if he would take her to
Spain and marry her she would leave the monastery with her treasures and follow him
willingly. This promise he made without hesitation, but when she had got her things
together and packed and was ready to go from the convent, the diligence of the abbess
frustrated her purpose, and the wicked project was detected, and orders were given to beat
her severely and put her under guard. And she continued in confinement to the end of her
life on earth, consumed with no slight passions.

27. Now when king Sigibert saw that his brothers were taking wives unworthy of them, and
to their disgrace were actually marrying slave women, he sent an embassy into Spain and
with many gifts asked for Brunhilda, daughter of king Athanagild. She was a maiden
beautiful in her person, lovely to look at, virtuous and well-behaved, with good sense and
a pleasant address. Her father did not refuse, but sent her to the king I have named with
great treasures. And the king collected his chief men, made ready a feast, and took her as
his wife amid great joy and mirth. And though she was a follower of the Arian law she was
converted by the preaching of the bishops and the admonition of the king himself, and she
confessed the blessed Trinity in unity, and believed and was baptized. And she still
remains catholic in Christ’s name. 28. When Chilperic saw this, although he had already
too many wives, he asked for her sister Galsuenda, promising through his ambassadors that
he would abandon the others if he could only obtain a wife worthy of himself and the
daughter of a king. Her father accepted these promises and sent his daughter with much
wealth, as he had done before. Now Galsuenda was older than Brunhilda. And coming to king
Chilperic she was received with great honor, and united to him in marriage, and she was
also greatly loved by him. For she had brought great treasures. But because of his love of
Fredegunda whom he had had before, there arose a great scandal which divided them.
Galsuenda had already been converted to the catholic law and baptized. And complaining to
the king that she was continually enduring outrages and had no honor with him, she asked
to leave the treasures which she had brought with her and be permitted to go free to her
native land. But he made ingenious pretences and calmed her with gentle words. At length
he ordered her to be strangled by a slave and found her dead on the bed. After her death
God caused a great miracle to appear.

For the lighted lamp which hung by a rope in front of her tomb broke the rope without
being touched by anyone and dashed upon the pavement and the hard pavement yielded under
it and it went down as if into some soft substance and was buried to the middle but not at
all damaged. Which seemed a great miracle to all who saw it. But when the king had mourned
her death a few days, he married Fredegunda again. After this action his brothers thought
that the queen mentioned above had been killed at his command, and they tried to expel him
from the kingdom. Chilperic at that time had three sons by his former wife Audovera,
namely Theodobert, whom we have mentioned above, Merovech and Clovis. But let us return to
our task. 29. The Huns were again endeavoring to make an entrance into the Gauls. Sigibert
marched against them with his army, leading a great number of brave men. And when they
were about to fight, the Huns, who were versed in magic arts, caused false appearances of
various sorts to come before them and defeated them decisively. Sigibert’s army fled, but
he himself was taken by the Huns and would have remained a prisoner if he had not overcome
by his skill in making presents the men whom he could not conquer in battle. He was a man
of fine appearance and good address. He gave gifts and entered into an agreement with
their king that all the days of their lives they should fight no battles with one another.
And this incident is rightly believed to be more to his credit than otherwise. The king of
the Huns also gave many gifts to king Sigibert. He was called Gaganus. All the kings of
that people are called by this name.

[30. King Sigibert attempts to take Arles from his brother Gunthram but fails.] 31. Now a
great prodigy appeared in the Gauls at the town of Tauredunum, situated on the river
Rhone. After a sort of rumbling had continued for more than sixty days, the mountain was
finally torn away and separated from another mountain near it, together with men,
churches, property and houses, and fell into the river, and the banks of the river were
blocked and the water flowed back. For that place was shut in on either side by mountains
and the torrent flowed in a narrow way. It overflowed above and engulfed and destroyed all
that was on the bank. Then the gathered water burst its way downstream and took men by
surprise, as it had above, and caused a loss of life, overturned houses, destroyed beasts
of burden, and overwhelmed with a sudden and violent flood all that was on the banks as
far as the city of Geneva. It is told by many that the mass of water was so great that it
went over the walls into the city mentioned. And there is no doubt of this tale because as
we have said the Rhone flows in that region between mountains that hem it in closely, and
being so closely shut in, it has no place to turn aside. It carried away the fragments of
the mountain that had fallen and thus caused it to disappear wholly.

And after this thirty monks came to the place where the town fell in ruins and began to
dig in the ground which remained when the mountain had fallen, trying to find bronze and
iron. And while engaged in this they heard a rumbling of the mountain like the former one.
And while they were kept there by their greed the part of the mountain which had not yet
fallen fell on them and covered and destroyed them and none of them was found. In like
manner too before the plague at Clermont great prodigies terrified that region. For three
or four great shining places frequently appeared about the sun and the rustics used to
call them suns, saying: “Behold, three or four suns in the sky. Once on the first of
October the sun was so darkened that not a quarter of it continued bright, but it looked
hideous and discolored, about like a sack. Moreover a star which certain call a comet,
with a ray like a sword, appeared over that country through a whole year, and the sky
seemed to be on fire and many other signs were seen. In the church at Clermont while the
morning watches were being observed at a certain festival, a bird of the kind we call lark
entered, flapping its wings above the lights, and so swiftly extinguished them all that
one would think they had been taken by the hand of a single man and plunged into water.

The bird passed under the veil into the sanctuary and attempted to put out the light there
but it was prevented from doing so by the door-keepers and killed. In the church of the
blessed Andrew another bird did the same with the lighted lamps. And presently the plague
came, and such a carnage of the people took place through the whole district that the
legions that fell could not be counted. For when sepulchers and grave-stones failed, ten
or more would be buried in a single trench. Three hundred dead bodies were counted one
Sunday in the church of the blessed Peter alone. Death was sudden. A wound the shape of a
serpent would appear on groin or armpit and the man would be so overcome by the poison as
to die on the second or third day. Moreover the power of the poison rendered the victim
insensible. At that time Cato the priest died. For when many had fled from the plague he
never left the place, but remained courageously burying the people and celebrating mass.
He was a priest of great kindliness and a warm friend of the poor. And if he had some
pride, this virtue I think counterbalanced it. But the bishop Cautinus, after running from
place to place in fear of this plague, returned to the city, caught it and died on the day
before Passion Sunday. At that very hour too, Tetradius his cousin died. At that time
Lyons, Bourges, Cahors, and Dijon were seriously depopulated from this plague.

[32. The remarkable virtue of the priest Julian. 33. The good abbot and the warning he
received to be more severe with his monks.] 34. I will relate what happened at that time
in a certain monastery, but I do not wish to give the name of the monk, who is still
alive, for fear that when this account comes to him he may become vainglorious and lose
merit. A young man came to the monastery and presented himself to the abbot with the
proposal to pass his life in God’s service. The abbot made many objections, explaining
that the service there was hard, and he could never accomplish what was required of him.
But he promised that he would call on the Lord’s name and accomplish it all. And so he was
admitted by the abbot. After a few days during which he proved to all that he was humble
and holy, it happened that the monks threw out of the granary about three chori of grain
and left it to dry in the sun and appointed this monk to guard it. And while the others
were taking refreshment and he was left to guard the grain, the sky suddenly became
overcast, and a heavy rain with roaring wind came swiftly in the direction of the heap of
grain. Upon seeing it the monk knew not how to act or what to do.

He thought however that even if he called the rest considering the great quantity of grain
they would not be able to store it in the granary before the rain, and so giving up
everything else he devoted himself to prayer, beseeching the Lord not to allow a drop of
the rain to fall on the wheat. And when he threw himself on the ground and prayed, the
cloud was divided, and although there was a heavy downpour all around, if it is right to
say so, it did not dampen a single grain of the wheat. And when the other monks and the
abbot became aware of the coming storm they came quickly to take the grain within, and saw
this miracle, and looking for the man in charge of the grain they found him close by
stretched out on the sand praying. The abbot on seeing this prostrated himself close to
him, and when the rain had passed and the prayer was finished he called to him to arise,
and gave orders to seize him and punish him with stripes, saying: “My son, you must grow
in the fear and service of God with humility, and not be puffed up with prodigies and
miracles. He ordered him to remain shut up in his cell seven days, and to fast as if he
were at fault, in order to keep vainglory from forming an obstacle before him.

At the present time, as we learn from men of the faith, the same monk is so abstemious
that he eats no bread in the forty days of Lent and drinks only a cup of barley-water
every third day. And may the Lord with your prayers deign to keep him as is pleasing to
himself until his life is ended. [35. The priest Eufrasius and the archdeacon Avitus are
candidates for the bishopric of Auvergne. The former Gregory describes in these words: “He
was indeed a man of refined manners, but his acts were not virtuous and he often made the
barbarians drunk and rarely helped the needy.” 36. Nicetius succeeds Sacerdos as bishop of
Lyons. He is succeeded in turn by the wicked Priscus. 37. Death of the holy Friard. 38.
Leuva and Leuvield, kings of Spain. The latter slew “all who had been accustomed to kill
the kings.” 39. Palladius and Parthenius, respectively count and bishop of Gévaudan,
quarrel. Palladius accuses the bishop of unnatural crime; he is removed and Romanus
becomes count.]

39. … It happened that one day Palladius and Romanus met in Clermont, and in their dispute
about the office of count Palladius was told that he was going to be put to death by king
Sigibert. However the story was false, and was ascertained to have been put in circulation
principally by Romanus. Then Palladius was terrified and reduced to such despair that he
threatened to kill himself with his own hand. And although he was carefully watched by his
mother and his kinsman Firmin, to prevent the deed which he had conceived in the
bitterness of his heart, he escaped from his mother’s sight for a short time and went into
his chamber where he could be alone, unsheathed his sword, and putting his feet on the
crosshilt of the sword he put its point at his breast and pushed on the sword from above,
and it entered at one of his breasts and came out at the shoulder-blade, and raising
himself up a second time he thrust himself in like manner in the other breast and fell
dead. I regard this deed with astonishment since it could not have been done without the
help of the devil. For the first wound would have killed him if the devil had not
supported him so that he could accomplish his wicked purpose. His mother rushed in half
dead with alarm, and fell in a faint on the body of the son she had lost, and the whole
household uttered cries of lamentation. Nevertheless he was carried to the monastery of
Cournon and buried there, but without being placed near the bodies of Christians or
receiving the solemn service of the mass. And this evidently happened to him for nothing
else than his insult to the bishop.

[40. Justin, a man of many vices, succeeds the emperor Justinian. He associates with
himself Tiberius “who was just, charitable, a discerner of the right and winner of
victories and—a feature that surpasses all other excellences—a most orthodox Christian.”]
41. Albin, king of the Lombards, who had married Chlotsinda, daughter of king Clothar,
abandoned his country and set out for Italy with all the Lombard people. They put their
army in motion and went with their wives and children, purposing to remain there. They
entered the country and spent seven years chiefly in wandering through it, despoiling the
churches, killing the bishops, and bringing the land under their control. When his wife
Chlotsinda died, Albin married another wife whose father he had killed a short time
before. For this reason the woman always hated her husband and awaited an opportunity to
avenge the wrong done her father, and so it happened that she fell in love with one of the
household slaves and poisoned her husband. When he died she went off with the slave but
they were overtaken and put to death together. Then the Lombards chose another king over
them.

42. Eunius, who was also named Mummulus, was made patrician by king Gunthram. I think that
certain details should be given as to the beginning of his military service. He was a son
of Peonius and native of the city of Auxerre. Peonius governed this town as count. And
when he had sent gifts to the king by his son to secure reappointment, the son gave his
father’s presents and asked for his father’s office, and took his place when he should
have helped him. From this start he gradually rose and attained a greater prominence. And
upon the invasion of the Gauls by the Lombards the patrician Amatus, who had lately
succeeded Celsus, went against them and engaged in battle, but was defeated and slain. And
it is said that the slaughter of the Burgundians by the Lombards was so great on that
occasion that the slain could not be counted. And the Lombards loaded with plunder
departed again for Italy. And upon their departure Eunius, also named Mummulus, was
summoned by the king and raised to the high office of patrician. When the Lombards made a
second inroad into the Gauls and came as far as Mustiæ Calmes near the city of Embrun,
Mummulus set his army in motion and came to that place with the Burgundians. He surrounded
the Lombards with his army and made an abattis and attacked them in pathless woods, and
killing many took a number of captives whom he sent to the king.

The king ordered them to be kept under guard in various places through the country, but a
few in one way or another escaped and took the news to their native land. There were
present in this battle Salonius and Sagittarius, brothers and bishops, who armed
themselves not with the cross of heaven but with the worldly helmet and coat of mail, and,
what is worse, are reported to have killed many with their own hands. This was Mummulus’
first victory. Then the Saxons, who had entered Italy with the Lombards, made a second
expedition into the Gauls, and pitched camp in the territory of Riez, that is, near the
village of Estoublon, scattering from there among the villages belonging to neighboring
cities, taking booty, leading off captives and laying all waste. When Mummolus learned of
this he set his army in motion and attacked them, killing many thousands, and he did not
cease to cut them down until evening when night made an end. For he had taken them off
their guard when they expected nothing of what happened. In the morning the Saxons
marshaled their army and made ready for battle, but messengers passed from one army to the
other and they made peace. They gave presents to Mummolus, and surrendered all the plunder
of the region with the captives, and departed after taking oath that they would return to
the Gauls in obedience to the kings and as allies to the Franks.

And so the Saxons returned to Italy, and taking their wives and little ones and all their
possessions undertook the return journey into the Gauls with the intention of presenting
themselves to king Sigibert and establishing themselves again in the district which they
had left. They formed two wedges [cunios] as they call them; and one came by way of Nice
and the other by Embrun, keeping in fact to the road they had come the previous year, and
the two divisions united in the territory of Avignon. It was then harvest time, and that
country had its crops chiefly in the open fields and the inhabitants had not stored any of
them. When the Saxons came they divided the crops among them and gathered and threshed the
grain and used it, leaving nothing to those who had done the work. But after the harvest
had been used up and they came to the shore of the river Rhone in order to cross the
torrent and present themselves in the kingdom of king Sigibert, Mummolus met them and
said: “You shall not cross this torrent. Behold, you have devastated the land of my lord
the king, you have gathered the crops, plundered the herds, burned the houses, cut down
the olive groves and vineyards. You shall not go up unless you first satisfy those whom
you have left in want;

otherwise you shall not escape my hands, but I shall draw my sword against you and your
wives and little ones and avenge the wrong done to my lord king Gunthram. Then they were
very much afraid and gave many thousand pieces of coined gold as a ransom, and were
allowed to cross, and thus they came to Clermont. It was then springtime. They brought
there pieces of bronze engraved like gold, and any one seeing them would have no doubt
that it was gold tested and weighed; for it was colored by some device or other. And a
good many were deceived by the false appearance and gave gold and received bronze and
became poor. And they went on to king Sigibert and were settled in the land they had left.
[43. Albinus, governor of Provence, seizes archdeacon Virgilius on Christmas day in the
church for failing to punish his men; Albinus is fined. 44. Three Lombard chiefs invade
Gaul but are defeated and driven back into Italy by Mummolus. 45. Mummolus recovers Tours
and Poitiers for Sigibert from Chilperic.]

46. As I am about to speak of the death of Andarchius, it seems best to tell first of his
birth and native place. He was a slave of the senator Felix as they say, and being
assigned to attend his young master he entered with him upon the study of letters and
became distinguished for his learning. For he was fully instructed in the works of Virgil,
the books of the Theodosian law, and the art of calculation. Being puffed up with such
knowledge he began to hold his masters in contempt, and devoted himself to the service of
duke Lupus when he went to the city of Marseilles by order of king Sigibert. When Lupus
left Marseilles he told Andarchius to go with him and secured for him the favor of king
Sigibert and put him at his service. And Sigibert sent him to various places and gave him
an opportunity for military service. Being held in a sort of honor because of this he came
to Clermont and there entered into friendship with Ursus, a citizen of the city. Then
being of an ambitious temper he wished to be betrothed to Ursus’ daughter, and concealed a
coat of mail, as they tell, in a chest in which documents used to be kept, and said to
Ursus’ wife: “I give in your care a multitude of gold pieces, more than sixteen thousand,
which I have placed in this chest, and it shall be yours if you will cause your daughter
to be betrothed to me.

“To what do you not drive the hearts of men, accursed greed for gold? The woman believed
him without reserve and in her husband’s absence agreed to betroth the girl to him. He
went back to the king and brought an order to the judge of the place commanding him to
marry this girl, saying: “I paid the earnest money at the betrothal. But Ursus denied it
saying: “I do not know who you are and I have none of your property. When the quarrel
continued and grew hotter Andarchius had Ursus summoned to the presence of the king. And
coming to the village of Braine he found another man named Ursus whom he caused to be
taken secretly to the altar and to swear and say: “By this holy place and the relics of
the blessed martyrs I will not delay in paying you the sixteen thousand solidi, since I am
not to give my daughter in marriage to you. Now witnesses were standing in the sanctuary
listening secretly to what was said but not seeing the person who spoke. Then Andarchius
soothed Ursus with gentle words and caused him to return to his native place without
seeing the king. After this he made an oath and when Ursus went away he produced before
the king a document containing the oath and said: “Such and such is the writing I have
from Ursus, and therefore I request an order from your glory that he give his daughter to
me in marriage.

Otherwise let me have authority to take his possessions until I receive sixteen thousand
solidi and am satisfied in this case. Then he received the order and returned to Clermont
and showed the judge the king’s order. Ursus retired into the territory of Velay. And when
his property was turned over to Andarchius he also went to Velay, and going into one of
Ursus’ houses he bade them prepare supper for him and heat water for bathing. And when the
slaves of the household did not obey their new master, he beat some with clubs, others
with switches, and struck some on the head, drawing blood. The whole household was in
confusion but the supper was prepared; he bathed in hot water, became drunk with wine and
stretched himself on his couch. He had only seven slaves with him. And when they were
sound asleep, weighed down by drowsiness not less than by wine, the household was gathered
together, and Ursus closed the doors of the house which were made of wooden boards. He
took the keys and tore down the stacks of grain near by and heaped piles of the grain
which was then in the sheaf around and above the house until it was seen that the house
was entirely covered.

Then he set fire to it in different places and when the burning timbers of the building
were falling on the luckless ones they awoke and began to shout but there was no one to
listen to them and the whole house was burned and the fire consumed all alike. Ursus fled
in fear to the church of St. Julian, and after making presents to the king he received
again a good title to his property. [47. Civil war between Chilperic and Sigibert. “There
was at that time a worse outcry among the churches than in the time of Diocletian’s
persecution.” 48. The wickedness of the people of Gaul as compared with earlier times; the
plundering of the monastery of Latta. 49. The civil war is continued. Sigibert forces
Chilperic to restore his cities. 50. Chilperic shuts himself up in Tournai.] 51. In that
year lightning was seen to traverse the sky as once we saw before the death of Clothar.
Now Sigibert took the cities this side of Paris and marched as far as Rouen, wishing to
destroy these same cities with his army. But he was prevented from doing so by his own
people. He returned thence and entered Paris. And there Brunhilda came to him with her
children. Then the Franks who had once looked to the older Childebert, sent an embassy to
Sigibert that if he would come to them they would abandon Chilperic and make him king over
them. On hearing this he sent men to besiege his brother in the city mentioned above, and
he himself purposed to hasten thither. And the holy bishop Germanus said to him: “If you
go and do not purpose to kill your brother you shall return alive and victorious; but if
you have another purpose in mind you shall die. For thus said the Lord through Solomon:
‘You who prepare a pit for your brother shall fall into it.’” But because of his
wickedness he failed to pay heed. And when he came to the village named Vitry, all the
army was gathered about him, and they placed him on a shield and made him king over them.
Then two slaves who had been placed under a charm by Queen Fredegunda, carrying strong
knives with poisoned blades—of the sort commonly called scramasaxi—approached him on some
pretext and stabbed him one on each side.

He cried aloud and fell and died in a short time. At the same time Charigysel, his
chamberlain, was slain and Sigila who came from the land of the Goths was seriously
wounded. He was afterwards seized by King Chilperic and met a cruel death, every joint
being burned with white-hot irons and his limbs being torn one from the other. Charigysel
was both fickle and avaricious. He had risen from a lowly place and become great with the
king by flattery. He was a man who grasped other men’s property, and was a breaker of
wills, and the end of his life was such that he did not succeed in making his own will
when death threatened, he who had so often destroyed the wills of others. Chilperic was in
suspense and did not know whether he should escape or perish, when messengers came to him
to tell of his brother’s death. Then he left Tournai with his wife and children and
clothed Sigibert and buried him in the village of Lambres. Whence he was later transferred
to Soissons to the church of the holy Medard which he had built, and was buried there by
the side of his father Clothar. He died in the fourteenth year of his reign, the fortieth
of his life. From the death of Theodobert the elder to that of Sigibert twenty-nine years
are included, and there were eighteen days between his death and that of his nephew
Theodobert. Upon the death of Sigibert, Childebert his son reigned in his place. From the
beginning to the flood there were 2242 years; from the flood to Abraham 942 years; from
Abraham to the going out of the children of Israel from Egypt 462 years; from the going of
the children of Israel from Egypt to the building of the temple of Solomon 480 years; from
the building of the temple to its desolation and the migration to Babylon 390 years; from
the migration to the passion of the Lord 668 years; from the passion of the Lord to the
death of St. Martin 412 years; from the death of St. Martin to the death of King Clovis
112 years; from the death of King Clovis to the death of Theodobert 37 years; from the
death of Theodobert to the death of Sigibert 29 years. Which make a total of 5774 years.

Here ends the Fourth Book.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK V

I am weary of relating the details of the civil wars that mightily plague the nation and
kingdom of the Franks; and the worst of it is that we see in them the beginning of that
time of woe which the Lord foretold: “Father shall rise against son, son against father,
brother against brother, kinsman against kinsman. They should have been deterred by the
examples of former kings who were slain by their enemies as soon as they were divided. How
often has the very city of cities, the great capital of the whole earth, been laid low by
civil war and again, when it ceased, has risen as if from the ground! Would that you too,
O kings, were engaged in battles like those in which your fathers struggled, that the
heathen terrified by your union might be crushed by your strength! Remember how Clovis won
your great victories, how he slew opposing kings, crushed wicked peoples and subdued their
lands, and left to you complete and unchallenged dominion over them! And when he did this
he had neither silver nor gold such as you now have in your treasuries. What is your
object? What do you seek after? What have you not in plenty? In your homes there are
luxuries in abundance, in your storehouses wine, grain and oil abound, gold and silver are
piled up in your treasuries. One thing you lack: without peace you have not the grace of
God. Why does one take from another? Why does one desire what another has?

I beg of you, beware of this saying of the apostle: “But if ye bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Examine carefully the books of
the ancients and you will see what civil wars beget. Read what Orosius writes of the
Carthaginians, who says that after seven hundred years their city and country were ruined
and adds: “What preserved this city so long? Union. What destroyed it after such a period?
Disunion. Beware of disunion, beware of civil wars which destroy you and your people. What
else is to be expected but that your army will fall and that you will be left without
strength and be crushed and ruined by hostile peoples. And, king, if civil war gives you
pleasure, govern that impulse which the apostle says is urgent within man, let the spirit
struggle against the flesh and the vices fall before the virtues; and be free and serve
your chief who is Christ, you who were once a fettered slave of the root of evil.

[1. Sigibert’s son, Childebert, not yet five years old, is made king. Chilperic seizes
Brunhilda and keeps her in exile at Rouen.] 2. Chilperic sent his son Merovech to Poitiers
with an army. But he disobeyed his father’s orders and came to Tours and spent there the
holy days of Easter. His army did great damage to that district. Merovech himself in
pretence that he wanted to go to see his mother went to Rouen and there met queen
Brunhilda and married her. Upon news of this Chilperic became very bitter because Merovech
had married his uncle’s widow contrary to divine law and the canons, and quicker than
speech he hastened to the above mentioned city. But when they learned that he was
determined to separate them they took refuge in the church of St. Martin that is built of
boards upon the wall of the city. But when the king on his arrival strove to entice them
thence by many artifices and they refused to trust him, thinking that he was acting
treacherously, he took oath to them, saying: “If it was the will of God, he himself would
not attempt to separate them.” They accepted this oath and came out of the church and
Chilperic kissed them and gave them a fitting welcome and feasted with them. But after a
few days he returned to Soissons, taking Merovech with him.

[3. Godin makes an attack on Chilperic’s territory but is defeated. Chilperic suspects
Merovech of being involved in the attack. Godin’s wife after his death marries a notorious
character, Rauching.] 3. … Godin’s wife married Rauching, a man full of every vanity,
swollen with haughtiness, wanton with pride, who treated those under him in such a way
that one could not perceive that he had any human feeling in him, and he vented his rage
on his own people beyond the limits of human wickedness and folly and committed
unspeakable wrongs. For whenever a slave held a candle for him at dinner, as the custom
is, he would make him bare his legs and hold the candle against them until it went out;
when it was lighted he would do the same thing again until the legs of the slave who held
the candle were burned all over. And if he uttered a cry or tried to move from that place
to another a naked sword at once threatened him, and when he wept Rauching could scarcely
contain himself for delight. Certain ones tell the story that two of his slaves at that
time loved one another, namely, a man and a maid—a thing that often happens. And when this
love had lasted a space of two years or more, they were united together and took refuge in
the church. When Rauching found it out he went to the bishop of the place and demanded
that his slaves be returned to him at once, and said they would not be punished. Then the
bishop said to him: “You know what respect should be paid to the churches of God;

you cannot take them unless you give a pledge of their permanent union, and likewise
proclaim that they shall remain free from every bodily punishment. When he had continued
silent for a long time in doubtful thought, he finally turned to the bishop and placed his
hands on the altar and swore, saying: “They shall never be parted by me but I will rather
cause them to continue in this union permanently, because although it is annoying to me
that this was done without my consent, still I welcome this feature of it, that he has not
married a maid belonging to another nor she another’s slave. The bishop in a simple-
hearted way believed the crafty fellow’s promise and restored the slaves under the promise
that they would not be punished. Rauching took them and thanking the bishop went home. He
at once directed a tree to be cut down and the trunk cut off close to the branches and
split with wedges and hollowed out. He ordered the earth to be dug to a depth of three or
four feet and half the trunk put in the trench. Then he placed the maid there as if she
were dead and ordered them to throw the man in on top. And he put the covering on and
filled the trench and buried them alive, saying: “I have not broken my oath that they
should never be separated. When this was reported to the bishop he ran swiftly, and
fiercely rebuking the man he finally succeeded in having them uncovered.

However it was only the man who was alive when dragged out; he found the girl suffocated.
In such actions Rauching showed himself very wicked, having no other aptitude except in
loud laughter and trickery and every perversity. Therefore he justly met a fitting death,
since he so behaved himself when he enjoyed this life; but I shall tell of this later.… 4.
In these days Roccolenus being sent by Chilperic came to Tours with great boasting and
pitching camp beyond the Loire he sent messengers to us that we ought to drag from the
holy church Gunthram, who was at that time wanted for the death of Theodobert; if we would
not do it he would give orders to burn the city with fire and all its suburbs. On hearing
this we sent messengers to him saying that what he asked to have done had not been done
from ancient time; moreover the holy church could not now be violated; if it should be, it
would not be well for him or for the king who had given this command; let him rather stand
in awe of the holiness of the bishop whose power only the day before had given strength to
paralytic limbs. But he had no fear of such words and while he was dwelling in a house
belonging to the church beyond the river Loire he tore down the house itself which had
been built with nails. The people of Mans who had come on that occasion with him carried
the nails off, filling their bags, and they destroyed the grain and laid everything waste.
But while Roccolenus was engaged on this he was struck by God, and becoming saffron color
from the royal disease he sent harsh commands saying:

“Unless you cast duke Gunthram out of the church to-day I will destroy every green thing
around the city so that the country will be ready for the plow. Meantime the sacred day of
Epiphany came and he began to be in greater and greater torture. Then after taking counsel
with his people he crossed the river and approached the city. And when [the clergy] were
hastening from the cathedral to the holy church singing psalms, he rode on horseback
behind the cross, preceded by his standards. But when he entered the holy church his rage
and threats cooled and going back to the cathedral he could take no food on that day. Then
being very short of breath he departed for Poitiers. Now these were the days of holy Lent
during which he often ate young rabbits. And after setting for the first of March the
actions by which he meant to ruin and fine the citizens of Poitiers, he rendered up his
life on the preceding day; and so his pride and insolence ceased.

5. At that time Felix, bishop of Nantes, wrote me a letter full of insults, writing also
that my brother had been slain because he had killed a bishop, being himself greedy for
the bishopric. But the reason Felix wrote this was because he wanted an estate belonging
to the church. And when I would not give it he was full of rage and vented on me, as I
have said, a thousand insults. I finally replied to him: “Remember the words of the
prophet: ‘Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field! They are not
going to inhabit the earth alone, are they? I wish you had been bishop of Marseilles! For
ships would never have brought oil or other goods there, but only paper that you might
have greater opportunity for writing to defame honest men. It is the scarcity of paper
that sets a limit to your wordiness. He was a man of unlimited greed and boastfulness. Now
I shall pass over these matters, not to appear like him, and merely tell how my brother
passed from the light of day and how swift a vengeance the Lord visited upon his assassin.
The blessed Tetricus, bishop of the church of Langres, who was already growing old,
expelled the deacon Lampadio from his place as procurator, and my brother in his desire to
aid the poor men whom Lampadio had wickedly despoiled, joined in bringing about his
humiliation and thus incurred his hatred. Meantime the blessed Tetricus had an apoplectic
stroke.

And when the poultices of the doctors did him no good, the clergy were disquieted, and
seeing they were bereft of their shepherd they asked for Monderic. The king granted their
request and he was given the tonsure and ordained bishop with the understanding that while
the blessed Tetricus lived he should govern the town of Tonnerre as archpriest and dwell
there, and when his predecessor died he should succeed him. But while he lived in the town
he incurred the king’s anger. For it was charged against him that he had furnished
supplies and made gifts to king Sigibert when he was marching against his brother
Gunthram. And so he was dragged from the town and thrust off into exile on the bank of the
Rhone in a certain tower that was very small and had lost its roof. Here he lived for
nearly two years to his great hurt, and then through the intercession of the blessed
bishop Nicetius he returned to Lyons and dwelt with him for two months. But since he could
not prevail on the king to restore him to the place from which he had been expelled he
fled in the night and passed over to Sigibert’s kingdom and was made bishop of the village
of Arisitum with fifteen parishes more or less under him. These the Goths had held at
first, and now Dalmatius, bishop of Rodez, judges them. When he went away the people of
Langres again requested as bishop, Silvester, a kinsman of ours and of the blessed
Tetricus.

Now they asked for him at the instigation of my brother. Meantime the blessed Tetricus
passed away and Silvester received the tonsure and was ordained priest and took the whole
authority over the property of the church. And he made preparations to go and receive the
blessing of the bishops at Lyons. While this was going on he was stricken by an attack of
epilepsy, having been long a victim of the disease, and being more cruelly bereft of his
senses than before he kept continually uttering a moaning cry for two days and on the
third day breathed his last. After this Lampadius, who had lost his position and his means
as is described above, united with Silvester’s son in hatred of Peter the deacon, plotting
and asserting that his father had been killed by Peter’s evil arts. Now the son being
young and light-minded was aroused against him, accusing him in public of murder. Upon
hearing this Peter carried his case before the holy bishop Nicetius, my mother’s uncle,
and went to Lyons and there in the presence of bishop Siagrius and many other bishops as
well as secular princes he cleared himself by oath of ever having had any part in
Silvester’s death. But two years later, being urged to it again by Lampadius, Silvester’s
son followed Peter the deacon on the road and killed him with a lance wound. When the deed
was done Peter was taken from that place and carried to the town of Dijon and buried
beside the holy Gregory, our great-grandfather.

But Silvester’s son fled and passed over to king Chilperic, leaving his property to the
treasury of king Gunthram. And when he was wandering through distant parts because of the
crime he had committed, and there was no safe place for him to dwell in, at length, I
suppose, innocent blood called upon the divine power against him and when he was traveling
in a certain place he drew his sword and slew a man who had done him no harm. And the
man’s kinsmen, filled with grief at the death of their relative, roused the people, and
drawing their swords they cut him in pieces and scattered him limb by limb. Such a fate
did the wretch meet by God’s just judgment, so that he who slew an innocent kinsman should
not himself live longer in guilt. Now this happened to him in the third year. After
Silvester’s death the people of Langres again demanded a bishop, and received Pappolus who
had once been archdeacon at Autun. According to report he did many wicked deeds, which are
omitted by us that we may not seem to be disparagers of our brethren. However, I shall not
fail to mention what his end was. In the eighth year of his episcopate, while he was
making the round of the parishes and domains of the church, one night as he slept the
blessed Tetricus appeared to him with threatening face and said: “What are you doing here,
Pappolus? Why do you pollute my see? Why do you invade my church? Why do you so scatter
the flock that was put in my charge? Yield your place, leave the see, go far from this
territory.” And so speaking he struck the rod he had in his hand sharply against Pappolus’
breast. Upon this Pappolus woke up and while he was thinking what this meant a sharp pang
darted in that place and he was tortured with the keenest pain. He loathed food and drink
and awaited the approach of death. Why more? He died on the third day with a rush of blood
from the mouth. Then he was carried forth and buried at Langres. In his place the abbot
Mummolus, called also Bonus, was made bishop. To him many give great praise: that he is
chaste, sober, moderate, very ready for every goodness, a friend of justice and a zealous
lover of charity. When he took the bishopric he perceived that Lampadius had taken much of
the church property by fraud, and by spoiling the poor had gathered lands, vineyards and
slaves, and he ordered him to be stripped of all and driven out from his presence. He now
lives in the greatest want and gets his living by his own hands. Let this be enough on
these matters.

6. In the same year as that mentioned above, that is, the year in which Sigibert died and
Childebert his son began to reign, many miracles were done at the tomb of the blessed
Martin which I have described in the books I have attempted to compose about these
miracles. And though my speech is unpolished I have still not allowed the things that I
saw with my own eyes or learned from trustworthy persons to pass unknown. Here I shall
relate merely what happens to the heedless who after a miracle from heaven have sought for
earthly cures, because his power is shown in the punishment of fools just as much as in
the gracious working of cures. Leonastis, archdeacon of Bourges, lost his sight through
cataracts that grew over his eyes. And when he altogether failed to recover it by going
around among many physicians, he came to the church of St. Martin and remaining here for
two or three months and fasting continuously he prayed to recover his sight. And when the
festival came his eyes brightened and he began to see. He returned home and summoned a
certain Jew and applied cupping glasses to his shoulders by the help of which he was to
increase his eyesight. But as the blood flowed his blindness revived again. When this
happened he again returned to the holy temple. And remaining there again a long time he
did not succeed in recovering his sight.

Which I think was refused because of his sin, according to the words of the Lord: “For
whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but whosoever hath
not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. “Behold thou art made whole;
sin no more lest a worse thing befall thee. For he would have continued in health if he
had not brought in the Jew in addition to the divine miracle. For such is the warning and
reproof of the apostle, saying: “Be not yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship have
righteousness and iniquity? Or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord
hath Christ with Belial? Or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what
agreement hath a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God.
Therefore come ye out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. Therefore let
this case teach every Christian that when he has merit to receive heavenly medicine he
should not seek after earthly help.

[7. Death of the priest Senoch, one “of the tribe of Theifali.” 8. Germanus, bishop of
Paris, dies. As he is taken to be buried “his body bears heavily down on the street when
the prisoners raise a cry and when they are released it is easily taken up again.” 9. The
recluse Caluppa dies. 10. The recluse Patroclus dies. He was very abstemious and “always
wore a hair shirt next his body.” “His eyes never grew dim.”] 11. And since our God always
deigns to give glory to his bishops, I shall relate what happened to the Jews in Clermont
this year. Although the blessed bishop Avitus often urged them to put aside the veil of
the Mosaic law and interpret the Scriptures in their spiritual sense, and with pure hearts
contemplate in the sacred writings Christ, son of the living God, promised on the
authority of prophets and kings, there remained in their hearts, I will not now call it
the veil which dimmed the light for Moses’ face, but a wall. The bishop prayed also that
they should be converted to the Lord and that the veil of the letter should be torn from
them, and one of them asked to be baptized on holy Easter, and being born again in God by
the sacrament of baptism, in his white garments he joined the white-clad procession with
the others. When the people were going in through the gate of the city one of the Jews,
urged to it by the devil, poured stinking oil on the head of the converted Jew. And when
all the people, horrified at this, wished to stone him, the bishop would not allow it.

But on the blessed day on which the Lord ascends to heaven in glory after the redemption
of man, when the bishop was walking in procession from the cathedral to the church singing
psalms, a multitude of those who followed rushed upon the synagogue of the Jews and
destroying it from the foundations they leveled it to the ground. On another day the
bishop sent messengers to them saying: “I do not compel you by force to confess the Son of
God, but nevertheless I preach him and I offer to your hearts the salt of wisdom. I am the
shepherd put in charge of the Lord’s sheep, and as regards you, the true Shepherd who
suffered for us said that he had other sheep which are not in his sheepfold but which
should be brought in, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd. And therefore if
you are willing to believe as I, be one flock with me as your guardian; but if not, depart
from the place. Now they continued a long time in turmoil and doubt and on the third day
because of the prayers of the bishop, as I suppose, they met together and sent word to him
saying; “We believe in Jesus, son of the living God, promised to us by the words of the
prophets, and therefore we ask that we be purified by baptism and remain no longer in this
guilt.

The bishop was rejoiced at the news and keeping watch through the night of holy pentecost
went out to the baptistery beyond the walls and there the whole multitude prostrated
themselves before him and begged for baptism. And he wept for joy, and cleansing all with
water he anointed them with ointment and gathered them in the bosom of the mother church.
Candles were lit, lamps burned brightly, the whole city was whitened with the white throng
and the joy was as great as once Jerusalem saw when the holy spirit descended on the
apostles. The baptized were more than five hundred. But those who refused baptism left
that city and returned to Marseilles. [12. The abbot Brachio, a Thuringian and formerly a
hunter, dies. 13. Great battle between Chilperic’s duke, Desiderius, and Gunthram’s
patrician, Mummolus. Desiderius is defeated.] 14. After this Merovech, who was kept in
custody by his father, received the tonsure, and changing his garments for those which it
is customary for the clergy to wear he was ordained priest and sent to the monastery at
Mans called Anninsola [Saint-Calais] to be instructed in the duties of priests. Hearing
this Gunthram Boso who was then living in the church of St. Martin, as we have stated,
sent the subdeacon Rigulf to advise him secretly to take refuge in the church of St.
Martin. And when Merovech was on his way, Galen his slave went to meet him from the other
side. And since his escort was not a strong one he was rescued by Galen on the way, and
covering his head and putting on secular clothes he took refuge in the temple of the
blessed Martin. We were celebrating mass in the holy church when he entered, finding the
door open. After the mass he asked us to give him the consecrated bread. Now there was
with us at that time Ragnemodus, bishop of the see of Paris, who had succeeded the holy
Germanus; and when we refused, Merovech began to raise a disturbance and to say that we
did not rightly suspend him from the communion without the assent of our brethren. When he
said this we examined the case in the light of canon law, and with the consent of the
brother who was present he received the consecrated bread from us.

I was afraid that if I suspended one from communion I would become a slayer of many. For
he threatened to kill some of our people if he did not receive the communion from us. The
country of Tours has sustained many disasters on this account. In these days Nicetius, my
niece’s husband, went with our deacon to king Chilperic on business of his own, and he
told the king of Merovech’s flight. On seeing them queen Fredegunda said: “They are spies
and have come to learn what the king is doing, in order to know what to report to
Merovech. And she at once ordered them to be spoiled and thrust off into exile, from which
they were released in the seventh month. Now Chilperic sent messengers to us saying: “Cast
that apostate out of the church. If you don’t I will burn that whole country with fire.
And when we wrote back that it was impossible that what had not happened in the time of
the heretics should now happen in Christian times, he set his army in motion and sent it
toward this country.

In the second year of king Childebert, when Merovech saw that his father was set in this
purpose, he proposed to take with him duke Gunthram and go to Brunhilda, saying: “Far be
it from me that the church of the master Martin should submit to outrage on my account, or
his country be put into captivity for me. And going into the church and keeping watch he
offered the things he had with him on the tomb of the blessed Martin, praying to the saint
to help him and to grant him his favor so that he could take the kingdom. At that time
count Leudast after setting many traps for him out of love for Fredegunda, at last
craftily entrapped his slaves who had gone out into the country and slew them with the
sword, and he desired to slay Merovech himself if he could find him in a suitable place.
But Merovech followed Gunthram’s advice and, desiring to avenge himself, he ordered
Marileif the chief physician to be seized as he was returning from the king’s presence,
and after beating him most cruelly he took away the gold and silver and other valuables
which he had with him and left him naked, and would have killed him if he had not escaped
from the hands of those who were beating him and taken refuge in the church. And later we
clothed him and having obtained his life sent him back to Poitiers. Now Merovech charged
many crimes to his father and stepmother.

But although they were partly true it was not acceptable to God I suppose that they should
be made known through a son. This I learned to be so later on. For one day I was invited
to dine with him and when we were sitting together he begged urgently that something be
read for the instruction of his soul. So I opened the book of Solomon and took the first
verse that came which contained the following: “The eye of him who looketh at his father
askance, the ravens of the valleys shall pick it out. Although he did not understand it, I
believed that this verse had been given by the Lord. Then Gunthram sent a slave to a
certain woman known to him from the time of king Charibert, who had a familiar spirit, in
order that she should relate what was to happen. He asserted besides that she had foretold
to him the time, not only the year but also the day and hour, at which king Charibert was
to die. And she sent back this answer by the slaves: “King Chilperic will die this year
and king Merovech will exclude his brothers and take the whole kingdom. And you shall hold
the office of duke over all his kingdom for five years.

But in the sixth year you shall win the honor of the bishop’s office, with the consent of
the people, in a city which lies on the river Loire on its right bank, and you shall pass
from this world old and full of days. And when the slaves had come back and reported this
to their master he was at once filled with vanity as if he were already sitting in the
chair of the church of Tours, and he reported the words to me. But I laughed at his folly
and said: “It is from God that this should be sought; what the devil promises is not to be
believed. He went off in confusion and I had a hearty laugh at the man who thought such
things credible. At length one night, when the watch was being kept in the church of the
holy bishop and I had lain down and fallen asleep on my bed, I saw an angel flying through
the air. And when he passed the holy church he cried in a loud voice: “Alas. Alas. God has
stricken Chilperic and all his sons and there shall remain no one of those who came forth
from his loins to rule his kingdom forever. He had at this time four sons by different
wives, not to speak of daughters. And when this was fulfilled later on, then I saw clearly
that what the soothsayers promised was false. Now while these men were staying in the
church of St.

Martin, queen Fredegunda who already favored Gunthram Boso secretly for the death of
Theodobert, sent to him saying: “If you can cast Merovech forth from the church so that he
will be killed you shall receive a great gift from me. And he thought the assassins were
close at hand and said to Merovech: “Why are we so spiritless and timid as to sit here and
hide sluggishly around the church? Let our horses be brought and let us take hawks and
hunt with dogs and enjoy the hunting and the open views. He was acting cunningly to get
Merovech away from the holy church. Now Gunthram otherwise was a very good man but he was
too ready for perjury, and he never took an oath to any of his friends but that he broke
it forthwith. They went out, as we have said, from the church and went as far as the house
of Jocundiacus near the city; but Merovech was harmed by no one. And as Gunthram was at
that time wanted for the killing of Theodobert, as we have said, king Chilperic sent a
letter all written out to the tomb of St. Martin which contained the request that the
blessed Martin would write back to him whether it was permissible to drag Gunthram from
his church or not. And the deacon Baudegisil, who brought the letter, sent to the holy
tomb a clean sheet of paper along with the one he had brought. And after waiting three
days and getting no answer he returned to Chilperic.

And he sent others to exact an oath of Gunthram not to leave the church without his
knowledge. Gunthram took the oath eagerly and gave an altarcloth as pledge that he would
never go thence without the king’s command. Now Merovech did not believe the sorcerers but
placed three books on the saint’s tomb, namely, Psalms, Kings and the Gospels, and keeping
watch the whole night he prayed the blessed confessor to reveal to him what was coming and
whether he could be king or not, in order that he might know by evidence from the Lord.
After this he continued three days in fasting, watching and prayer, and going to the
blessed grave a second time he opened the book of Kings. And the first verse on the page
which he opened was this: “Because you have forsaken the Lord your God and have gone after
other gods and have not done right in his sight, therefore the Lord your God has betrayed
you into the hands of your enemies.”

And this verse was found in the Psalms: “But thou hast brought evils upon them because of
their deceitfulness; thou hast hurled them down when they were lifted up. How have they
been brought to desolation? They have suddenly failed and perished because of their
iniquities.” And in the Gospels this was found: “Ye know that after two days the passover
cometh and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified.” At these answers he was
troubled and wept long at the tomb of the blessed bishop, and then taking duke Gunthram
with him he went off with five hundred men or more. He left the holy church and while
marching through the territory of Auxerre he was captured by Erpo, king Gunthram’s duke.
And while he was being held by him he escaped by some chance and entered the church of the
holy Germanus. On hearing this king Gunthram was angry and fined Erpo seven hundred gold
pieces and removed him from office, saying: “You held prisoner one who my brother says is
his enemy. Now if you intended to do this, you should first have brought him to me;
otherwise you should not have touched him whom you pretended to hold prisoner.”

King Chilperic’s army came as far as Tours and plundered this region and burned it and
laid it waste, and did not spare St. Martin’s property, but whatever he got his hands on
he took without regard for God or any fear. Merovech remained nearly two months in the
church I have mentioned and then fled and went to queen Brunhilda, but he was not received
by the Austrasians. And his father set his army in motion against the people of Champagne,
believing that he was hiding there. He did no injury, but he could not find Merovech. 15.
Inasmuch as Clothar and Sigibert had settled the Suevi and other tribes on their land when
Albin had gone to Italy, they who returned in the time of Sigibert, namely the men who had
been with Albin, rose against them, wishing to thrust them out from that country and
destroy them. But they offered the Saxons a third of the land, saying: “We can live
together without interfering with one another.” But the Saxons were angry at them because
they had themselves held this land before and they were by no means willing to be
pacified. Then the Suevi made them a second offer of a half and then of two-thirds,
leaving one-third for themselves. And when the Saxons refused this, they offered all their
flocks and herds with the land, provided only they would refrain from attacking them. But
they would not agree even to this and demanded battle. And before the battle, thinking
that they had the Suevi already as good as slain, they discussed among themselves how they
should divide their wives and what each should receive after their defeat. But God’s mercy
which does justice turned their thoughts another way. For when they fought there were
26,000 Saxons of whom 20,000 fell and of the Suevi 6000 of whom 480 only were laid low;
and the remainder won the victory. The Saxons who were left took oath that they would cut
neither beard nor hair until they had taken vengeance on their adversaries. But when they
fought again they were defeated with greater loss and so the war was ended.

[16. Macliavus and Bodic, counts of the Bretons, are succeeded by Theodoric and Waroc. 17.
King Gunthram loses his two sons. Easter is celebrated by some cities on March 21st, by
others on April 18th. Gunthram adopts his nephew Childebert and they order Chilperic to
restore what he had taken from them.] 18. After this Chilperic heard that Prætextatus,
bishop of Rouen, was giving presents to the people to his disadvantage, and ordered him to
appear before him. When he was examined he was found to have property intrusted to him by
queen Brunhilda. This was taken away and he was ordered to be kept in exile until he
should be heard by the bishops. The council met and he was brought before it. The bishops,
who went to Paris, were in the church of the holy apostle Peter. And the king said to him;
“Why did you decide, bishop, to unite in marriage my enemy Merovech, who ought to be my
son, and his aunt, that is, his uncle’s wife. Did you not know what the canons have
ordained for such a case? And not only is it proven that you went too far in this matter
but you actually gave gifts and urged him to kill me. You have made a son an enemy of his
father, you have seduced the people with money so that no one of them would keep faith
with me and you wished to give my kingdom over into the hands of another. When he said
this a multitude of Franks raised an angry shout and wished to break through the church
doors as if to drag the bishop out and stone him; but the king prevented them. And when
the bishop Prætextatus denied that he had done what the king charged him with, false
witnesses came who showed some articles of value saying:

“These and these you gave on condition that we would plight faith with Merovech. Upon this
he made answer; “You speak the truth in saying you have often received gifts from me, but
it was not for the purpose of driving the king from the kingdom. For when you furnished me
with excellent horses and other things what else could I do but repay you with equal
value? The king returned to his lodging, and we being gathered together sat in the
consistory of the church of the blessed Peter. And while we were talking together Ætius,
archdeacon of the church of Paris, came suddenly and greeting us said: “Hear me, bishops
of God who are gathered together; at this time you shall either exalt your name and shine
with the grace of good report or else no one will treat you hereafter as bishops of God if
you do not wisely assert yourselves or if you allow your brother to perish. When he said
this no one of the bishops made him any answer. For they feared the fury of the queen at
whose instance this was being done. As they continued thoughtful with finger on lip, I
said: “Most holy bishops, give your attention, I beg, to my words, and especially you who
seem to be on friendly terms with the king; give him holy and priestly counsel not to
burst out in fury at God’s servant and perish by his anger and lose kingdom and fame. When
I said this all were silent.

And in this silence I added: “Remember, my lord bishops, the word of the prophet when he
says: ‘If the watchman sees the iniquity of a man and does not declare it, he shall be
guilty for a lost soul. Therefore do not be silent but speak and place the king’s sins
before his eyes, lest perchance some evil may befall him and you be guilty for his soul.
Do you not know what happened lately? How Chlodomer seized Sigismund and thrust him into
prison, and Avitus, God’s priest, said to him: ‘Do not lay violent hands on him and when
you go to Burgundy you shall win the victory. But he disregarded what was said to him by
the priest and went and killed him with his wife and sons. And then he marched to Burgundy
and was there defeated by the army and slain. What of the emperor Maximus? When he forced
the blessed Martin to give communion to a certain bishop who was a homicide and Martin
yielded to the wicked king in order the more easily to free the condemned from death, the
judgment of the eternal King pursued him and Maximus was driven from the imperial throne
and condemned to the worst death. When I said this no one made any answer but all stared
in amazement. Still two flatterers from among them—it is painful to say it of
bishops—carried the report to the king, saying that he had no greater foe to his purposes
than I.

At once one of the attendants at court was sent in all haste to bring me before him. When
I came the king stood beside a bower made of branches and on his right bishop Bertram
stood and on his left Ragnemod—and there was before them a bench covered with bread and
different dishes. On seeing me the king said: “Bishop, you are bound to give justice
freely to all; and behold I do not obtain justice from you; but, as I see, you consent to
iniquity and in you the proverb is fulfilled that crow does not tear out the eye of crow.
To this I replied: “If any of us, O king, desires to leave the path of justice, he can be
corrected by you; but if you leave it, who shall rebuke you? We speak to you; but you
listen only if you wish; and if you refuse to listen who will condemn you except him who
asserts that he is justice? To this he answered, being inflamed against me by his
flatterers: “With all I have found justice and with you only I cannot find it. But I know
what I shall do that you may be disgraced before the people and that it may be evident to
all that you are unjust. I will call together the people of Tours and say to them ‘Cry
against Gregory, for he is unjust and renders justice to no man. And when they cry this
out I will reply:

‘I who am king cannot find justice with him and shall you who are less than I find it.’”
At this I said: “You do not know that I am unjust. But my conscience knows, to which the
secrets of the heart are revealed. And if the people cry aloud with false cries when you
attack me, it is nothing, because all know that this comes from you. And therefore it is
not I but rather you that shall be disgraced in the outcries. But why speak further? You
have the law and the canons; you ought to search them diligently; and then you will know
that the judgment of God overhangs you if you do not observe their commands. But he tried
to calm me, thinking that I did not understand that he was acting craftily, and pointing
to the broth which was set in front of him he said: “It was for you I had this broth
prepared; there is nothing else in it but fowl and a few peas. But I saw his flattery and
said to him: “Our food ought to be to do the will of God and not to delight in these
luxuries, in order by no means to neglect what he commands. Now do you who find fault with
others for injustice promise first that you will not neglect the law and the canons; and
then we will believe that you follow justice.

Then he stretched out his right hand and swore by all-powerful God that he would in no way
neglect the teaching of the law and the canons. Then I took bread and drank wine and
departed. But that night when the hymns for the night had been sung I heard the door of my
lodging struck with heavy blows, and sending a slave I learned that messengers from queen
Fredegunda stood there. They were brought in and I received greetings from the queen. Then
the slaves entreated me not to take a stand opposed to her. And at the same time they
promised two hundred pounds of silver if I would attack Prætextatus and bring about his
ruin. For they said: “We have already the promise of all the bishops; only don’t you go
against us. But I answered: “If you give me a thousand pounds of silver and gold what else
can I do except what the Lord instructs me to do? I promise only one thing, that I will
follow the decision that the rest arrive at in accordance with the canons. They did not
understand what I meant but thanked me and went away. In the morning some of the bishops
came to me with a similar message; to which I gave a similar answer.

We met in the morning in St. Peter’s church and the king was present and said: “The
authority of the canons declares that a bishop detected in theft should be cast from the
office of bishop. When I asked who was the bishop against whom the charge of theft was
made the king answered: “You saw the articles of value which he stole from us. The king
had showed us three days before two cases full of costly articles and ornaments of
different sorts which were valued at more than three thousand solidi; moreover a bag heavy
with coined gold, holding about two thousand pieces. The king said this had been stolen
from him by the bishop. And the bishop answered: “I suppose you remember that when queen
Brunhilda left Rouen I went to you and said that I had her property in keeping, to wit,
five parcels, and that her slaves came to me frequently to take them back but I was
unwilling to give them without your advice. And you said to me, O king: ‘Rid yourself of
these things and let the woman have her property back, lest enmity rise over this matter
between me and Childebert my nephew. I went back to the city and gave one case to the
slaves for they could not carry more. They returned a second time and asked for the
others. I again took counsel with your greatness. And you gave me directions saying:

‘Get rid of these things, bishop, get rid of them, for fear the matter may cause a
scandal. I again gave them two cases and two more remained with me. But why do you
calumniate me now and accuse me, when this case should not be put in the class of theft
but of safe-keeping. Then the king said: “If you had this property deposited in your
possession for safe-keeping, why did you open one of them and cut in pieces a girdle woven
of gold threads and give to men to drive me from the kingdom. Bishop Prætextatus answered:
“I told you before that I had received their gifts and as I had nothing at hand to give I
therefore took this and gave it in return for their gifts. I regarded as belonging to me
what belonged to my son Merovech whom I received from the font of regeneration. King
Chilperic saw that he could not overcome him by false charges, and being greatly
astonished and thrown into confusion by his conscience, he withdrew from us and called
certain of his flatterers and said: “I confess that I’ve been beaten by the bishop’s
replies and I know that what he says is true. What am I to do now, that the queen’s will
may be done on him? And he said: “Go and approach him and speak as if giving your own
advice; ‘You know that king Chilperic is pious and merciful and is quickly moved to
compassion;

humble yourself before him and say that you are guilty of the charges he has made. Then we
will all throw ourselves at his feet and prevail on him to pardon you.’” Bishop
Prætextatus was deceived and promised he would do this. In the morning we met at the usual
place and the king came and said to the bishop: “If you gave gifts to these men in return
for gifts, why did you ask for an oath that they would keep faith with Merovech? The
bishop replied: “I confess I did ask their friendship for him; and I would have asked not
men alone but, if it were right to say so, I would have called an angel from heaven to be
his helper; for he was my spiritual son from the baptismal font, as I have often said. And
when the dispute grew warmer, bishop Prætextatus threw himself on the ground and said: “I
have sinned against heaven and before thee, most merciful king: I am a wicked homicide; I
wished to kill you and raise your son to the throne. When he said this the king threw
himself down at the feet of the bishops and said: “Hear, most holy bishops, the accused
confesses his awful crime. And when we had raised the king from the ground with tears, he
ordered Prætextatus to leave the church. He went himself to his lodging, and sent the book
of canons to which a new quaternion had been added containing the canons called apostolic
and having the following:

Let a bishop detected in homicide, adultery or perjury be cast out from his office. This
was read and while Prætextatus stood in a daze, bishop Bertram spoke: “Hear, brother and
fellow-bishop; you have not the king’s favor; and therefore you cannot enjoy our mercy
before you win the indulgence of the king. After this the king demanded that his robe
should be torn from him and the hundred and eighth psalm which contains the curses against
Iscariot be read over his head and at the least, that the judgment be entered against him
to be excommunicated forever. Which proposals I resisted according to the king’s promise
that nothing be done outside the canons. Then Prætextatus was taken from our sight and
placed in custody. And attempting to flee in the night he was grievously beaten and was
thrust off into exile in an island of the sea that lies near the city of Coutances.

After this the report was that Merovech was a second time trying to take refuge in the
church of St. Martin. But Chilperic gave orders to watch the church and close all
entrances. And leaving one door by which a few of the clergy were to go in for the
services, guards kept all the rest closed. Which caused great inconvenience to the people.
When we were staying in Paris signs appeared in the sky, namely, twenty rays in the
northern part which rose in the east and sped to the west; and one of them was more
extended and overtopped the rest and when it had risen to a great height it soon passed
away, and likewise the remainder which followed disappeared. I suppose they announced
Merovech’s death. Now when Merovech was lurking in Champagne near Rheims and did not trust
himself to the Austrasians openly, he was entrapped by the people of Therouanne, who said
that they would abandon his father Chilperic and serve him if he came to them. And he took
his bravest men and went to them swiftly. Then they revealed the stratagem they had
prepared and shut him up at a certain village and surrounded him with armed men and sent
messengers to his father. And he listened to them and purposed to hasten thither. But
while Merovech was detained in a certain inn he began to fear that he would pay many
penalties to satisfy the vengeance of his enemies, and called to him Galen his slave and
said:

“Up to the present we have had one mind and purpose. I ask you not to allow me to fall
into the hands of my enemies, but to take your sword and rush upon me. And Galen did not
hesitate but stabbed him with his dagger. The king came and found him dead. There were
some at the time who said that Merovech’s words, which we have just reported, were an
invention of the queen, and that Merovech had been secretly killed at her command. Galen
was seized and his hands, feet, ears, and the end of his nose were cut off, and he was
subjected to many other tortures and met a cruel death. Grindio they fastened to a wheel
and raised aloft, and Ciucilo, once count of king Sigibert’s palace, they executed by
beheading. Moreover they cruelly butchered by various forms of death many others who had
come with Merovech. Men said at that time that bishop Egidius and Gunthram Boso were the
leaders in the betrayal, because Gunthram enjoyed the secret friendship of Fredegunda for
the killing of Theodobert, and Egidius had been her friend for a long time.

[19. Tiberius Cæsar, his alms to the poor, and the treasures miraculously discovered by
him.] 20. An uproar arose against the bishops Salunius and Sagittarius. They had been
trained by the holy Nicetius, bishop of Lyons, and had attained the office of deacon; and
in his time Salunius was made bishop of Embrun and Sagittarius of Gap. Having reached the
office of bishop they became their own masters and in a mad way began to seize property,
wound, kill, commit adultery, and various other crimes, and at one time when Victor,
bishop of Saint-Paul Trois-Châteaux was celebrating his birthday, they sent a band of men
to attack him with swords and arrows. They went and tore his robes, wounded his servants,
and carried off the dishes and everything used at the dinner, leaving the bishop
overwhelmed by abuse. When king Gunthram learned of it he ordered a synod to meet in
Lyons. The bishops assembled with the patriarch, blessed Nicetius, and after examining the
case found that they were absolutely convicted of the crimes charged to them, and they
ordered that men guilty of such acts should be removed from the office of bishop. But
since Salunius and Sagittarius knew that the king was still favorable to them they went to
him complaining that they were unjustly removed and asking for permission to go to the
pope of the city of Rome. The king listened to their prayers and gave them letters and let
them go. They went to John the pope and told that they had been removed without any good
reason.

And he sent letters to the king in which he directed that they should be restored to their
places. This the king did without delay, first rebuking them at length. But, what is
worse, no improvement followed. However they did ask pardon of bishop Victor and
surrendered the men whom they had sent at the time of the disturbance. But he remembered
the Lord’s teaching that evil should not be repaid one’s enemies for evil and did them no
harm but allowed them to go free. For this he was afterward suspended from the communion,
because after making a public accusation he had secretly pardoned his enemies without the
advice of the brethren to whom he had made the charge. But by the king’s favor he was
again restored to communion. But these men daily engaged in greater crimes and, as we have
stated before, they armed themselves like laymen, and killed many with their own hands in
the battles which Mummolus fought with the Lombards. And among their fellow-citizens they
were carried away by animosity and beat a number with clubs and let their fury carry them
as far as the shedding of blood. Because of this the outcry of the people again reached
the king. The king ordered them to be summoned. On their arrival he refused to let them
come into his presence, thinking that their hearing should be held first and that if they
were found good men they would deserve an audience with the king.

But Sagittarius was transported with rage, taking the matter hard, and being light and
vain and ready with thoughtless speech, he began to make many loud declarations about the
king and to say that his sons cannot inherit the kingdom because their mother had been
taken to the king’s bed from among the slaves of Magnachar; not knowing that the families
of the wives are now disregarded and they are called the sons of a king who have been
begotten by a king. On hearing this the king was greatly aroused and took away from them
horses, slaves and whatever they had, and ordered them to be taken and shut up in distant
monasteries to do penance there, leaving not more than a single clerk to each, and giving
terrible warnings to the judges of the places to guard them with armed men and leave no
opportunity open for any one to visit them. Now the king’s sons were living at this time,
and the older of them began to be sick. And the king’s friends went to him and said: “If
the king would deign to hear favorably the words of his servants they would speak in his
ears. And he said; “Speak whatever you wish. And they said: “Beware lest perhaps these
bishops be condemned to exile though innocent, and the king’s sin be increased somewhat,
and because of it the son of our master perish. And the king said; “Go with all speed and
release them and beg them to pray for our little ones.

They departed and the bishops were released and leaving the monasteries they met and
kissed each other because they had not seen each other for a long time, and returned to
their cities and were so penitent that they apparently never ceased from psalm-singing,
fasting, almsgiving, reading the book of the songs of David through the day and spending
the night in singing hymns and meditating on the readings. But this absolute piety did not
last long and they fell a second time and generally spent the nights in feasting and
drinking, so that when the clergy were singing the matins in the church these were calling
for cups and drinking wine. There was no mention at all of God, no services were observed.
When morning came they arose from dinner and covered themselves with soft coverings and
buried in drunken sleep they would lie till the third hour of the day. And there were
women with whom they polluted themselves. And then they would rise and bathe and lie down
to eat; in the evening they arose and later they devoted themselves greedily to dinner
until the dawn, as we have mentioned above. So they did every day until God’s anger fell
upon them, which we will tell of later.

[21. Winnoc the Breton is made a priest. The miracle of the holy water from the tomb of
St. Martin. 22. Death of Chilperic’s young son. 23. List of prodigies. 24. Chilperic takes
Poitiers from Childebert. 25. Duke Dracolen captures the deserter Dacco and takes him to
Chilperic. He commits suicide. Dracolen then meets Gunthram Boso, fights him on horseback
and is killed. Violent end of Gunthram’s father-in-law. 26. Chilperic sends an army
including “the people of Tours” against the Bretons. Later he “orders fines to be paid by
the poor and the younger clergy of the church because they had not served in the army”
although “there was no custom for these to perform any state service.” 27. Salunius and
Sagittarius the bishops are degraded.] 28. King Chilperic ordered new and heavy
impositions to be made in all his kingdom. For this reason many left these cities and
abandoned their properties and fled to other kingdoms, thinking it better to be in exile
elsewhere than to be subject to such danger. For it had been decreed that each landowner
should pay a measure of wine per acre [aripennis]. Moreover many other taxes were imposed
both on the remaining lands and on the slaves, which could not be paid. When the people of
Limoges saw that they were weighed down by such burdens they assembled on the first of
March and wished to kill Marcus the referendary who had been ordered to collect these
dues, and they would have done so, had not bishop Ferreolus freed him from the threatening
danger. The assembled multitude seized the tax books and burned them. At this the king was
greatly disturbed and sent officials from his court and fined the people huge sums and
frightened them with tortures and put them to death. They say, too, that at that time
abbots and priests were stretched on crosses and subjected to various tortures, the royal
messengers accusing them falsely of having been accomplices in the burning of the books at
the rising of the people. And henceforth they imposed more grievous taxes.

[29. Fighting between Bretons and Franks goes on. 30. Tiberius succeeds Justin as emperor.
31. The Bretons pillage the country about Nantes and Rennes.] 32. At Paris a certain woman
fell under reproach, many charging that she had left her husband and was intimate with
another. Then her husband’s kinsmen went to her father saying: “Either make your daughter
behave properly or she shall surely die, lest her wantonness lay a disgrace on our family.
“I know,” said the father, “that my daughter is well-behaved and the word is not true that
evil men speak of her. Still, to keep the reproach from going further, I will make her
innocent by my oath. And they replied: “If she is without guilt declare it on oath upon
the tomb here of the blessed Denis the martyr. “I will do so,” said the father. Then
having made the agreement they met at the church of the holy martyr and the father raised
his hands above the altar and swore that his daughter was not guilty. On the other hand,
others on the part of the husband declared that he had committed perjury. They entered
into a dispute, drew their swords and rushed on one another, and killed one another before
the very altar. Now they were men advanced in years and leaders with king Chilperic. Many
received sword wounds, the holy church was spattered with human blood, the doors were
pierced with darts and swords and godless missiles raged as far as the very tomb. When the
struggle had with difficulty been stopped, the church was put under an interdict until the
whole matter should come under the king’s notice.

They hastened to the presence of the prince but were not received with favor. They were
sent back to the bishop of the place and the order was given that if they were not found
guilty of this crime they might rightly be admitted to communion. Then they atoned for
their evil conduct and were taken back to the communion of the church by Ragnemod, bishop
of Paris. Not many days later the woman on being summoned to trial hanged herself. [33. A
long list of prodigies.] 34. A very grievous plague followed these prodigies. For while
the kings were quarreling and again preparing for civil war, dysentery seized upon nearly
the whole of the Gauls. The sufferers had a high fever with vomiting and excessive pain in
the kidneys; the head and neck were heavy. Their expectorations were of a saffron color or
at least green. It was asserted by many that it was a secret poison. The common people
called it internal pimples and this is not incredible, seeing that when cupping glasses
were placed on the shoulders or legs mattery places formed and broke and the corrupted
blood ran out and many were cured. Moreover herbs that are used to cure poisons were drunk
and helped a good many. This sickness began in the month of August and seized upon the
little ones and laid them on their beds. We lost dear sweet children whom we nursed on our
knees or carried in our arms and nourished with attentive care, feeding them with our own
hand. But wiping away our tears we say with the blessed Job: “The Lord has given; the Lord
has taken away; the Lord’s will has been done. Blessed be his name through the ages.”

In these days king Chilperic was very sick. When he got well his younger son, who was not
yet reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, fell ill, and when they saw he was in danger they
baptized him. He was doing a little better when his older brother named Clodobert was
attacked by the same disease. Their mother Fredegunda saw they were in danger of death and
she repented too late, and said to the king: “The divine goodness has long borne with our
bad actions; it has often rebuked us with fevers and other evils but repentance did not
follow and now we are losing our sons. It is the tears of the poor, the outcries of widows
and the sighs of orphans that are destroying them. We have no hope left now in gathering
wealth. We get riches and we do not know for whom. Our treasures will be left without an
owner, full of violence and curses. Our storehouses are full of wine and our barns of
grain, and our treasuries are full of gold, silver, precious stones, necklaces, and all
the wealth of rulers. But we are losing what we held more dear. Come, please, let us burn
all the wicked tax lists and let what sufficed for your father king Clothar, suffice for
your treasury.

So the queen spoke, beating her breast with her fists, and she ordered the books to be
brought out that had been brought from her cities by Marcus, and when she had thrown them
in the fire she said to the king: “Why do you delay; do what you see me do, so that if we
have lost our dear children we may at least escape eternal punishment. Then the king
repented and burned all the tax books and when they were burned he sent men to stop future
taxes. After this the younger child wasted away in great pain and died. They carried him
with great grief from Braine to Paris and buried him in the church of St. Denis. Clodobert
they placed on a litter and took him to St. Medard’s church in Soissons, and threw
themselves down at the holy tomb and made vows for him, but being already breathless and
weak he died at midnight. They buried him in the holy church of the martyrs Crispin and
Crispinian. There was much lamenting among all the people; for men and women followed this
funeral sadly wearing the mourning clothes that are customary when a husband or wife dies.
After this king Chilperic was generous to cathedrals and churches and the poor.

35. In these days Austrechild, wife of prince Gunthram, succumbed to this disease, but
before she breathed out her worthless life, seeing she could not escape, she drew deep
sighs and wished to have partners in her death, intending that at her funeral there should
be mourning for others. It is said that she made a request of the king in Herodian fashion
saying: “I would still have had hopes of life if I had not fallen into the hands of wicked
physicians; for the draughts they gave me have taken my life away perforce and have caused
me swiftly to lose the light of day. And therefore I beg you let my death not go
unavenged, and I conjure you with an oath to have them slain by the sword as soon as I
depart from the light; so that, just as I cannot live longer, so they too shall not boast
after my death, and the grief of our friends and of theirs shall be one and the same.” So
speaking she gave up her unhappy soul. And the king after the customary period of public
mourning fulfilled her wicked order, forced by the oath to his cruel wife. He ordered the
two physicians who had attended her to be slain with the sword, and the wisdom of many
believes that this was not done without sin.

[36. Nanthinus, count of Angoulême, dies of the plague. He had been a bitter enemy of the
bishops. 37. Death of Martin, bishop of Galicia. 38. The Arian queen of Spain, Gaisuenta,
is enraged at her Catholic daughter-in-law. “She seizes the girl by the hair of her head,
dashes her on the ground, kicks her for a long time and covers her with blood and orders
her to be stripped and ducked in the fish-pond.” The girl however converts her husband but
he is sent into exile. 39. Fredegunda brings about the death of Clovis, Chilperic’s son.
40. Elafius, bishop of Châlons, and Eonius, exiled bishop of Vannes, die. 41. Chilperic
seizes legates sent by the king of Galicia to king Gunthram. List of prodigies including a
destructive wind of which Gregory says; “Its space was about seven acres in width but one
could not estimate its length.”] 42. Maurilio, bishop of the city of Cahors, was seriously
ill of gout, but in addition to the pain which the humor caused, he subjected himself to
added tortures. For he often put white-hot iron against his feet and legs in order to make
his pain greater. While many were candidates for his office he himself preferred Ursicinus
who had once been referendary to queen Vulthrogotha and he begged that Ursicinus be
ordained before his death, and then passed away from the world. He was a very liberal
almsgiver, very learned in the church writings, so much so that he often repeated from
memory the succession of generations given in the books of the Old Testament which many
find it difficult to remember. He was also just in judgments, and he defended the poor of
his church from the hand of the wicked according to the judgment of Job: “I delivered the
poor from the hand of the mighty and I helped the needy who had no helper. The mouth of
the widow blessed me, for I was an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, and a father to
the weak.”

[43. Debate over the Trinity between Gregory and a Spanish legate.] 44. At the same time
king Chilperic wrote a little treatise to the effect that the holy Trinity should not be
so called with reference to distinct persons but should merely have the meaning of God,
saying that it was unseemly that God should be called a person like a man of flesh;
affirming also that the Father is the same as the Son and that the Holy Spirit also is the
same as the Father and the Son. “Such,” said he, “was the view of the prophets and
patriarchs and such is the teaching the law itself has given. When he had had this read to
me he said: “I want you and the other teachers of the church to hold this view. But I
answered him: “Good king, abandon this belief; it is your duty to follow the doctrine
which the other teachers of the church left to us after the time of the apostles, the
teachings of Hilarius and Eusebius which you professed at baptism. Then the king was angry
and said: “It is plain that in this case Hilarius and Eusebius are my bitter enemies. And
I answered him: “It is better for you to be careful and not make enemies either of God or
his saints. Now let me tell you that as persons the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
are distinct.

It was not the Father who took on flesh, nor the Holy Spirit, but the Son, so that he who
was Son of God became the son of a virgin also for the redemption of man. It was not the
Father who suffered, nor the Holy Spirit, but the Son, so that he who had taken on flesh
in the world, was himself offered for the world. And what you say about persons must be
understood not in a material but in a spiritual sense. In these three persons, then, there
is one glory, one eternity, one power. But he became excited and said: “I will explain
these matters to wiser men than you and they will agree with me. I replied: “No wise man
will he be but a fool, who will consent to follow your proposals. At this he ground his
teeth and said no more. A few days later bishop Salvius of Albi visited him and he had
this treatise read to him, begging him to accept his views. But upon hearing them Salvius
was so revolted that if he could have laid hands on the paper containing the writing he
would have torn it into bits. And so the king gave up the project. The king wrote also
other books in verse following Sedulius as a model. But those poor verses have no relation
of any sort with meter.

He also added letters to our alphabet, namely ω as the Greeks have it, æ, the, υυι, which
are written by the following characters: ω θ, æ ψ, the Ζ, υυι Δ. And he wrote to all the
cities of his kingdom that boys should be taught these letters and that books written in
previous times should be erased with pumice and rewritten. [45. Agricola, bishop of
Chalon-sur-Sâone, dies. “He constructed many buildings in that city, erecting houses, and
building a church which he supported with columns and adorned with varicolored marbles and
mosaics.”] 46. At that time also Dalmatius bishop of Rodez passed away, a man
distinguished for every kind of holiness, an abstainer from food and the desires of the
flesh, a great almsgiver and kind to all, steadfast enough in prayer and watching. He
built a church, but frequently tore it down to build it better and left it unfinished.
After his death, as usual there were many candidates for his office. And the priest
Transobad, who at one time had been his archdeacon, was making a great effort for it,
relying on the fact that he had put his son in care of Gogo who was then tutor to the
king. Now the bishop had made a will in which he indicated to the king who was to receive
this office after his death, adjuring him with terrible oaths not to appoint a stranger in
that church, nor a greedy man, nor one entangled by marriage, but that one free from all
these drawbacks should be put in his place, who would spend his days in the praise of the
Lord and nothing else. Now the priest Transobad prepared a feast for the clergy in the
city. And while they were seated one of the priests began to abuse shamelessly the bishop
mentioned above, and he went so far as to call him a madman and a fool. While he was
speaking the butler came to offer him a cup. He took it, but as he was raising it to his
mouth he began to tremble and the cup dropped from his hand and he leaned his head on the
man next him and gave up the ghost. He was carried from the feast to the grave and covered
with earth. After this the bishop’s will was read in the presence of king Childebert and
his chief men, and Theodosius who was then archdeacon in that city was ordained bishop.

47. Now Chilperic heard of all the harm Leudast was doing to the churches of Tours and to
all the people and he sent Ansoald thither. He came at the festival of St. Martin and,
giving us and the people a choice, raised Eunomius to the office of count. Then Leudast
perceived that he had lost his place and went to Chilperic, saying: “Most pious king, up
to now I have guarded the city of Tours; but now that I have been removed see how it will
be guarded. For let me tell you that bishop Gregory purposes to surrender it to Sigibert’s
son.” Upon hearing this the king said: “By no means, but you make this charge only for the
reason that you have been removed.” But he answered: “There is more that the bishop says
about you; for he says that the queen committed adultery with bishop Bertram.” Then the
king was enraged and struck and kicked him and ordered him to be loaded with chains and
thrust into prison.

48. Now as this book should soon be finished I wish to tell something of his actions; and
first it seems best to describe in order his family, his native place, and his character.
There is an island of Poitou called Gracina in which he was born to a slave (named
Leuchadius) belonging to a vine-dresser of the fisc. Thence he was sent to service and
assigned to the royal kitchen. But as his eyes were bleared when he was young and the
bitter smoke hurt them, he was removed from the pestle and promoted to the basket, but he
only pretended to be happy among the fermented dough, and soon ran away and left his
service. And when he had been brought back twice or three times and could not be prevented
from running away, he was punished by having one ear cut off. Then as he was not able by
any power to conceal the mark of disgrace on him, he fled to queen Marcovefa, whom king
Charibert loved greatly and had married in her sister’s place. She received him gladly and
appointed him keeper of her best horses. Then he was filled with vanity and given over to
pride and began to intrigue for the office of count of the stables. Getting this, he
despised and disregarded all; he was puffed up with vanity, softened with wantonness,
inflamed with greed and he hastened hither and thither in the service of his patroness.

After her death, being now rich with plunder, he made gifts to king Charibert and began to
hold a place with him. Then the sins of the people increased and he was sent as count to
Tours, and here he was more uplifted by the pride of his high office and here he showed
himself to be a greedy plunderer, a loud-mouthed disputer and a foul adulterer. And here
by sowing discord and bringing false charges he acquired no small treasure. After
Charibert’s death, when the city had fallen to Sigibert’s share he went over to Chilperic
and all that he had wickedly accumulated was taken by the adherents of the king I have
named. Then king Chilperic took possession of Tours through his son Theodobert, I having
by this time come to Tours, and he was strongly recommended to me by Theodobert to hold
the office of count which he had held before. He showed himself very humble and submissive
to us, swearing often by the tomb of the holy bishop that he would never go against reason
and that he would be loyal to me in his own causes as well as in all needs of the church.
For he was afraid that, as later happened, king Sigibert would bring the city again under
his rule. When Sigibert died Chilperic succeeded him and Leudast again became count. But
when Merovech came to Tours he plundered all Leudast’s property. Now during the two years
that Sigibert held Tours, Leudast lay hid among the Bretons.

And when he took the office of count, as we have said, he was so foolish as to enter the
bishop’s house with breastplate and coat of mail, girt with a quiver and carrying a lance
in his hand, and with a helmet on his head, being secure with no one because he was an
enemy to all. And if he sat at a trial with the chief men of the clergy and laity and saw
any one seeking justice, he would at once be transported into a rage and would pour out
abuse on the citizens; he would order priests to be dragged away in fetters and soldiers
beaten with clubs, and he showed such cruelty as can scarcely be described. And when
Merovech, who had plundered his property, went away, Leudast began to accuse me falsely,
asserting that Merovech had followed my advice in taking his property. But after doing me
damage he again repeated his oath and gave a cloth from the tomb of the blessed Martin as
security that he would never oppose me.

49. But as it is a tedious thing to relate in order his perjuries and other crimes, let us
come to the story of how he wished by vile and wicked calumnies to oust me from my place,
and how the divine vengeance fell upon him, so that the saying was fulfilled, “Every
supplanter shall be supplanted,” and again; “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. After
the many wrongs he did to me and mine, after many plunderings of the church property, he
united to himself the priest Riculf, as perverse and wicked as himself, and went so far as
to say that I had made a charge against queen Fredegunda, asserting that if my archdeacon
Plato or my friend Galien should be subjected to torture they would certainly convict me
of such words. It was then that the king was angry, as I have stated above, and after
beating and kicking him ordered him to be loaded with chains and thrust into prison. Now
he said that he had Riculf, a cleric, on whose authority he said this. But this Riculfus
was a sub-deacon, as unstable as Leudast, who a year before had entered into this design
with Leudast, and had looked for causes of offense in order, forsooth, to go over to
Leudast because I was angry, and he found them and went to him, and for four months they
prepared all their tricks and laid their traps, and then he came back to me with Leudast
and begged me to pardon and take him back.

I did it, I confess, and publicly received a secret enemy into my household. And when
Leudast went away, Riculf threw himself at my feet and said: “Unless you come quickly to
my help I shall perish. Behold, at Leudast’s urging I have said what I should not have.
Now send me to another kingdom; if you do not I shall be seized by the king’s men and
suffer the punishment of death. And I said to him: “If you have said anything out of the
way your words shall be on your own head; for I will not send you to another kingdom, lest
I be held in suspicion by the king. After this Leudast became his accuser, saying that he
had the words already mentioned from Riculf, the subdeacon. And he was bound and put under
guard and Leudast was released. And Riculf said that Galien and the archdeacon Plato were
present on the same day when the bishop said this. But the priest Riculf, who by this time
had the promise of the bishop’s office from Leudast, was so elated that he more than
equaled Simon in his pride. And he who had sworn to me three times or more on the tomb of
St. Martin, on the sixth day of Easter week made at me so furiously with abuse and
spittings that he all but laid hands on me, confident, of course, in the trap he had
prepared.

On the next day, that is, the day before Easter Sunday, Leudast came to the city of Tours
and pretending to have other business, seized Plato the archdeacon and Galien, and bound
them and ordered them led to the queen, loaded with chains and without their robes. I
heard of this while I sat in the bishop’s house, and in sadness and worry I went into the
oratory and took the book of David’s song, that when opened a verse might give some
consolation. And this is what I found: “He led them in hope and they did not fear, and the
sea covered their enemies. Meantime they embarked on the river above the bridge which was
supported by two boats, and the boat which carried Leudast sank, and if he had not escaped
by swimming he would perhaps have perished with his comrades. And the other boat which was
in tow of this one and carried the prisoners, was kept above water by God’s help. So the
prisoners were taken to the king and were immediately accused in such terms that their
punishment would be death. But the king thought it over and freed them from chains and
kept them unharmed in free custody. Now at the city of Tours duke Berulf and count
Eunomius concocted a story that king Gunthram wished to take the city of Tours and
“therefore,” said they, “the city ought to be guarded so that there would be no
carelessness.

They craftily set guards at the gates who pretended they were guarding the city but were
really watching me. They also sent persons to advise me to take the valuables of the
church and flee secretly to Clermont. But I did not take the advice. Then the king
summoned the bishops of his kingdom and ordered the case carefully gone into. And when the
clerk Riculf was talking secretly as he often did, and was telling many lies against me
and my friends, Modestus, a carpenter, said to him, “Ill-fated man, who talk so
insubordinately against your bishop. It would be better for you to be silent and to beg
pardon from the bishop and obtain his favor. At this Riculf began to cry with a loud voice
and say: “Behold the man who orders me to be silent that I may not make the truth public.
Behold the queen’s enemy who does not permit the charge against her to be looked into.
This was at once reported to the queen. Modestus was seized, tortured, whipped, put in
chains, and kept under guard. And though he was between two guards and held by chains to a
pillar, the guards fell asleep and at midnight he prayed to the Lord that his power should
deign to visit a wretched man and that an innocent prisoner should be freed by the
visitation of the bishops Martin and Medard. Then the chains were broken, the pillar was
shattered, the door opened, and he came to the church of St.

Medard where I was keeping watch by night. The bishops assembled at Braine and were
ordered to meet in a house. Then the king came, and after greeting all and receiving their
blessing, he took his seat. Then Bertram, bishop of Bordeaux, against whom and the queen
this charge had been brought, explained the case and questioned me, saying that the charge
had been brought against him and the queen by me. I denied in truth that I had said these
things, saying others might have heard them but I had not invented them. Now outside the
doors there was a great shouting among the people, who said: “Why are these charges made
against a bishop of God? Why does the king prosecute such charges? The bishop could not
have said such things even about a slave. Alas, Alas! Lord God help thy servant. But the
king said: “The charge against my wife is an insult to me. If therefore it is your will
that witnesses be heard against the bishop behold here they are. But if it is your
decision that this should not be done, and the matter be left to the honor of the bishop,
speak. I will gladly hear your command. All wondered both at the king’s wisdom and his
patience. Then all said: “An inferior cannot be believed against a bishop,” and the case
came to this, that masses were said at three altars and I cleared myself of these words by
oath. And though it was contrary to the canons, still it was done for the king’s sake.

Moreover I cannot pass over the fact that queen Riguntha sympathized with my grief and
fasted with all her household until the slave reported that I had done all as was
arranged. Then the bishops returned to the king and said: “All that was required of the
bishop has been done. What now remains for you, O king, except to be excommunicated
together with Bertram, the accuser of his brother? “O no,” said he, “I only told what I
had heard. When they asked who had told this, he answered that he had heard it from
Leudast. But he had already fled, from the weakness either of his resolution or of his
cause. Then all the bishops decided that the spreader of scandal, traducer of the queen,
accuser of a bishop, should be kept out of all churches because he had withdrawn from
their judgment. And they sent a letter with their signatures to the bishops who were not
present. And so each returned to his own place. Leudast heard this and took refuge in the
church of St. Peter in Paris. But when he heard the king’s edict that he should be
received by no one in his kingdom, and especially because his son whom he had left at home
had died, he came to Tours secretly and carried his valuables to Bourges. And when the
king’s men pursued him he escaped by flight. But his wife was captured and sent into exile
at a village of Tournai. But the clerk Riculf was sentenced to death.

But I managed to secure his life, although I could not free him from torture. No material
thing, no metal, could have endured such blows as this wretch. For from the third hour he
hung suspended from a tree with his hands tied behind his back; at the ninth he was taken
down, stretched on a wheel, beaten with clubs, rods, and doubled thongs, and not by one or
two, but there were as many floggers as could reach his miserable limbs. When he was in
danger, he disclosed the truth and made known the secret plot. He said that the charge had
been made against the queen for this reason, that she might be driven from the kingdom and
Clovis might kill his brothers and take the kingdom, and make Leudast a duke, and that the
priest Riculf, who had been a friend of Clovis from the time of the blessed bishop
Eufronius, might get the bishopric of Tours, while this clerk Riculf would get the
archdeaconate. Returning to Tours by the grace of God we found the church thrown into
confusion by the priest Riculf. Now this man had been raised from the poor under bishop
Eufronius and made archdeacon. Later he was raised to the priesthood and returned to his
own place. He was always lofty, inflated, and presumptuous. While I was still with the
king this man went shamelessly into the bishop’s house as if already bishop, and made an
inventory of the church silver and brought the rest of the property under his control.

To the more important clergy he gave presents and distributed vineyards and meadows; the
lesser he beat with clubs and many blows even with his own hand, saying: “Recognize your
master, who has triumphed over his enemies and by his determination has cleared Tours of
the people of Clermont. The wretch did not know that with the exception of five bishops
all the other bishops of Tours are connected with my family stock. He used often to say to
his friends that a wise man can be deceived only by perjuries. Now upon my return, when he
continued to despise me and did not come to greet me as the other citizens did, but rather
threatened to kill me, by the advice of the provincials I had him removed to a monastery.
And while he was closely watched there, messengers from bishop Felix who had been a
supporter of the charge against me came; the abbot was deceived by perjuries and Riculf
escaped and went to bishop Felix. He received him with respect though he should have
cursed him. And Leudast hastened to Bourges and took with him all the treasures which he
had got by spoiling the poor. Not long after, the people of Bourges with the judge of the
place attacked him and carried off all his gold and silver and what he had brought with
him, leaving nothing but what he had on him, and they would have taken life itself if he
had not fled.

Then he regained support and with some men of Tours attacked his plunderers, and killing
one, he recovered some of his property and returned to the territory of Tours. Hearing
this, duke Berulf sent his men well armed to seize him. He perceived that he would soon be
taken and abandoned his property and fled to the church of St. Hilary in Poitiers. Duke
Berulf sent the captured property to the king. Then Leudast left the church and attacked
the houses of several and took plunder without concealment. Moreover he was often caught
in adultery on the sacred porch itself. The queen was roused that a place consecrated to
God should be so polluted, and ordered him to be cast from the holy church. And being cast
out, he went a second time to his friends in Bourges asking to be concealed. 50. Although
I should have spoken before of my conversation with the blessed bishop Salvius, it slipped
my mind, and I suppose it is not wicked if it is written later. When I had said good-by to
the king after the synod I mentioned, and was anxious to return home, I decided not to go
before kissing this man and taking leave of him. And I found him in the entrance of the
house of Braine. And I said to him that I was about to return home. Then we withdrew a
little and speaking of this and that he said to me: “Do you see upon this roof what I
see?” I replied: “Why, I see the roof-covering which the king lately gave orders to place
there.” But he asked: “Don’t you see anything else?” And I said: “Nothing else.” For I
suspected that he was making a joke. And I added: “Tell me what more you see.” But he drew
a deep sigh and said; “I see the sword of divine wrath unsheathed and threatening this
house.” The bishop’s words were not wrong; for twenty days later there died the two sons
of the king whose deaths I have described before.

Here ends the Fifth Book.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK VI

[1. Childebert allies himself with Chilperic instead of with Gunthram; a synod meets at
Lyons.] 2. Meantime king Chilperic’s legates, who had gone three years before to the
emperor Tiberius, returned, but not without severe loss and danger. For as they did not
dare to enter the harbor of Marseilles on account of the quarrels among the kings, they
made for Agde which is situated in the Gothic kingdom. But before they could reach the
shore the ship was driven by the wind and dashed on the land and broken to fragments. The
legates and their men, seeing they were in danger, seized planks and with difficulty
reached the shore, many of the men being lost; but most escaped. The inhabitants took the
articles that the waves carried ashore, but they recovered the more valuable of them and
carried them to king Chilperic. The people of Agde nevertheless kept much. At that time I
had gone to the villa of Nogent to see the king, and there he showed me a great basin of
fifty pounds’ weight which he had made of gold and gems and he said: “I made this to bring
honor and glory to the Frankish people. And I shall make many more if I live.” He showed
me also gold coins each of a pound’s weight sent by the emperor having on one side the
likeness of the emperor and the inscription in a circle: Tiberii Constantini Perpetui
Augusti and on the other a four-horse chariot and charioteer with the inscription: Gloria
Romanorum. He showed me also many other beautiful things brought by the legates.

[3. The alliance between Chilperic and Childebert is confirmed and they agree to take
Gunthram’s kingdom away from him.] 4. Now Lupus, duke of Champagne, had long been
continually harassed and plundered by his enemies and especially by Ursio and Bertefred.
And at length they made an agreement to kill him and they marched against him. But queen
Brunhilda heard of it, and grieving at the unjust attacks on her loyal supporter she armed
herself like a man and rushed into the midst of the opposing forces and cried: “Do not, O
warriors, do not do this evil; do not attack the innocent; do not for one man engage in a
battle which will destroy the welfare of the district.” Ursio answered her: “Leave us,
woman; let it suffice for you to have ruled under your husband; but now your son rules and
his kingdom will be maintained not by your support but by ours. Leave us or our horses’
hooves will trample you to the earth.” When they had continued such talk as this a long
time the queen’s determination that they should not fight prevailed. However, on leaving
that locality they burst into Lupus’s houses, seized all his property and took it home,
pretending they were going to place it in the king’s treasury, and they threatened Lupus
and said: “He will never escape alive from our hands.” Lupus saw he was in danger and,
placing his wife in safety within the walls of the city of Laon, he fled to king Gunthram,
and being welcomed by him he remained in hiding, waiting till Childebert should come of
age.

5. While king Chilperic was still at the villa mentioned above, he directed his baggage to
be moved and made arrangements to go to Paris. And when I went to see him to say good-by,
a certain Jew named Priscus came in who was on friendly terms with him and helped him buy
costly articles. The king took him by the hair in a gentle way and said to me: “Come,
bishop of God, and lay your hands on him.” But he struggled and the king said to him: “O
obstinate-minded and ever disbelieving race, which does not recognize the Son of God
promised to it by the voices of its prophets and does not recognize the mysteries of the
church prefigured in its own sacrifices.” To these words the Jew replied: “God never
married nor was blessed with offspring nor allowed any one to share his power, but he said
by the mouth of Moses: ‘See, see that I am the Lord and except me there is no God. I shall
kill and I shall make alive; I shall wound and I shall heal.’” … Although I said this and
more, the wretched man felt no remorse and refused to believe. Then when he was silent and
the king saw that he was not conscience stricken because of my words, he turned to me and
asked to receive my blessing that he might depart. He said: “I will say to you, bishop,
what Jacob said to the angel, for he said to him, ‘I will not let you go until you bless
me.’” So saying he ordered water brought for our hands. After washing them we prayed, and
taking bread I thanked God and took it myself and offered it to the king, and after a
draught of wine I said farewell and left. And the king mounted his horse and returned to
Paris with his wife and daughter and all his household.

6. There was at this time in the city of Nice a recluse Hospicius who was very abstemious.
He wore iron chains next his body and over these a hair shirt and ate nothing but plain
bread with a few dates. And during Lent he lived on roots of Egyptian herbs such as the
hermits use, which were brought to him by traders. First he would drink the soup in which
they were cooked and eat the roots next day. The Lord did not disdain to work great
miracles through him. For at one time the Holy Spirit revealed to him the coming of the
Lombards into the Gauls and he foretold it as follows: “The Lombards,” said he, “will come
into the Gauls and will lay waste seven cities because their wickedness has grown in the
sight of God, since no one understands, no one seeks God, no one does good to appease the
anger of God. For all the people are unfaithful, given up to perjury, addicted to
thievery, ready to kill, and from them comes no fruit of justice at all. Tithes are not
paid, the poor are not fed, the naked are not clothed, strangers are not received with
hospitality or satisfied with food. Therefore this affliction has come. And now I say to
you: ‘Gather all your substance within the inclosure of the walls that the Lombards may
not take it, and fortify yourselves in the strongest places.’” At these words all stood
gaping and they said good-by and returned home with great admiration.

He also said to the monks: “You, too, depart from the place and take with you what you
have. For behold, the people I have named draw near. But when they replied: “We will not
leave you, most holy father,” he said to them: “Don’t fear for me; for they will offer me
insults but they will not harm me unto death. The monks went away and that people came and
laying waste all they found, they came to the place where the holy recluse of God was. And
he showed himself to them at the window of the tower. They went all round the tower but
could find no entrance by which they could come to him. Then two climbed up and pulled the
roof off, and seeing him bound with chains and clad in a hair shirt they said: “Here is a
malefactor who has killed a man and therefore is kept bound in these fetters. They called
an interpreter and asked him what crime he had committed to be so confined in punishment.
And he confessed that he was a homicide and guilty of all crime. Then one of them drew his
sword to strike at his head, but his lifted right arm stiffened in the very act of
striking and he could not draw it back to him. He let go the sword and let it fall on the
ground. Seeing this, his comrades raised a shout to heaven begging the saint to declare to
them kindly what they were to do.

And he made the sign of salvation and restored the arm to health. The man was converted on
the spot and received the tonsure and is now reckoned a most faithful monk. And two dukes
who listened to him returned safe to their native place but those who despised his command
perished wretchedly in the province. Many of them were seized with demons and cried: “Why,
holy and blessed one, do you so torture and burn us? And he laid his hand on them and
cured them. After this there was a man of Angers who in a severe fever had lost both
speech and hearing, and when he got better of the fever he continued deaf and dumb. Now a
deacon was sent from that province to Rome to obtain relics of the blessed apostles and
other saints who protect that city. And when he came to this infirm person’s relatives
they begged him to take him as a companion on the journey, believing that if he reached
the tombs of the blessed apostles he would forthwith be cured. They went on their way and
came to the place where the blessed Hospicius lived. After greeting and kissing him, the
deacon told the purpose of his journey and said he was starting for Rome and asked the
holy man to recommend him to ship-captains who were friends of his. And while he was still
staying there the blessed man felt that power was in him through the spirit of the Lord.
And he said to the deacon:

“I beg you to bring to my sight the infirm person who is the companion of your journey.
The deacon made no delay but went swiftly to his lodging and found the infirm person full
of fever, and he indicated by signs that there was a humming in his ears. The deacon
seized him and led him to the saint of God. The holy man took hold of his hair and drew
his head into the window, and taking oil that had been blessed, he took hold of his tongue
with his left hand and poured the oil in his mouth and on the top of his head, saying: “In
the name of my lord Jesus Christ let your ears be opened and let that power which once
drove a wicked demon from a deaf and dumb man open your lips. Having said this, he asked
him his name, and he answered in a clear voice: “I am called so-and-so. When the deacon
saw this he said: “I give thee endless thanks, Jesus Christ, who deignest to work such
miracles by thy servant. I was seeking Peter, I was seeking Paul and Laurence and the
others who made Rome glorious with their blood; here I have found them all, I have
discovered every one. As he was saying this with loud weeping and great admiration the man
of God, wholly intent on avoiding vanity, said:

“Be silent, beloved brother, it is not I who do this, but he who created the universe out
of nothing, who took on man for our sake, and gave sight to the blind, hearing to the
deaf, speech to the dumb; who bestowed on lepers the skin they had before, on the dead
life, and on all the infirm abundant healing. Then the deacon said farewell and departed
rejoicing with his comrades. When they had gone a certain Dominic—this was the man’s
name—who had been blind from birth, came to prove his miraculous power, and when he had
dwelt in the monastery two or three months praying and fasting, at length the man of God
called him to him and said: “Do you wish to recover your sight? And he replied: “I wish to
know a thing unknown. For I do not know what the light is. Only one thing I know, that it
is praised by men. But I have not deserved to see from the beginning of my life until now.
Then he made the holy cross over his eyes with oil that had been blessed and said: “In the
name of Jesus Christ our redeemer let your eyes be opened. And at once his eyes were
opened and he wondered and contemplated the great works of God which he saw in this world.
Then a certain woman who, as she herself asserted, had three demons, was brought to him.

And he blessed her with a sacred touch and made the cross in holy oil on her forehead and
the demons were driven out and she departed cleansed. Moreover he cured by his blessing a
girl who was vexed with an unclean spirit. And when the day of his death was drawing nigh
he summoned the prior of the monastery and said: “Bring iron tools to open the wall and
send messengers to the bishop of the city to come and bury me. For on the third day I
shall depart from this world and go to the appointed rest which the Lord has promised me.
Upon this the prior sent messengers to the bishop of Nice to carry this word. After this
one Crescens went to his window and seeing him bound with chains and full of worms he
said: “O my master, how can you bear such tortures so bravely? And he replied: “He
comforts me in whose name I suffer this. For I tell you that I am now freed from these
bonds and am going to my rest. When the third day came he laid aside the chains by which
he was bound and prostrated himself in prayer, and after he had prayed and wept a long
time he lay down on a bench and stretched out his feet and raised his hands to heaven and
thanked God and died. And immediately all the worms that were boring through his holy
limbs disappeared.

And bishop Austadius came and most carefully placed the blessed body in the grave. All
these things I learned from the lips of the very deaf and dumb man who as I related above
was healed by him. He told me many other miracles of his but I have been kept from
describing them by the fact that I have been told that his life has been written by many
persons. [7. The bishops of Uzès.] 8. Ebarchius died also, a recluse of Angoulême, a man
of great holiness through whom God did many miracles, and leaving out most of them I will
tell briefly of a few. He was a native of Perigueux, but after his conversion he entered
the clergy and went to Angoulême and built a cell for himself. There he gathered a few
monks and prayed continually, and if any gold or silver was offered to him he would pay it
out for the necessities of the poor or to ransom captives. No bread was baked in that cell
while he lived but was brought in by the devout when it was needed. He ransomed a great
number of people from the offerings of the devout. He often cured the poison of malignant
pimples by the sign of the cross and by prayer drove demons out from the bodies that they
possessed and with his charming manner often rather ordered than requested judges to spare
the guilty. For he was so attractive in his address that they could not deny him when he
asked a favor. On one occasion a prisoner who was vehemently accused by the inhabitants of
many crimes, both thefts and homicides, was to be hanged for theft, and when this was
reported to Ebarchius he sent his monk to entreat the judge to grant life to the guilty
man.

But since the throng insulted the judge and cried loudly that if he were let go it would
be good neither for the country nor the judge, the prisoner could not be let go. Meanwhile
he was stretched on the wheel, beaten with rods and clubs and condemned to the gallows.
And when the monk sadly brought the news to the abbot he said: “Go, wait at a distance,
for, be assured, the Lord will grant us of his own gift what man has refused. When you see
him fall, take him and bring him at once to the monastery. The monk went about his bidding
and Ebarchius threw himself down in prayer and wept and poured forth prayers to God until,
the bar and chains being broken, the hanged man should be placed on the ground. Then the
monk took him and brought him safe and well to the abbot. And he thanked God and ordered
the count summoned and said to him: “You were always used to hear me kindly, beloved son,
and why did you harden yourself to-day and refuse to let the man go whose life I asked
for? He replied: “I would willingly heed you, sacred priest, but the people rose and I
could do nothing else for fear of a rebellion. The recluse answered: “You did not heed me,
but God deigned to heed me, and he restored to life the one whom you gave to death.
Behold,” said he, “he stands alive before you.

As he said this the man threw himself at the feet of the count who was astonished that he
saw living one whom he left dead. This I heard from the lips of the count himself.
Moreover he did many other miracles which I have thought it tedious to relate. After
forty-four years as a recluse he contracted a fever and died. He was taken forth from his
cell and buried. And a great assembly of those he had ransomed, as we have said, followed
his funeral. 9. Domnolos, bishop of Mans, began to sicken. In the time of king Clothar he
had been in charge of the monks at the church of St. Laurence in Paris. But as he had
always been faithful to king Clothar while the older Childebert was still living and often
concealed his messengers when sent to spy, the king was awaiting an opportunity to make
him bishop. When the bishop of Avignon passed away he had purposed to appoint him there.
But the blessed Domnolus heard of this and came to the church of St. Martin where king
Clothar had then come for prayer, and after spending a whole night in watching, he sent a
hint to the king through the leading men who were there not to remove him far from the
king’s sight like a captive and not to permit a man of his straightforward character to be
worn out among sophistical senators and philosophizing judges, saying this was a place of
humiliation for him rather than of honor. To this the king assented, and when Innocentius
bishop of Mans died he appointed him as bishop of that church. When he had reached this
honor he conducted himself so that he rose to the summit of holiness and restored the
power of walking to a lame man and sight to one who was blind. After twenty-two years in
his episcopate he perceived that he was greatly worn out with the king’s evil and gout and
he selected the abbot Theodulf for his place. The king assented to his desire but not long
after changed his mind, and the election was given to Batechisil the king’s major domo. He
received the tonsure, went through the grades of the clergy in forty days, and when the
bishop passed away he succeeded him.

10. In these days thieves broke into St. Martin’s church. They placed a railing which was
on the tomb of a dead man at a window of the apse and climbing up by it they broke the
glass and entered; and taking a great quantity of gold and silver and silken cloths they
went off, not fearing to set foot on the holy tomb where we scarcely dare to touch our
lips. But the saint’s power made this foolhardy deed known by a terrible judgment. For
after committing the crime they went to the city of Bordeaux and a quarrel arose and one
killed the other; and thus their deed was found out and their theft was revealed, and the
broken silver and the cloths were taken from their lodging. When this was reported to king
Chilperic he ordered them to be bound and brought into his presence. Then I was afraid
that men would die because of him who in his lifetime in the body often prayed for the
lives of the lost, and sent the king a letter of entreaty not to put these men to death
since we to whom prosecution belonged did not accuse them. And he received my request with
kindness and restored them to life. And the valuable articles which had been scattered he
collected very carefully and ordered them sent back to the holy place.

[11. Dinamius, governor of Provence, and Theodore, bishop of Marseilles, quarrel.
Childebert supports Theodore and Gunthram Dinamius. 12. Chilperic takes advantage of the
quarrel and seizes Perigueux, Agen, and a number of other cities belonging to Gunthram.]
13. Lupus, a citizen of Tours, having lost wife and children, desired to enter the clergy
but was prevented by his brother Ambrose who was afraid that he would leave his property
to the church of God if he were joined to it. Ambrose, persuading him to his harm,
provided him with another wife and appointed the day to meet to give the betrothal gifts.
Then they went together to the town of Chinon where they had a dwelling. But Ambrose’s
wife being an adulteress and loving another with the love of a lewd woman and hating her
husband, made a plot for him. And when these brothers had feasted together and had drunk
wine in the night until they were intoxicated, they lay down on the same bed. Then the
adulterer came in the night when all were sleeping heavily because of the wine and setting
fire to the straw in order to see what he was doing, he drew his sword and struck Ambrose
on the head so that the sword went in at his eyes and cut the pillow in two beneath his
head. Lupus was aroused by the blow and finding himself wallowing in blood, he called in a
loud voice saying: “Alas, alas! Help; my brother is killed.” But the adulterer who had
committed the deed and was now going off, heard this and returned to the bed and attacked
Lupus. Although he resisted he was wounded many times, and overwhelmed and given a mortal
stroke and left half dead. But no one of the household knew of it. In the morning all were
amazed at such a crime. Lupus however was found to be still alive and after telling the
story as it occurred, he died. But the harlot did not take a long time to mourn. In a few
days she joined her adulterer and departed.

14. In king Childebert’s seventh year, which was the twenty-first of Chilperic and
Gunthram, in the month of January there were rains and heavy thunder and lightning;
blossoms appeared on the trees. The star which I called above the comet, appeared in such
a way that there was a great blackness all around it and it was placed as it were in a
hole and gleamed in the darkness, sparkling and scattering rays of light. And a ray of
wonderful size extended from it which appeared like the smoke of a great fire a long way
off. It appeared in the west in the first hour of the night. At Soissons on the day of
holy Easter the heavens were seen to be on fire, and there appeared to be two fires, one
greater and the other less. And after the space of two hours they united and formed a
great flame and vanished. In the territory of Paris real blood fell from the clouds and
dropped on the garments of many men and so defiled them with gore that they shuddered at
their own clothes and put them away from them. This prodigy appeared in three places in
the territory of that city. In the territory of Senlis a certain man’s house when he rose
in the morning appeared to have been sprinkled with blood from within. There was a great
plague that year among the people. The sickness took various forms and was severe with
pimples and tumors which brought death to many. Still many who were careful escaped. We
heard that at Narbonne in that year the bubonic plague was very fatal, so that when a man
was seized by it he had no time to live.

15. Felix, bishop of Nantes, was stricken by this plague and began to be seriously sick.
Then he called the neighboring bishops to him and begged them to give the influence of
their signatures to the choice which he had made of his nephew Burgundio. Then they sent
him to me. At that time Burgundio was about twenty-five years old. He came and asked that
I would consent to go to Nantes and give him the tonsure and consecrate him bishop in
place of his uncle who was still living. This I refused to do since I knew it was not in
accordance with the canons. Still I gave him advice saying: “We have it written in the
canons, my son, that no one can rise to the office of bishop unless he first passes
through the grades of the clergy in regular order. You then, dearly beloved, must return
thither and request him who has made choice of you, to give you the tonsure; and when you
reach the office of priest, be regular in attendance at church; and when God wills that he
pass away, then you will readily attain to the office of bishop.” He returned and
pretended to take my advice, since the bishop Felix seemed to be recovering from his
illness. But after the fever departed his legs burst out in pimples from the humor. Then
he put on too strong a poultice of cantharides and his legs putrefied and he died in the
thirty-third year of his episcopate and in the seventieth of his life. And Nonnichius his
cousin succeeded him by the king’s order.

[16. Felix’s niece had been married to Pappolenus but Felix brought about their
separation. Pappolenus now recovered his wife from a nunnery.] 17. King Chilperic ordered
many Jews to be baptized that year and received a number of them from the sacred font.
Some of them however were purified in body only, not in heart, and lying to God they
returned to their former perfidy so that they could be seen to observe the Sabbath as well
as honor the Lord’s day. But Priscus could not be influenced in any way to recognize the
truth. The king was angry at him and ordered him to be put into prison, in the idea that
if he did not wish to believe of his own accord he would force him to hear and believe.
But Priscus offered gifts and asked for time until his son should marry a Hebrew girl at
Marseilles; he promised deceitfully that he would then do what the king required. Meantime
a quarrel arose between him and Phatir, one of the Jewish converts who was now a godson to
the king. And when on the Sabbath Priscus clad in an orary and carrying nothing of iron in
his hand, was retiring to a secret place to fulfill the law of Moses, suddenly Phatir came
upon him and slew him with the sword together with the companions who accompanied him.
When they were slain Phatir fled with his men to the church of St. Julian which was on a
neighboring street. While they were there they heard that the king had granted to the
master his life but ordered the men to be dragged like malefactors from the church and put
to death. Then, their master being already gone, one of them drew his sword and killed his
comrades and then left the church armed with his sword, but the people rushed upon him and
he was cruelly killed. Phatir obtained permission and returned to Gunthram’s kingdom
whence he had come. But soon after he was killed by Priscus’s kinsmen.

[18. Legates returning from Spain report that king Leuvigild admits that Christ is the
equal of God but denies that the Holy Spirit is God at all. 19. Gunthram’s men cross the
river Orge and do damage in Chilperic’s territory.] 20. In that year Chrodinus died, a man
of magnificent goodness and piety, a great almsgiver and helper of the poor, a lavish
enricher of churches and supporter of the clergy. For he often started at the beginning
and cleared estates, laying out vineyards, building houses, making fields. And he would
then invite bishops who were poor and give them a feast and generously distribute among
them houses with fields and men to till them and silver and bedding and utensils and
officers and slaves saying: “Let these properties be given to the church, that when poor
men are supported upon them they may obtain pardon for me before God.” I have heard many
other good things of this man which it would take too long to tell. He died in his
seventieth year.

[21. List of prodigies.] 22. King Chilperic having seized cities belonging to his brother,
appointed new counts and ordered that all the tribute of the cities be paid to him. And we
know that this was done. In these days two men were seized by Nunnichius, count of
Limoges, who were carrying letters in the name of Charterius, bishop of Perigueux, which
contained many insults against the king; and among the rest it was put as if the bishop
were complaining that he had gone down from paradise to hell, because forsooth he had been
transferred from Gunthram’s rule to the dominion of Chilperic. The count just named sent
these letters and these men to the king under strict guard. The king patiently sent for
the bishop to come to his presence to tell whether the charges against him were true or
not. The bishop came and the king confronted him with the men and the letters. He asked
the bishop if they had been sent by him. He said they had not. The men then were asked
from whom they had received them. They said it was Frontonius the deacon. The bishop was
asked about the deacon. He replied that he was his greatest enemy and there could be no
doubt that this was his wickedness since he had often set wicked plots going against him.
The deacon was brought at once and questioned by the king. He testified against the bishop
saying: “It was I who wrote this letter at the bishop’s order.

But the bishop cried out and said that this man had often devised clever tricks to cast
him out from his office, and the king was moved with pity and commending his cause to God
he let them both go, interceding with the bishop for the deacon and begging the bishop to
pray for him. And thus the bishop was sent back with honor to the city. But after two
months count Nunnichius who started this scandal died from an apoplectic stroke and as he
was without children his property was granted to several persons by the king. [23. On
account of the birth of a son king Chilperic releases prisoners and remits taxes. 24.
Gundovald, who claims to be a son of Clothar, returns to Gaul from Constantinople and is
received by bishop Theodore of Marseilles who is thereupon seized and held prisoner by
king Gunthram. 25. Prodigies. 26. Gunthram Boso is charged with bringing Gundovald to
Gaul; he says that Mummolus is guilty of this and promises to bring him to king Gunthram.]

26. … Now duke Gunthram took with him the men of Clermont and Le Velay and went off to
Avignon. But by a stratagem of Mummolus rotten boats were ready for them at the Rhone.
They embarked on them without suspicion and when they came to the middle of the river the
boats filled and sank. Then being in danger, some escaped by swimming and a number tore
planks from the boats and reached the shore. But a good many who had less presence of mind
were drowned in the river. Duke Gunthram however reached Avignon. Now Mummolus on entering
the city had seen to it that as only a small part was left which was not guarded by the
Rhone, the whole place should be protected by a channel into which he led water from the
river. Here he had dug holes of great depth and running water concealed the traps he had
made. Then upon the coming of Gunthram Mummolus cried from the wall: “Since we are men of
good faith, let him come to one bank and I to the other, and let him say what he wants.
When they had come Gunthram said from the other side—it was this arm of the river that was
between them—“If you please I will cross, because there are some things to speak of in
secret. Mummolus answered: “Come, don’t be afraid.

Thereupon he entered the water with one of his friends—he was wearing a heavy coat of
mail—and immediately when they reached the hole in the river the friend sank under the
water and did not reappear. But while Gunthram was under water and being carried along by
the swift current one of the bystanders stretched out a spear to his hand and brought him
ashore. And then he and Mummolus abused one another before leaving the place. While
Gunthram was besieging this city with king Gunthram’s army the news was taken to
Childebert. He was angry because Gunthram was doing this without being ordered and sent
Gundulf whom I have mentioned before to the place. He put an end to the siege and took
Mummolus to Clermont. But after a few days he returned to Avignon. 27. Chilperic went to
Paris the day before Easter was celebrated, and to avoid the curses contained in the
compact between him and his brothers that no one of them should enter Paris without the
consent of the others, the relics of many saints were carried before him as he entered the
city, and he spent Easter amid great mirth, and gave his son to be baptized, and Ragnemod,
bishop of the city, received him from the holy font. Chilperic directed them to call him
Theodoric. [28. Marcus the referendary dies, first receiving the tonsure. 29. The piety of
the nuns of Poitiers is described. As the result of a vision one of them acted as
follows:] When the maiden had had this vision she was contrite in heart and after a few
days she asked the abbess to get ready a cell in which she could be shut. The abbess got
it ready quickly and said: “Here is the cell. What more do you wish?” The maiden asked to
be permitted to be shut in it. This was granted, and the nuns gathered with loud psalm-
singing and the lamps were lighted and she was conducted to the place, the blessed
Radegunda holding her hand. And so she said farewell to all and kissed each one and became
a recluse. And the entrance by which she went in was walled up and she is there now
spending her time in prayer and reading.

[30. The emperor Tiberius dies and Mauritius succeeds him.] 31. King Chilperic received
legates from his nephew Childebert and among them the leader was Egidius, bishop of
Rheims. On being brought before the king they presented their letter and said: “Our master
your nephew begs you to keep with especial care the peace you have made with him since he
cannot have peace with your brother, who took away his share of Marseilles after his
father’s death and retains fugitives and is not willing to send them back. Therefore your
nephew Childebert wishes to preserve unbroken the friendship which he now has with you.
Chilperic replied: “My brother has proven guilty in many particulars. For if my son
Childebert would seek the path of reason, he would know at once that it was by my
brother’s connivance that his father was killed. Upon this bishop Egidius said: “If you
would join with your nephew and he with you and take the field, due vengeance would be
speedily visited on him. When they had sworn to this agreement and exchanged hostages,
they departed. Then relying on these promises Chilperic set the army of his kingdom in
motion and went to Paris. And on encamping there he brought great expense to the
inhabitants. And duke Berulf went with the people of Tours, Poitiers, Angers, and Nantes
to the boundary of Bourges. And Desiderius and Bladast with all the army of their province
hemmed in the territory of Bourges on the other side, completely devastating the country
through which they came.

And Chilperic ordered the army which had come to him to pass through the territory of
Paris. And when they passed through, he passed also and went to the town of Melun, burning
and wasting all. And although his nephew’s army did not come to him, still his dukes and
legates were with him. Then he sent messengers to the dukes just mentioned and said:
“Enter the territory of Bourges and go right to the city and demand the oath of fidelity
in my name. But the people of Bourges gathered at the town of Châteaumeillant to the
number of fifteen thousand and there fought duke Desiderius, and there was great slaughter
there so that more than seven thousand from each army fell. And the dukes went to the city
with the people who were left, plundering and devastating all. And such marauding was done
there as was never heard of in old times, so that no house nor vineyard nor tree was left,
but they cut, burned, and subdued all. Moreover they carried the sacred utensils from the
churches and burned the churches with fire. But king Gunthram went with an army against
his brother, placing all his hope in the judgment of God. And one evening he sent his army
and destroyed a great part of his brother’s army.

In the morning legates went to and fro and they made peace, promising one another that
each would pay for what he had done beyond the limit of the law whatever the bishops and
leaders of the people should decide. And so they parted peaceably. And when king Chilperic
could not keep his army from plundering he slew the count of Rouen with the sword and thus
returned to Paris, leaving all the booty and giving up the captives. And the besiegers of
Bourges, on receiving orders to return home, took with them so much plunder that all the
district they left was believed to be emptied of men and domestic animals. The army of
Desiderius and Bladast went through the land of Tours and burned, plundered, and slew, as
is the custom with enemies, and they took captives, the most of whom they spoiled and
afterwards let go. There followed upon this disaster a disease among domestic animals so
that scarcely enough remained to make a start with, and it was strange if any one saw an
ox or heifer. While this went on king Childebert remained with his army in one place. And
one night the army mutinied and the lesser people raised a great murmur against bishop
Egidius and the king’s dukes, and began to cry aloud and shout in public, saying: “Let
those be thrust from the presence of the king who sell his kingdom, give over his cities
to the dominion of another, and betray his people to the rule of another prince.

While they continued shouting such things the morning came, and they seized their armor
and hastened to the king’s tent in order to seize the bishop and leaders and crush them by
force and beat and wound them. On learning of this the bishop fled on horseback and
hastened to his own city. And the people pursued him hurling stones and shouting abuse.
And he was saved by the fact that they had no horses ready. The bishop outstripped his
companions’ horses and hastened on alone so terrified that when one shoe dropped off he
did not stop to put it on. And so he arrived at his city and shut himself within the walls
of Rheims. 32. A few months earlier Leudast had come to Tours with the king’s command to
take his wife back and dwell there. Moreover he brought me a letter signed by the bishops
directing that he be admitted to the communion again. But since I saw no letter from the
queen, on whose account especially he had been excommunicated, I put off admitting him and
said: “When I receive the queen’s command then I will not delay to admit him. Meantime I
sent to her and she wrote back saying: “I was urged by many and could not help letting him
go. But now I ask you not to be reconciled to him nor give him the holy bread from your
hand until I consider more fully what I ought to do. But when I read this letter over I
was afraid he would be killed, and sending for his brother-in-law I made it known to him
and asked that Leudast be careful until the queen should relent. But he received with
suspicion the advice which I gave frankly in God’s sight, and since he was my enemy he
refused to do what I ordered, and the proverb was fulfilled which I once heard an old man
mention: “Always give good advice to friend and foe because the friend takes it and the
foe despises it. And so he despised this advice and went to the king, who was then at
Melun with his army, and he entreated the people to beg the king to see him.

So when all made entreaty the king gave him a hearing. Leudast threw himself at his feet
and begged for pardon, and the king replied to him: “Be on guard yet for a little while
until I see the queen and make arrangement as to how you are to return into favor with
her. But he was reckless and foolish and was confident because he had had a hearing before
the king, and when the king returned to Paris he threw himself at the queen’s feet in the
holy church on the Lord’s day and asked for pardon. But she was furious and cursed the
sight of him and drove him away and said, bursting into tears: “I have no sons living to
avenge the slander against me and I leave it to you, Lord Jesus, to avenge. And she threw
herself at the king’s feet and added: “Woe is me that I see my enemy and do not prevail
over him. Then Leudast was driven from the holy place and the mass was celebrated. The
king and queen returned from the holy church and Leudast went to the square having no idea
what was going to happen to him; he went around the traders’ houses, examined their costly
wares, tested the weight of the silver articles and looked at various ornaments, saying:
“I’ll buy this and this because I still have much gold and silver. As he was saying this
the queen’s servants came suddenly and wished to bind him with chains.

But he drew his sword and struck one of them. Then in a rage they seized their swords and
shields and rushed at him. And one of them dealt a stroke that took hair and skin off a
great part of his head. And as he fled across the city bridge his foot slipped between two
planks of the bridge and his leg was broken and he was taken. His hands were tied behind
his back and he was put in prison. The king ordered the physicians to attend him in order
that when cured of his wounds he might be executed with prolonged torture. He was taken to
one of the estates of the fisc but his wounds putrefied and he was dying when the queen
ordered him to be laid on the ground on his back. Then a great bar of iron was placed
under his neck and they struck his throat with another. And so after living an always
perfidious life he died a just death.

[33. List of prodigies. 34. Death of Chilperic’s infant son Theodoric.] 35. In the
meantime the queen was told that the boy who had died had been taken away by evil arts and
enchantments, and that Mummolus the prefect, whom the queen had long hated, had a share in
the death of her son Theodoric. And it happened that while Mummolus was dining at home one
from the king’s court complained that a boy whom he loved had been attacked by dysentery.
And the prefect said to him: “I have an herb at hand a draught of which will soon cure a
sufferer from dysentery no matter how desperate the case. This was reported to the queen
and she was the more enraged. Meantime she apprehended some women of Paris and plied them
with tortures and strove to force them by blows to confess what they knew. And they
admitted that they practised magic and testified that they had caused many to die, adding
what I do not allow any one to believe: “We gave your son, O Queen, in exchange for
Mummolus the prefect’s life. Then the queen used severer torture on the women and caused
some to be drowned and delivered others over to fire, and tied others to wheels where
their bones were broken. And then she retired with the king to the villa of Compiègne and
there disclosed to him what she had heard of the prefect. The king sent his men and
ordered him summoned, and after examining him they loaded him with chains and subjected
him to torture.

He was hung to a beam with his hands tied behind his back and there asked what he knew of
the evil arts, but he confessed nothing of what we have told above. Nevertheless he told
how he had often received from these women ointments and potions to secure for him the
favor of the king and queen. Now when released from torture, he called a reader and said
to him: “Tell my master the king that I feel no ill effect of the tortures inflicted on
me. Hearing this the king said: “Is it not true that he practises evil arts if he has not
been harmed by these tortures? Then he was stretched on the wheel and beaten with triple
thongs until his torturers were wearied out. Then they put splinters under his finger and
toe nails. And when it had come to this, that the sword hung over him to cut his head off,
the queen obtained his life; but a disgrace not less than death followed. Everything was
taken from him and he was put on a rough wagon and sent to his birthplace, the city of
Bordeaux. But on the way he had a stroke of apoplexy and was scarcely able to reach his
destination. And not long after he died.

Then the queen took all the boy had owned, both garments and costly articles, whether of
silk or wool, all she could find, and burned them. They say there were four wagon-loads.
She had the things of gold and silver melted in a furnace that nothing might remain as it
was to recall the sad memory of her son. [36. Difficulties of Ætherius, bishop of Lisieux,
with a dissolute priest and how he finally triumphed. 37. Abbot Lupentius is falsely
accused, tortured, and murdered by Count Innocent. 38. Count Innocent becomes bishop of
Rodez. 39. Sulpicius becomes bishop of Bourges. 40. Theological argument between Gregory
and a Spanish legate. 41. Chilperic retires to Cambrai. 42. Childebert receives money from
the emperor to drive the Lombards out of Italy but fails to do so. 43. Events in Spain.
44. List of prodigies.] 45. Meantime the first of September came and a great embassy of
Goths came to king Chilperic. He had now returned to Paris. He ordered many households of
slaves to be taken from his estates and placed on the wagons; many too who wept and
refused to go he ordered to be put under guard, in order to send them more easily with his
daughter. They say that many in their grief hanged themselves, fearing they would be taken
from their kinsmen. Son was separated from father, mother from daughter, and they departed
with loud outcries and curses. There was such a wailing in the city of Paris that it was
compared with the wailing of Egypt. Many of the older men who were forced to go made their
wills and left their property to the churches, and requested that when the girl had
entered the Spains the wills should be opened at once as if they were already buried.

Meantime legates came to Paris from king Childebert and warned king Chilperic not to take
anything from the cities he held that belonged to the realm of Childebert’s father, [or
present his daughter with the treasures in any of them] or dare to touch the slaves or
horses or yokes of oxen or anything in them. They say that one of these legates was
secretly killed, but it was not known by whom; still suspicion turned to the king. King
Chilperic promised that he would touch nothing from these cities, and invited the Frankish
nobles and the rest who had sworn fealty and celebrated his daughter’s marriage. She was
given over to the legates of the Goths and he gave her great treasures. Moreover her
mother presented her with a great quantity of gold and silver and garments, so that when
the king saw it he thought he had nothing left. The queen noticed he was provoked and she
turned to the Franks and said: “Do not think, men, that I have anything here from the
treasures of previous kings; for all that you see is taken from my own property, since the
most glorious king has given me much and I have gathered a good deal by my own labor, and
I have made great gains from houses granted to me, both from the revenues and the tribute.
Moreover you have often enriched me with your gifts, and from these sources comes all that
you see before you, for there is nothing here from the public treasures.” And thus the
king’s mind was deceived.

There was such a multitude of things that it took fifty wagons to carry the gold and
silver and other ornaments. The Franks offered many gifts, some gold, others silver, many
horses or garments; each gave such a gift as he could. Finally the girl said farewell
after tears and kisses and when she was going out of the gate a wagon axle broke and all
said: “Mala hora,” which was taken by some as an augury. So she went forth from Paris and
ordered the tents pitched at the eighth milestone from the city. And fifty men rose in the
night and took a hundred of the best horses with golden bridles and two great chains and
fled to king Childebert. Moreover along the whole way when any one could escape, he fled,
taking whatever he could lay hands on. Abundant supplies at the expense of the different
cities were gathered along the way; in this the king ordered that nothing should be taken
from his own treasury but all from the contributions of the poor. And as the king was
suspicious that his brother or nephew would prepare some ambush against the girl on the
way, he directed that she should be guarded by an army. Great warriors were with her, duke
Bobo, Mummolinus’s son, with his wife as attendant on the bride, Domigisel and Ansovald
and the major-domo Waddo who had once been count of Saintes, and also about four thousand
common soldiers.

The rest of the dukes and chamberlains who started with her turned back at Poitiers. The
others journeyed on as they could. And on this journey such spoils and booty were taken as
can scarcely be described. For they robbed the huts of the poor, wasted the vineyards,
cutting off the vines and carrying them away grapes and all, taking domestic animals and
whatever they could come upon and leaving nothing along their road, and the words that
were spoken through Joel the prophet were fulfilled: “That which the locust hath left hath
the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten;
and that which the caterpillar hath left, hath the palmerworm eaten. This is what happened
on this occasion. What was left by frost the storm destroyed, what was left by the storm
the drought destroyed, and what was left by the drought the host carried away.

46. While they continued on their way with this plunder, Chilperic, the Nero and Herod of
our time, went to his villa of Chelles about one hundred stades distant from Paris and
there hunted. One day, returning from the hunt in the dusk, when he was dismounting from
his horse and had one hand on a slave’s shoulder a certain one came and stabbed him with a
dagger under the armpit and repeating the blow pierced his belly. A flood of blood issued
at once from his mouth and the open wounds and put his wicked soul to flight. The
narrative before this shows how iniquitous he was. For he frequently laid great districts
waste and burned them over, and experienced no pain in this but rather joy, like Nero
before him when he recited tragedies as the palace burned. He often punished men unjustly
because of their wealth. Very few clerics in his time reached the office of bishop. He was
given over to gluttony and his belly was his god. He used to say that no one was wiser
than he. He wrote two books on the model of Sedulius, but their feeble little verses can’t
stand on their feet at all, since for lack of understanding he put short syllables for
long ones and long for short. He wrote pamphlets also and hymns and masses which can in no
wise be received. He hated the causes of the poor.

He was always blaspheming the bishops of the Lord, and when he was in retirement he
belittled and ridiculed no one more than the bishops of the churches. He called this one
lightheaded, that one vain, another lavish, another wanton, another conceited, another
pompous. He hated nothing more than churches. For he often used to say: “Behold our
treasury has remained poor, behold our wealth has gone to the churches, no one reigns if
not the bishops; our office will perish and be transferred to the bishops of the cities.
Going on in this way he would always break wills that were made in favor of churches and
he trampled under foot the last directions of his own father, thinking that there was no
one left to require the execution of his will. As to lust and wantonness nothing can be
found in thought that he did not realize in deed. And he was always looking for new
devices to injure the people and of late years if he found any one guilty he would order
his eyes torn out. And in the directions he sent to his judges to secure his own
advantages he would add this: “If any one disregards our orders let him be punished by
having his eyes torn out. He never loved any one sincerely and was loved by no one, and
therefore when he died all his people deserted him.

But Mallulf bishop of Senlis, who had been sitting in his tent three days and had been
unable to see him, came when he heard he was killed, and washed him and put on better
garments, and spent the night singing hymns, and took him in a boat and buried him in the
church of St. Vincent which is at Paris, leaving queen Fredegunda in the cathedral. Here
Ends in Christ’s Name the Sixth Book of the Histories. Thanks be to God. Amen.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK VII

1. Though it is my desire to continue the history which the previous books have left
untold, still affection requires me first to tell somewhat concerning the death of the
blessed Salvius, who, as is well known, died in this year. As he himself was wont to
relate he continued for a long time in the secular garb and with secular judges devoted
himself to worldly cases, but yet he never entangled himself in the passions in which the
mind of the young is usually involved. And finally when the odor of the divine breath had
touched his inward parts, he left the warfare of the world and sought a monastery, and
being even then devoted to godliness he understood that it was better to be poor with the
fear of God than to pursue the gains of the perishing world. In this monastery he
continued a long time under the rule established by the fathers. And when he had reached a
more mature strength both of understanding and of life, the abbot who was over this
monastery died and he took up the task of feeding the flock; and whereas he should have
shown himself more commonly among his brethren for their correction, after he had attained
this honor he was more retiring; and so he sought for himself a more secluded cell; now in
the former, as he himself told, he had changed the skin of his body more than nine times,
from scourging himself with too great determination.

Then after receiving the office, while he devoted himself to prayer and reading, contented
with this abstinence, he kept considering whether it was better for him to be hidden among
the monks or to take the name of abbot among the people. Why say more? He said farewell to
his brethren and they to him, and was immured. While thus immured he continued in all
abstinence more than before; and in his love of charity he sought when any strangers came
to bestow his prayers on them and administer the grace of the blessed bread abundantly,
which brought sound health to many who were infirm. And once he lay panting on his bed
worn out by a high fever, and behold his cell was suddenly brightened by a great light and
quivered. And he lifted his hands to heaven and breathed out his spirit while giving
thanks. With mingled cries of mourning the monks and his mother took the dead man’s body
out [of the cell], washed and clothed it and placed it on a bier and spent the night in
weeping and singing psalms. In the morning while preparations for the funeral went on the
body began to move on the bier. And behold his cheeks regained color and, as if roused
from a deep sleep, he stirred and opened his eyes and lifted his hands and said:

“Merciful God, why hast Thou allowed me to return to this gloomy place of life on earth,
since Thy mercy in heaven would be better for me than vile life in this world. His people
were wonderstruck and asked what such a prodigy could mean, but he made no answer to their
questions. He rose from the bier, feeling no harm from the painful experience he had
suffered, and continued for three days without the support of food or drink. On the third
day he called the monks and his mother and said: “Listen, dear ones, and understand that
what you look upon in this world is nothing but it is like the prophet Solomon’s song,
‘All is vanity. Happy is he who can live in the world so as to deserve to see the glory of
God in heaven. Having said this he began to doubt whether to say more or be silent. When
he said no more he was beset by the entreaties of his brethren to tell what he had seen,
and he went on: “Four days ago when my cell quivered and you saw me lifeless, I was seized
by two angels and carried up to the high heavens, so that I thought I had under my feet
not only this filthy world but the sun also, and the moon, the clouds and the stars.

Then I was taken through a door brighter than this light into that dwelling in which all
the pavement was like shining gold and silver, a brightness and spaciousness beyond
description, and such a multitude of both sexes was there that the length and breadth of
the throng could not be seen. A way was made for me through the press by the angels who
guided me, and we came to a place which I had already seen from a distance; a cloud hung
over it brighter than any light, in which no sun or moon or star could be seen, but
excelling all these it gleamed more brightly than the light of nature, and a voice came
out of the cloud like a voice of many waters. Then I, a sinner, was humbly greeted by men
in priestly and worldly dress who, my guides told me, were martyrs and confessors whom we
worship here with the greatest reverence. I stood where I was bidden and a very sweet odor
enveloped me so that I was refreshed by this sweetness and up to the present have wanted
no food or drink. And I heard a voice saying: ‘Let him return to the world since he is
necessary to our churches. It was only the voice that was heard, for it could not be seen
who spoke. And I threw myself on the pavement and said with loud weeping: ‘Alas, Alas,
Lord, why didst Thou show me this if I was to be deprived of it.

Behold to-day Thou wilt cast me out from Thy face to return to the sinful world and never
be able to return here again. I beseech Thee, Lord, not to take Thy mercy from me but
permit me to stay here and not fall thither and perish. And the voice which spoke to me
said: ‘Go in peace, for I am your keeper until I bring you back to this place. Then I was
left alone by my companions and departed weeping by the gate by which I entered and
returned here. When he had said this and all present were wonderstruck, God’s saint began
to weep and say: “Woe is me who have dared to reveal such a mystery. For the pleasant odor
which I brought from the holy place, by which I have been supported the last three days
without eating or drinking, has gone. My tongue too is covered with grievous sores and
swollen so that it seems to fill the whole of my mouth. And I know that it was not well
pleasing to my Lord God to make these secrets known. But Thou knowest, Lord, that I did
this in simplicity of heart, not in boastfulness. I beg Thee, be kind and do not abandon
me, according to Thy promise. After this he said no more and took food and drink. Now as I
write this I am afraid that some reader may not believe it, according to what Sallust the
historian says:

“When you speak of the virtue and fame of good men each calmly believes what he thinks it
easy for himself to do; beyond that he considers it falsely invented. For I call all-
powerful God to witness that I learned from his own lips all that I have told. A long time
after, the blessed man was taken from his cell, chosen bishop, and ordained against his
will. And when he was, I think, in his tenth year as bishop, the plague grew worse in
Albi, and the greatest part of the people had now died and few of the citizens remained,
but the blessed man, like a good shepherd, never consented to leave the place, but he
continually urged those who were left to devote themselves to prayer and to keep watch
continually and to be engaged always in good works and profitable thought, saying: “Do
this so that if God wishes you to go from this world you can enter not into judgment but
into rest. And when by God’s revelation, as I suppose, he recognized the time of his
calling, he made himself a tomb and washed his body and clothed it; and thus always intent
upon heaven he breathed out his blessed spirit. He was a man of great holiness and not
greedy at all; he never wished to possess gold. If he took it under compulsion he at once
paid it out to the poor. In his time when Mummolus the patrician took many captives from
that city he followed him and ransomed them all.

And the Lord gave him such favor with that people that the very men who took the captives
made him concessions in the price and also gave him gifts. And so he restored the captives
taken from his country to their former liberty. I have heard many good things about this
man, but as I desire to return to the history I have undertaken I pass them over for the
most part. 2. Now when Chilperic had died and had found the death he had long been looking
for, the men of Orleans united with those of Blois made an attack on the people of
Châteaudun and defeated them, taking them off their guard; they burned their houses and
crops and whatever they could not carry away conveniently, and they plundered flocks and
herds and carried off all that was not fast. Upon their departure the men of Châteaudun
with the rest of the men of Chartres pursued them closely and treated them in the same way
as they were treated, leaving nothing in their houses or outside their houses or of their
houses. And while they were still abusing one another and raging, and the men of Orleans
were ready to fight the men of Chartres, the counts intervened and at a hearing before
them peace was made, on condition that on the day when court was to be held the side which
had flamed out wrongfully against the other should make payment according to justice. And
thus the war was ended.

[3. Vidast is slain in a quarrel with the Saxon Childeric, who settles for it by a payment
to Vidast’s sons. 4. Fredegunda takes refuge in a church. Childebert gets some of her
treasures. 5. Fredegunda invites Gunthram to take Chilperic’s kingdom and become guardian
to her son. He goes to Paris. Childebert also approaches the city.] 6. When the people of
Paris refused to admit Childebert he sent legates to king Gunthram, saying: “I know, most
righteous father, that it is not unknown to your goodness how up to the present time the
enemy has defrauded us both so that neither of us could find justice for what was due him.
Therefore I humbly beg you now to keep the agreement that was made between us after my
father’s death. Then king Gunthram said to the legates: “O wretches, always faithless, you
have no truth in you and you do not stick to your promises; behold, you failed in all your
promises to me and entered into a new compact with king Chilperic to drive me from my
kingdom and divide my cities between you. Here is your compact; here are your very
signatures by which you connived together. With what face do you now ask me to receive my
nephew Childebert whom you wished to make my enemy by your perversity? To which the
legates said: “If you are so possessed with anger as not to keep your promises to your
nephew, at least cease taking what is due to him from Charibert’s kingdom. But he replied:
“Here is the agreement entered into with my brothers that whoever entered Paris without
his brother’s consent should lose his part, and Polioctus the martyr and Hilarius and
Martin the confessors were to be his judges and punishers. After this my brother Sigibert
entered, who died by the judgment of God and lost his part. So did Chilperic.

Now they lost their parts by these wrongdoings. Therefore since they have died by the
judgment of God in accordance with the curses in the compact, I will subject all
Charibert’s kingdom with its treasures to my rule by right of law, nor will I grant
anything to any one from it except of my own free will. Away with you then, you
everlasting liars and traitors, and take this word to your king.” 7. They departed, but
legates came again from Childebert to the king I have mentioned, demanding queen
Fredegunda, and saying: “Give up that murderess who strangled my aunt and killed my father
and uncle and also slew my cousins with the sword.” But he answered: “In the court which
we hold we decide everything and consider what ought to be done.” For he was supporting
Fredegunda and used often to invite her to dinner, promising that he would be her
strongest defender. And one day when they were dining together the queen rose and said
farewell but was detained by the king, who said: “Eat something more.” But she replied:
“Pardon me, pray, my lord, for according to the custom of women I must rise because of
having conceived.” Upon hearing this he was amazed, knowing that it was the fourth month
since she had borne a son, but he permitted her to rise. Now the leading men of
Chilperic’s kingdom, like Ansoald and the rest, gathered about his son, who, as we have
stated, was four months old and was named Clothar, and they exacted oaths in the cities
that formerly looked to Chilperic to be faithful to king Gunthram and his nephew Clothar.
And king Gunthram by process of justice restored all that king Chilperic’s followers had
wrongfully taken from various sources, and he himself gave much to the churches, and he
gave effect to the wills of the dead which had contained bequests to churches and had been
broken by Chilperic, and he was generous to many and gave much to the poor.

8. But inasmuch as he had no trust in the men among whom he had come, he guarded himself
with armed men, and never went to church or to the other places he took pleasure in
visiting without a strong guard. And so one Lord’s day, when the deacon had called for
silence among the people for the hearing of the mass, the king rose and addressed the
people: “I adjure you, men and women who are present, to think it worth while to keep
unbroken faith with me, and not to kill me as you lately did my brothers, and to allow me
for three years at least to help my nephews who have become my adopted sons. For it may
perchance happen if I die while they are little that you will perish at the same time—may
the eternal Deity not allow it—since there will be no one of our family strong enough to
protect you.” When he said this all the people poured forth prayers to the Lord for the
king.

9. While this was going on, Riguntha, king Chilperic’s daughter, arrived at Toulouse with
the treasures described above. And seeing she was now near the Gothic boundary she began
to contrive excuses for delay, and her people told her also that she ought to remain there
for a time since they were wearied with the journey and their clothing was rough, their
shoes torn, and the harness and carriages which had been brought on wagons were not yet
put together. They ought first to make all these preparations with care and then set out
on the journey and be received in all elegance by her betrothed, and not be laughed at by
the Goths if they appeared among them in a rough condition. While they were delaying for
these reasons, Chilperic’s death was reported to duke Desiderius. And he gathered his
bravest men and entered Toulouse and finding the treasures took them from the queen’s
control and put them in a certain house sealed up and under the guard of brave men, and he
allowed the queen a scanty living until she should return to the city.

[10. Gundovald is proclaimed king. 11. A list of prodigies pointing to Gundovald’s death.
12. Tours is forced to become subject to Gunthram. 13. Poitiers also comes under
Gunthram’s control.] 14. Now when court was held, bishop Egidius, Gunthram Boso, Sigivald,
and many others were sent by king Childebert to king Gunthram, and they went in to him and
the bishop said: “Most righteous king, we thank the all-powerful God that he has restored
you after many toils to your own land and kingdom. And the king said to him: “Yes, it is
to the King of kings and Lord of lords who in his mercy thought it right to accomplish
this, that due thanks should be given. For it is certainly not to you, by whose
treacherous counsel and perjuries my land was burned over a year ago; you never kept good
faith with any man; your crooked dealing appears everywhere; it is not a bishop but an
enemy of my kingdom that you show yourself to be. At these words the bishop, though
enraged, was silent. But one of the legates spoke: “Your nephew Childebert begs you to
order the cities which his father held to be given back to him. At this he replied: “I
told you before that our compacts give them to me and therefore I refuse to restore them.
Another of the legates said: “Your nephew asks you to order the sorceress Fredegunda,
through whom many kings have been killed, to be surrendered to him, so that he can avenge
the death of his father, uncle and cousins. “She shall not be given into his power,” said
Gunthram, “because she has a son who is king.

Besides I do not believe that what you say against her is true. Then Gunthram Boso
approached the king as if he were going to make some request. But since it had been
certainly reported that he had raised Gundovald up as king, Gunthram spoke before him and
said: “You enemy of my country and kingdom, who went a few years ago to the East for the
express purpose of bringing Ballomer”—so he used to call Gundovald—“into my kingdom, you
who are always treacherous and never perform what you promise. Gunthram Boso replied: “You
are lord and king and sit on a royal throne and no one ventures to make answer to what you
say. Now I say that I am innocent of this charge. And if there is any one of my rank who
secretly makes this charge against me, let him come now openly and make it. Then, most
righteous king, I will leave it to the judgment of God to decide when he sees us fighting
on a level field. At this all were silent and the king added: “All ought to be eager to
drive from our territories an adventurer whose father was a miller; and to tell the truth
his father was in charge of the combs and wove wool. And although it is possible for one
man to be master of two trades, still one of them answered in ridicule of the king:

“Therefore, as you say, this man had two fathers at the same time, one a worker in wool,
the other a miller. Fie on you, king, to say such an outlandish thing. For it is an
unheard of thing that one man should have two fathers at the same time except in a
spiritual sense. Then they laughed without restraint and another legate said: “We bid you
good-by, O king. Although you have refused to restore your nephew’s cities we know that
the ax is still safe that was driven into your brothers’ heads. It will soon strike yours.
Thus they went off in a quarrelsome spirit. Then the king, inflamed at their insults,
ordered his men to throw on their heads as they went rotted horse-dung, chips, hay and
straw covered with filth, and the stinking refuse from the city. And they were badly
fouled and went off amid unmeasured insult and abuse.

15. While queen Fredegunda was living in the church at Paris, Leonard, formerly an officer
of the household, who then came from Toulouse, went to her and began to tell her of the
abuse and insults offered to her daughter, saying: “At your command I went with queen
Riguntha and I saw her humiliation and how she was plundered of her treasures and
everything. And I escaped by flight and have come to report to my mistress what has
happened.” On hearing this she was enraged and ordered him despoiled in the very church
and she took away his garments and the belt which he had as a gift from king Chilperic and
ordered him out of her presence. The cooks and bakers, too, and whoever she learned of as
returning from this journey, she left beaten, plundered, and maimed. She tried to ruin by
wicked accusations to the king, Nectar, brother of bishop Baudegysil, and she said he had
taken much from the treasury of the dead king. Moreover she said he had taken from the
storehouses sides of meat and a great deal of wine, and she requested that he should be
bound and thrust into prison darkness. But the king’s patience and his brother’s help
prevented this. She did many foolish things and did not fear God in whose church she was
taking refuge. She had with her at the time a judge, Audo, who had assisted in many
wrongdoings in the time of the king. For together with Mummolus the prefect he subjected
to the state tax many Franks who in the time of king Childebert the elder were free born.
After the king’s death he was despoiled by them and stripped, so that he had nothing left
except what he could carry away. For they burned his house and would have taken his life
if he had not fled to the church with the queen.

[16. Prætextatus returns to the bishopric of Rouen.] 17. Promotus had been made bishop in
Châteaudun by order of king Sigibert and had been removed after that king’s death on the
ground that the town was a parish of Chartres—and judgment had been given against him to
the effect that he should perform only the functions of a priest. He now came to the king
and begged to receive again his ordination as bishop in the town mentioned. But Pappalus,
bishop of Chartres, opposed him and said: “It is my parish,” pointing especially to the
decision of the bishops, and Promotus could obtain nothing more from the king than
permission to take again his own property which he had within the territory of the town,
on which he lived with his mother who was still living. [18. King Gunthram fears
assassination. 19. Fredegunda is ordered to retire to her villa at Reuil. 20. She sends a
clerk to assassinate Brunhilda. When he returns without success she has his feet and hands
cut off.]

21. After this when king Gunthram returned to Chalon and endeavored to inquire into his
brother’s death and the queen had put the blame on the chamberlain Eberulf—for she had
invited him to reside with her after the king’s death but could not prevail upon him to do
so—this enmity accordingly broke out and the queen said that the king had been killed by
him and that he had taken much from the treasures and so gone off to Tours; and therefore
if the king wished to avenge his brother’s death he might know that Eberulf was the leader
in the matter. Then the king swore to all his nobles that he would destroy not only
Eberulf himself but also all his kinsmen to the ninth degree, in order that by their death
the wicked custom of killing kings might be ended. On learning this, Eberulf fled to the
church of St. Martin, whose property he had often seized. Then upon the pretext of
watching him the men of Orleans and Blois came in turn to keep guard, and at the end of
fifteen days returned with great booty, taking horses, flocks and herds, and whatever they
could carry off. But the men who took away the blessed Martin’s horses got into a quarrel
and pierced one another with lances. Two, who were taking mules, went to a house near by
and asked for a drink. And when the man said he had none they raised their lances to
attack him, but he drew his sword and thrust them both through and they fell dead; Saint
Martin’s horses were returned. Such evils were done at that time by the men of Orleans
that they cannot be described.

22. While this was going on Eberulf’s property was being granted to different persons; his
gold and silver and other valuables that he had with him he offered for sale. What he held
in trust was confiscated. The herds of horses, swine, and pack-animals were taken. His
house within the walls which he had taken from the possession of the church and which was
full of grain, wine, sides of meat, and many other things, was completely cleaned out and
nothing but the bare walls remained. Because of this he regarded me with great suspicion
although I was running faithfully on his errands, and he kept promising that if he ever
regained the king’s favor he would take vengeance on me for what he suffered. But God, to
whom the secrets of the heart are revealed, knows that I helped him disinterestedly as far
as I could. And although in former times he had laid many traps for me in order to get St.
Martin’s property, still there was a reason why I should forget them, namely because I had
taken his son from the holy font. But I believe it was the greatest drawback to the
unlucky man that he showed no respect for the holy bishop. For he often engaged in
violence within the very portico that is close to the saint’s feet, and was continually
occupied with drunkenness and vanities;

and when a priest refused to give him wine, since he was plainly drunk already, he crushed
him down on a bench and beat him with his fists and with other blows, so that he seemed to
be almost dying; and perhaps he would have died if the cupping-glasses of the physicians
had not helped him. Now because of his fear of the king he had his lodging in the audience
chamber of the holy church. And when the priest who kept the door keys had closed the
other doors and gone, girls went in with the rest of his attendants by the door of the
audience chamber and looked at the paintings on the walls and fingered the ornaments of
the holy tomb, which was a wicked crime in the eyes of the religious. And when the priest
learned of this he drove nails in the door and fitted bars within. And after dinner when
he was drunk he noticed this, and as we were singing in the church on account of the
service at nightfall, he entered in a rage and began to attack me with abuse and curses,
reviling me, among other things, because I wished to keep him away from the holy bishops’
tomb cover. But I was amazed that such madness should possess the man and tried to calm
him with soothing words. But as I could not overcome his rage by gentle words I decided to
be silent.

And finding that I would say nothing he turned to the priest and overwhelmed him with
abuse. For he assailed both him and me with vile language and various insults. But when we
saw that he was so to speak possessed by a demon, we went out of the holy church and ended
the disgraceful scene and the service at the same time, being especially indignant that he
had become so abusive before the very tomb, without respect for the holy bishop. In these
days I saw a vision which I told him in the holy church, saying: “I thought that I was
celebrating mass in this holy church and when the altar with the offerings was now covered
with a silk cloth, I suddenly saw king Gunthram entering and he said in a loud voice,
‘Drag out the enemy of my family, tear the murderer away from God’s sacred altar. And when
I heard him I turned to you and said: ‘Wretch, take hold of the altar-cloth with which the
holy gifts are covered, lest you be cast out of here. And although you laid hold of it you
held it with a loose hand and not manfully. But I stretched out my hands and opposed my
breast against the king’s breast, saying: ‘Do not cast this man out of the holy church
lest you incur danger to your life, lest the holy bishop destroy you by his power. Do not
kill yourself with your own weapon because if you do this you will lose the present life
and the eternal one. But when the king opposed me you let go the cloth and came behind me.
And I was very much annoyed at you. And when you returned to the altar you took hold of
the cloth, but again let go. And while you held it without spirit and I manfully resisted
the king I woke up in terror, not knowing what the dream meant. Now when I had told it to
him he said:

“It is a true dream that you saw because it strongly agrees with my purpose. And I said to
him: “And what is your purpose? He replied: “I have determined that if the king orders me
to be dragged from this place I will hold to the altar-cloth with one hand and with the
other draw my sword and first kill you and then as many clerks as I can reach. And after
this it would not be a misfortune for me to die, if I first took vengeance on this saint’s
clerks. I heard this and was amazed, and wondered why it was that the devil spoke by his
mouth. For he never had any fear of God. For while he was at liberty his horses and flocks
were let go among the crops and vineyards of the poor. And if they were driven away by the
men whose labor they were destroying these were at once beaten by his men. In this trouble
in which he was he often told how many of the blessed bishop’s possessions he had taken
unjustly. In fact the year before he had urged on a certain foolish citizen and caused him
to summon the bailiffs of the church. Then, without regard for justice, he had taken
property which the church formerly possessed under pretense of having bought it, giving
the man the gold ornament on his belt. Moreover he acted perversely in many other things
to the end of his life, which we shall tell of later.

23. In this year Armentarius, a Jew, with one attendant of his own sect and two
Christians, came to Tours to demand payment of the bonds which Injuriosus, ex-vicar, and
Eunomius, ex-count, had given to him on account of the tribute. And calling on the men, he
received a promise to pay the sum with interest, and they said to him besides: “If you
will come to our house we will pay what we owe and honor you with presents also, as is
right.” He went and was received by Injuriosus and placed at dinner, and when the feast
was over and night came, they arose and passed from one place to another. Then, as they
say, the Jews and the two Christians also were killed by Injuriosus’s men, and thrown into
a well which was near his house. Their kinsmen heard what had been done and came to Tours
and information was given by certain men and they found the well and took the bodies out,
while Injuriosus vigorously denied that he had been involved in this matter. After this it
came to trial, but as he denied it with vigor, as I have said, and they had no means of
proving him guilty, it was decided that he should take oath that he was innocent. But they
were not satisfied with this and they set the trial before king Childebert. However
neither the money nor the bonds of the dead Jew were found. Many said at the time that
Medard the tribune was involved in this crime, because he too had borrowed money from the
Jew. However Injuriosus went to the trial before king Childebert and waited for three days
until sunset. But as they did not come and he was not examined on the case by any one, he
returned home.

[24. The territory of Poitiers is devastated and its people are forced to declare their
allegiance to Gunthram a second time.] 25. Marileif, who had been regarded as the chief
physician in king Chilperic’s household, they attacked most eagerly. And although he had
been well plundered already by duke Gararic he was a second time stripped bare by these,
so that he had no substance left. They took away his horses, gold, silver, and other
valuables alike, and subjected him to the control of the church. For his father’s service
had been to attend to the mills of the church, and his brothers and cousins and other
relatives were attached to the kitchens and mills of their masters. [26. Gundovald goes
about among the southern cities exacting the oath of allegiance. 27. He enters Toulouse
and exiles bishop Magnulf. 28. Gunthram’s army marches south from Poitiers. 29. Eberulf is
slain by Claudius. 30. A legate of Gundovald is captured by Gunthram. 31. Gundovald
obtains a piece of the finger bone of the martyr Sergius, hearing that an Oriental king
had defeated his enemy by the help of one of Sergius’ finger bones. 32. Two legates of
Gundovald are taken and tortured. 33. Friendship is reëstablished between Gunthram and
Childebert. 34. Gundovald takes refuge in Comminges. 35. March of Gunthram’s army to
Comminges. 36. Gunthram’s men outside the wall abuse Gundovald and he answers with an
account of his life.]

37. The fifteenth day of this siege had dawned when Leudeghisel began to make ready new
engines to destroy the city, wagons carrying battering rams covered with woven branches,
and planks under which the army was to move forward to tear down the walls. But when they
came near they were so overwhelmed with stones that all who got near the wall perished.
They threw upon them pots of burning pitch and fat and hurled jars full of stones down on
them. And when night ended the contest the army returned to the camp. Now Gundovald had on
his side Chariulf, a very rich and powerful man, with whose store-rooms the city was very
full, and it was on his substance that they were chiefly supported. And Bladast saw what
was being done and was afraid that Leudeghisel would win the victory and put them to
death, so he set fire to the bishop’s house, and when the people shut in the city ran to
put the fire out he slipped away and departed. In the morning the army rose again for
battle and they made bundles of rods as if to fill the deep trench which lay on the east;
but here the engine could do no harm. And Sagittarius the bishop went frequently around
the walls in arms and from the wall hurled stones with his own hand at the enemy.

38. Finally when those attacking the city saw that they could accomplish nothing, they
sent secret messages to Mummolus saying: “Recognize your lord and finally give up your
perversity. What madness possesses you to become a follower of an unknown man? For your
wife and your daughters have been captured and your sons have been already slain. What end
are you coming to? What do you expect except to perish? He received their message and
replied: “Already, as I see, our kingdom has reached its end and its power fails. One
thing is left; if I learn that I have security of life, I can relieve you of great
trouble. When the messengers left, bishop Sagittarius with Mummolus, Chariulf and Waddo
hastened to the church and there they swore to one another that if they should be assured
of life they would give up their friendship for Gundovald and betray him to the enemy. The
messengers returned and promised them security of life. And Mummolus said: “Let this be
done; I will betray him into your hand and I will recognize my master the king and hasten
to his presence. Then they promised that if he did this they would receive him to their
friendship, and if they could not secure his pardon from the king they would place him in
a church that he might avoid the punishment of death. This they promised with an oath and
then departed. And Mummolus went to Gundovald with bishop Sagittarius and Waddo and said:

“You were present and know what oaths of faithfulness we took to you. But now accept
wholesome counsel and go down from this city and present yourself to your brother as you
have often desired to do. For we have spoken with these men and they have told us that the
king does not wish to lose your support because too few remain of your family. But he
understood their treachery and bursting into tears said: “It was at your invitation I came
to these Gauls, and of my treasures comprising a great amount of silver and gold and
various articles of value, some have been kept in Avignon and some have been taken by
Gunthram Boso. And next to God’s help I placed all my hope in you, and to you intrusted my
counsels and by your help always wished to reign. Now let your settlement be with God if
you have lied to me. For he will judge my cause. To this Mummolus replied: “We are not
speaking deceitfully to you; and lo! brave men are standing at the gate awaiting your
coming. Now lay down my gilded belt that you are wearing that you may not seem to go forth
boastingly and gird on your sword and give me mine back. He answered: “There is a double
meaning in what you say since you are taking away the things of yours that I have used as
a token of affection. But Mummolus swore that no harm should be done him.

Accordingly they went out of the gate and he was received by Ollo, count of Bourges, and
by Boso. And Mummolus returned into the city with his followers and barred the gate very
securely. And when Gundovald saw that he was betrayed into the hands of his enemies he
raised his hands and eyes to heaven and said: “Eternal judge, true avenger of the
innocent, God from whom all justice comes, whom lying displeases, in whom is no craft or
wicked cunning, to Thee I commend my cause, praying that Thou mayst be a swift avenger
upon those who have betrayed an innocent man into the hands of his enemies. Having said
this he crossed himself and went off with the men I have mentioned. And when they had gone
some distance from the gate, as the whole valley around the city is precipitous he was
given a push by Ollo and fell, Ollo calling out: “There is your Ballomer, who says he is
brother and son of a king. And he threw his lance and wished to pierce him but it was
checked by the links of Gundovald’s coat of mail, and did him no injury. Then when he rose
and attempted to climb the mountain Boso threw a stone and struck his head. And he fell
and died.

And the whole throng came and thrust their lances into him and tied his feet with a rope
and dragged him through all the camp of the armies, and they tore out his hair and beard
and left him unburied in the place where he was killed. The next night the leaders
secretly carried off all the treasures they could find in the city, together with the
church utensils. And in the morning they opened the gates and admitted the army and gave
over all the common folk inside to the edge of the sword, butchering also the bishops of
the Lord with their attendants at the very altars of the churches. And after they had
killed all so that not one remained, they burned the whole city, both churches and other
buildings, and left nothing but bare ground. 39. Now Leudeghisel, on his return to the
camp with Mummolus, Sagittarius, Chariulf and Waddo, sent messengers secretly to the king
to ask what he wished done with them. And he gave orders to put them to death. But Waddo
and Chariulf by that time had left their sons as hostages and gone off. When the word
about their death had come and Mummolus heard of it, he put on his armor and went to
Leudeghisel’s hut. And Leudeghisel saw him and said to him: “Why do you come thus as if
ready to flee? And he answered: “The word that was given is not to be kept, I see; for I
know that I am close to death. But Leudeghisel replied: “I will go out and settle
everything. He went out and immediately by his command the house was surrounded in order
that Mummolus might be killed. But he made a long resistance against his assailants and at
last came to the door and as he stepped out two with lances struck him on each side, and
so he fell and died. On seeing this the bishop was overwhelmed with fear and one of the
bystanders said to him: “Behold with your own eyes, bishop, what is being done. Cover your
head to escape recognition and make for the woods and hide for a little time, and when
their anger passes you can escape.

He took the advice, but while he was trying to get away with his head covered, a certain
man drew his sword and cut off his head, hood and all. Then each and all returned home,
plundering and killing along the way. In these days Fredegunda sent Chuppan to Toulouse to
bring her daughter thence as best he could. Now many said that he was sent in case he
found Gundovald alive to entice him with many promises and bring him to her. But since
Chuppan could not do this he took Rigunda and brought her back from that place amid great
scorn and contempt. [40. Mummolus’s treasures, amounting to two hundred and fifty-two
talents of silver and a greater value in gold, are taken. 41. A giant “two or three feet
taller than the tallest men” is taken to king Gunthram. 42. The count of Bourges attempts
to fine “St. Martin’s men” for not taking part in the expedition against Gundovald. 43.
Desiderius, Waddo, and Chariulf escape.] 44. There was at this time a woman who had a
spirit of divination and won great gain for her owners by prophesying, and she won such
favor from them that she was set free and left to her own devices. And if any one suffered
from theft or any wrongdoing she would at once tell where the thief had gone, to whom he
had given the property, or what he had done with it. She gathered together gold and silver
every day and went forth in rich clothing, so that she was thought among the people to be
something divine. But when this was reported to Ageric, bishop of Verdun, he sent to
arrest her. When she was arrested and brought to him he perceived, according to that which
we read in the Acts of the Apostles, that there was in her an unclean spirit of
divination. And when he said a formula of exorcism over her and anointed her forehead with
holy oil, the demon cried out and revealed to the bishop what it was. But since he could
not drive it from the woman she was allowed to go. And the woman saw that she could not
dwell in the place and she went off to queen Fredegunda and remained hid.

45. In this year a severe famine oppressed almost all of the Gauls. Many dried and ground
into powder grape seeds and oat chaff and fern roots and mixed a little flour with it and
made bread; many cut straw and did the same. Many who had no flour ate different herbs
which they gathered, and in consequence swelled up and died. Many too wasted away and died
of starvation. At that time the traders plundered the people greatly, selling scarcely a
peck of grain or half measure of wine for the third of a gold piece. They subjected the
poor to slavery in return for a little food. [46. Christofer, a trader, is killed by his
Saxon slaves, one of whom is caught and executed. 47. Quarrel between two citizens of
Tours.] Here Ends the Seventh Book

BOOK VIII

1. Now king Gunthram in the twenty-fourth year of his reign started from Chalon and went
to the city of Nevers. For he was going to Paris by invitation to receive from the holy
font of regeneration Chilperic’s son, whom they were already calling Clothar. And he left
the territory of Nevers and came to the city of Orleans and at that time appeared much
among the citizens. For on receiving invitations he went to their homes and partook of the
repasts offered him. He received many gifts from them and bestowed many gifts on them in a
very generous way. And when he came to the city of Orleans the day was the festival of the
blessed Martin, namely the fourth before the Nones of the fifth month [July 4]. And a huge
throng of people came to meet him with standards and banners, singing praises. And here
the Syrian language, there that of the Latins, and again that even of the Jews, sounded
together strangely in varied praises, saying: “Long live the king; may his reign over the
people last unnumbered years. And the Jews who were to be seen taking part in these
praises said: “May all the nations honor you and bend the knee and be subject to you. And
so it happened that when the king was seated at dinner after mass he said: “Woe to the
Jewish tribe, wicked, treacherous, and always living by cunning.

Here’s what they were after,” said he, “when they cried out their flattering praises to-
day, that all the nations were to honor me as master. [They wish me] to order their
synagogue, long ago torn down by the Christians, to be built at the public cost; but by
the Lord’s command I will never do it. O King glorious for wonderful wisdom. He so
understood the craft of the heretics that they entirely failed to get from him what they
were going to propose later. At the dinner the king said to the bishops who were present:
“I beg you to give me your blessing to-morrow in my house and bring me salvation by your
coming, so that I may be saved when in my humility I receive your words of blessing. When
he said this all thanked him, and as dinner was finished we rose. 2. In the morning while
the king was visiting the holy places to offer prayer he came to my lodging. It was the
church of Saint Avitus the abbot, whom I mention in my book of the miracles. I rose
gladly, I admit, to go to meet him, and after giving him my blessing begged him to accept
St. Martin’s holy bread at my lodging. He did not refuse but courteously came in, drank a
cup, invited me to the dinner and went away in good humor.

At that time Bertram, bishop of Bordeaux, and Palladius of Saintes were in great disfavor
with the king because of their support of Gundovald of which we have told above. Moreover
bishop Palladius had especially offended the king because he had repeatedly deceived him.
Now they had recently been under examination before the remaining bishops and the nobles
as to why they had supported Gundovald and why they had foolishly ordained Faustian bishop
of Ax at his command. But bishop Palladius took the blame for the ordination from his
metropolitan Bertram and took it on his own shoulders, saying: “My metropolitan was
suffering greatly from sore eyes and I was plundered and treated with indignity and
dragged to the place against my will. I could do nothing else than obey one who said he
had received complete control of the Gauls. When this was told the king he was greatly
irritated so that he could scarcely be prevailed upon to invite to the dinner these
bishops whom he had previously refused to see. So when Bertram came in the king asked:
“Who is he? For it had been a long time since he had seen him. And they said: “This is
Bertram bishop of Bordeaux. And the king said to him: “We thank you for keeping faith as
you have with your own family. For I would have you know, beloved father, that you are my
kinsman on my mother’s side and you should not have brought a plague from abroad on your
own people.

When Bertram had been told this and more, the king turned to Palladius and said: “You do
not deserve much gratitude either, bishop Palladius. For you perjured yourself to me three
times—a hard thing to say of a bishop—sending me information full of treachery. You
excused yourself to me by letter and at the same time you were inviting my brother in
other letters. God will judge my cause since I have always tried to treat you as fathers
of the church and you have always been treacherous. And he said to the bishops Nicasius
and Antidius: “Most holy fathers, tell me what you have done for the advantage of your
country or the security of my kingdom. They made no reply and the king washed his hands
and after receiving a blessing from the bishops sat at table with a glad countenance and a
cheerful behavior as if he had said nothing about the wrongs done him.

3. Meantime when the dinner was now half over the king asked me to request my deacon who
had sung the responsory at the mass the day before, to sing. When he had sung he next
asked me to request all the bishops who, at my instance, had come prepared, to appoint
each a single clerk from his service to sing before the king. And so I made the request at
the king’s command, and they sang, each to the best of his ability, a psalm before the
king. And when the courses were being changed the king said: “All the silver you see
belonged to that perjurer Mummolus, but now by the help of God’s grace it has been
transferred to my ownership. I have already had fifteen of his dishes like the larger one
you see yonder melted down, and I have kept only this one and one other of a hundred and
seventy pounds. Why [keep] more than enough for daily use? It is too bad, but I have no
other son than Childebert, and he has enough treasures which his father left him beside
what I had sent to him from the property of this wretch which was found at Avignon. The
rest must be given for the necessities of the poor and the churches.

4. “There is only one thing that I ask of you, my lord bishops, namely, to pray God’s
mercy for my son Childebert. For he is a man of sense and ability so that one so cautious
and energetic as he could scarcely be found in many years. And if God would deign to grant
him to these Gauls perhaps there would be hope that by him our race, greatly weakened
though it is, can rise again. And I have confidence that this will happen through His
mercy because the indications at the boy’s birth were of this sort. For it was the holy
day of Easter and my brother Sigibert was standing in the church and the deacon was
walking in procession with the holy book of the Gospels, and a messenger came to the king,
and the words of the deacon as he read from the Gospels and of the messenger were the
same, saying: ‘To thee a son has been born.’ And when they both spoke together all the
people cried out: ‘Glory to all-powerful God.’ Moreover he was baptized on the holy day of
Pentecost and was made king also on the holy day of the Lord’s birth. And so if your
prayers attend him, God willing he will be able to rule.” So the king spoke and all prayed
the Lord in His mercy to keep both kings safe. The king added: “It is true that his mother
Brunhilda threatens my life, but I have no misgiving on this account. For the Lord who has
saved me from the hands of my enemies will save me from her plots too.”

5. Then he said much against bishop Theodore, protesting that if he came to the synod he
would thrust him off again into exile and saying: “I know it was for the sake of these
people that he caused my brother Chilperic to be killed. In fact I ought not to be called
a man if I cannot avenge his death this year.” But I made answer: “And what killed
Chilperic, unless it was his own wickedness and your prayers? For he laid many plots for
you contrary to justice and they brought death to him. And, so to speak, it was just this
that I saw in a dream when I beheld him with tonsured head being ordained bishop,
apparently, and then I saw him placed on a plain chair hung only with black and carried
along with shining lamps and torches going before him.” When I told this the king said:
“And I saw another vision which foretold his death. He was brought into my presence loaded
with chains by three bishops, of whom one was Tetricus, the second Agricola, and the third
Nicecius of Lyons. And two of them said: ‘Set him free, we entreat you, give him a beating
and let him go.’ But bishop Tetricus answered harshly, ‘It shall not be so, but he shall
be burned with fire for his crimes.’ And when they had carried on this discussion for a
long time, as if quarreling, I saw at a distance a caldron set on a fire and boiling
furiously. Then I wept and they seized unhappy Chilperic and broke his limbs and threw him
in the caldron. And he was immediately so melted and dissolved amid the steam from the
water that no trace of him at all remained.” The king told this story and we wondered at
it, and the feast being finished we rose.

6. Next day the king went hunting. When he returned I brought into his presence Garachar,
count of Bordeaux, and Bladast, who, as I have told you before, had taken refuge in the
church of Saint Martin because they had been followers of Gundovald. I had previously made
intercession for them but had failed, and so at this later time I said: “Hear me, powerful
king. Behold I have been sent to you on an embassy by my master. What answer shall I give
to him who sent me when you refuse to give me any answer?” And he said in amazement: “And
who is your master who sent you?” I smiled and answered: “The blessed Martin.” Then he
ordered me to bring the men before him. And when they entered his presence he reproached
them with many treacheries and perjuries, calling them again and again tricky foxes, but
he restored them to his favor, giving back what he had taken from them.

7. When the Lord’s day came the king went to church to hear mass. And the brethren and
fellow-bishops who were there yielded to bishop Palladius the honor of celebrating it.
When he began to read the prophecy the king inquired who he was. And when they told him
that it was the bishop Palladius he was angry at once and said: “Is he now to preach the
sacred word before me who has always been faithless to me and perjured. I will leave this
church immediately and will not hear my enemy preach.” So saying he started to leave the
church. Then the bishops were troubled by the humiliation of their brother and said to the
king: “We saw him present at the feast you gave and we saw you receive a blessing at his
hand and why does the king despise him now? If we had known that he was hateful to you we
would have resorted to another to celebrate mass. But now if you permit it let him
continue the ceremony which he has begun; to-morrow if you bring any charge against him
let it be judged in accordance with the holy canons.” By this time bishop Palladius had
retired to the sacristy in great humiliation. Then the king bade him be recalled and he
finished the ceremony which he had begun. Moreover when Palladius and Bertram were again
summoned to the king’s table they became angry at one another and reproached one another
with many adulteries and fornications and with a good many perjuries as well. At these
matters many laughed, but a number who were keener of perception lamented that the weeds
of the devil should so flourish among the bishops of the Lord. And so they left the king’s
presence, giving bonds and security to appear at the synod on the tenth day before the
kalends of the ninth month.

[8. List of prodigies. 9. Queen Fredegunda, three bishops and three hundred nobles swear
to Gunthram that the young Clothar is Chilperic’s son. 10. Gunthram discovers the bodies
of Chilperic’s sons, Merovech and Clovis, and gives them due burial. 11. Gunthram’s life
is in danger. 12. Bishop Theodore of Marseilles is forced to appear before Gunthram. 13.
Gunthram sends an embassy to Childebert. 14. Gregory nearly loses his life in crossing the
Rhine but is saved by relics of St. Martin.] 15. We started on the journey and came to the
town of Yvois and there were met by deacon Vulfilaic and taken to his monastery, where we
received a very kind welcome. This monastery is situated on a mountain top about eight
miles from the town I have mentioned. On this mountain Vulfilaic built a great church and
made it famous for its relics of the blessed Martin and other saints. While staying there
I began to ask him to tell me something of the blessing of his conversion and how he had
entered the clergy, for he was a Lombard by race. But he would not speak of these matters
since he was quite determined to avoid vain-glory. But I urged him with terrible oaths,
first promising that I would disclose to no one what he told and I began to ask him to
conceal from me none of the matters of which I would ask. After resisting a long time he
was overcome at length by my entreaties and protestations and told the following tale:
“When I was a small boy,” said he, “I heard the name of the blessed Martin, though I did
not know yet whether he was martyr or confessor or what good he had done in the world, or
what region had the merit of receiving his blessed limbs in the tomb; and I was already
keeping vigils in his honor, and if any money came into my hands I would give alms.

As I grew older I was eager to learn and I was able to write before I knew the order of
the written letters [before I could read]. Then I joined the abbot Aridius and was taught
by him and visited the church of Saint Martin. Returning with him he took a little of the
dust of the holy tomb for a blessing. This he placed in a little case and hung it on my
neck. Coming to his monastery in the territory of Limoges he took the little case to place
it in his oratory and the dust had increased so much that it not only filled the whole
case but burst out at the joints wherever it could find an exit. In the light of this
miracle my mind was the more on fire to place all my hope in his power. Then I came to the
territory of Trèves and on the mountain where you are now built with my own hands the
dwelling you see. I found here an image of Diana which the unbelieving people worshiped as
a god. I also built a column on which I stood in my bare feet with great pain. And when
the winter had come as usual I was so nipped by the icy cold that the power of the cold
often caused my toe-nails to fall off and frozen moisture hung from my beard like candles.
For this country is said to have a very cold winter.

And when I asked him urgently what food or drink he had and how he destroyed the images on
the mountain, he said: “My food and drink were a little bread and vegetables and a small
quantity of water. And when a multitude began to flock to me from the neighboring villages
I preached always that Diana was nothing, that her images and the worship which they
thought it well to observe were nothing; and that the songs which they sang at their cups
and wild debauches were disgraceful; but it was right to offer the sacrifice of praise to
all-powerful God who made heaven and earth. I often prayed that the Lord would deign to
hurl down the image and free the people from this error. And the Lord’s mercy turned the
rustic mind to listen to my words and to follow the Lord, abandoning their idols. Then I
gathered some of them together so that by their help I could hurl down the huge image
which I could not budge with my own strength, for I had already broken the rest of the
small images, which was an easier task. When many had gathered at this statue of Diana
ropes were fastened and they began to pull but their toil could accomplish nothing. Then I
hastened to the church and threw myself on the ground and weeping begged the divine mercy
that the power of God should destroy that which human energy could not overturn.

After praying I went out to the workmen and took hold of the rope, and as soon as I began
to pull at once the image fell to the ground where I broke it with iron hammers and
reduced it to dust. But at this very hour when I was going to take food my whole body was
so covered with malignant pimples from sole to crown that no space could be found that a
single finger might touch. I went alone into the church and stripped myself before the
holy altar. Now I had there a jar full of oil which I had brought from Saint Martin’s
church. With this I oiled all my body with my own hands and soon lay down to sleep. I
awoke about midnight and rose to perform the service and found my whole body cured as if
no sore had appeared on me. And I perceived that these sores were sent not otherwise than
by the hate of the enemy. And inasmuch as he enviously seeks to injure those who seek God,
the bishops, who should have urged me the more to continue wisely the work I had begun,
came and said: ‘This way which you follow is not the right one, and a base-born man like
you cannot be compared with Simon of Antioch who lived on a column. Moreover the situation
of the place does not allow you to endure the hardship. Come down rather and dwell with
the brethren you have gathered.

At their words I came down, since not to obey the bishops is called a crime. And I walked
and ate with them. And one day the bishop summoned me to a village at a distance and sent
workmen with crowbars and hammers and axes and destroyed the column I was accustomed to
stand on. I returned the next day and found it all gone. I wept bitterly but could not
build again what they had torn down for fear of being called disobedient to the bishop’s
orders. And since then I am content to dwell with the brothers just as I do now.” 16. And
when I asked him to tell somewhat of the miracles which the blessed Martin worked in that
place, he related the following: “The son of a certain Frank of the highest rank among his
people was deaf and dumb; he was brought by his kinsmen to this church and I had him sleep
on a couch in the holy temple with my deacon and another attendant. And by day he devoted
himself to prayer and at night he slept in the church as I have said. And when God pitied
him the blessed Martin appeared to me in a vision saying, ‘Send the lamb out of the church
for he is now cured.’ In the morning I was thinking what this dream meant when the boy
came to me and spoke and began to thank God, and turning to me said: ‘I thank all-powerful
God who has restored to me speech and hearing.’ After this he was cured and returned
home.”…

[17. Peculiar appearances in the heavens from which Gregory expected that “some plague
would be sent upon them from the heavens.” 18. Childebert’s invasion of Italy and the
appointment of various dukes and counts. 19. The abbot Dagulfus is taken in adultery. 20.
A synod meets at Mâcon. 21. Childebert hears a charge of grave robbery against Gunthram
Boso. 22. Various items of the year 585. 23-25. Prodigies. 26. Eberulf, former duke of
Tours and Poitiers, loses his property. 27. Desiderius is restored to favor with Gunthram.
28. Relations with the Spanish king. 29. The plot to assassinate Childebert and its
failure. 30. Gunthram sends two armies to attack Septimania. They plunder his own
territories and turn back without success. 31. Quarrel between Fredegunda and Prætextatus,
bishop of Rouen. 32. Dispute about vineyards between one of Fredegunda’s officials and
Domnola.] 33. Now there was in these days in the city of Paris a woman who said to the
inhabitants: “O flee from the city and know that it must be burned with fire. And when she
was ridiculed by many for saying this on the evidence of lots and because of some idle
dream or at the urging of a mid-day demon, she replied: “It is not as you say, for I say
truly that I saw in a vision a man all illumined coming from the church of St. Vincent,
holding a torch in his hand and setting fire to the houses of the merchants one after
another. Then the third night after the woman made this prophecy, at twilight a certain
citizen took a light and went into his store-house and took oil and other necessary things
and went out, leaving the light close by the cask of oil. This was the house next the gate
which is towards the south. From this light the house caught fire and burned, and from it
others began to catch. Then the fire threatened the prisoners, but the blessed Germanus
appeared to them and broke the posts and chains by which they were bound and opened the
prison door and allowed all the prisoners to go safe. They went forth and took refuge in
the church of St. Vincent in which is the blessed bishop’s tomb.

Now when the flame was carried hither and thither through the whole city by the high wind
and the fire had the complete mastery, it began to approach another gate where there was
an oratory of the blessed Martin which had been placed there because he had there cured a
case of leprosy with a kiss. The man who had built it of interwoven branches, trusting in
God and confident of the blessed Martin’s power, took refuge within its walls with his
property saying: “I believe and have faith that he who has so often mastered fire and at
this place by a kiss made a leper’s skin clean, will keep the fire from here. When the
fire came near great masses of flame swept along but when they touched the wall of the
oratory they were extinguished at once. But the people kept calling to the man and woman:
“Run if you wish to save yourselves. For a mass of fire is rushing on you; see, ashes and
coals are falling around you like a heavy rain. Leave the oratory or you will be burned in
the fire. But they kept on praying and were never moved by these words. And the woman, who
was armed with the strongest faith in the power of the blessed bishop, never moved from
the window through which the flames sometimes entered.

And so great was the power of the blessed bishop that he not only saved this oratory
together with his follower’s house but he did not permit the flames to injure the other
houses which were around. There the fire ceased which had broken out on one side of the
bridge. And on the other side it burned all so completely that only the river stopped it.
However, the churches with the houses attached to them were not burned. It was said that
this city had been as it were consecrated in ancient times so that not only fire could not
prevail there but snakes and mice could not appear. But lately when a channel under the
bridge had been cleaned and the mud which filled it had been taken out they found a snake
and a mouse of bronze. They were removed and after that mice without number and snakes
appeared, and fires began to take place.

34. Inasmuch as the prince of darkness has a thousand arts of doing injury, I will relate
what lately happened to recluses vowed to God. Vennoc, a Breton, who had become a priest
as we have told in another book, was so given up to abstinence that he wore only garments
made of skins and ate wild herbs in the raw state and merely touched the wine to his lips
so that one would think he was kissing it rather than drinking. But as the devout in their
generosity often gave him vessels of this liquor, sad to say he learned to drink
immoderately and to be so given up to it as to be generally seen drunk. And so as his
drunkenness grew worse and time went on, he was seized by a demon and so violently
harassed that he would seize a knife or any kind of weapon or stone or club that he could
lay hands on and run after men in an insane rage. And it became necessary to bind him with
chains and imprison him in a cell. After raging under this punishment for two years he
died.

There was also Antholius of Bordeaux. When a boy of twelve years old, it is said, the
servant of a merchant, he asked to be allowed to become a recluse. His master opposed him
a long time, thinking he would grow lukewarm and that at his age he could not attain to
what he wished, but he was at length overcome by his servant’s entreaties and permitted
him to fulfil his desire. Now there was an old crypt vaulted and very finely built, and in
the corner of it was a little cell built of squared stones in which there was hardly room
for one man standing. The boy entered this cell and remained in it eight years or more,
satisfied with very little food and drink and devoting himself to watching and prayer.
After this he was seized with a great fear and began to shout that he was being tortured
internally. So it happened, by the aid, as I suppose, of the devil’s soldiers, that he
tore away the stones that shut him in, dashed the wall to the ground and cried, wringing
his hands, that the saints of God were causing him frightful torture. And when he had
continued in this madness a long time and often mentioned the name of Saint Martin and
said he caused him more torture than the other saints, he was brought to Tours. But the
evil spirit, because, I suppose, of the virtue and greatness of the saint, did not tear
the man. He remained in Tours for the space of a year and as he suffered no more he
returned, but later on he suffered from the trouble that he had been free from here.

[35. An embassy from Spain to king Gunthram.] 36. By order of king Childebert Magnovald
was killed in his presence, for reasons not given, in the following manner: the king was
staying in his palace in the city of Metz and was attending a sport in which an animal was
surrounded by a pack of dogs and worried, when Magnovald was summoned. He came and not
knowing what was to happen he began to look at the animal and laugh heartily with the
rest. But a man who had received his orders seeing him intent on the spectacle raised his
axe and dashed it against his head. He fell and died and was thrown out by the window and
buried by his own people. His property was taken at once, as much as was found, and
carried to the public treasury. Certain persons said that it was because he had beaten his
wife to death after his brother died and had married his brother’s wife, that he was
killed.

[37. Birth of a son to Childebert. 38. Spanish expedition into Gaul. 39. Death of several
bishops.] 40. There was in the city of Tours a certain Pelagius who was practiced in every
villainy and was not afraid of any judge, because he had under his control the keepers of
the horses belonging to the fisc. Because of this he never ceased either on land or on the
rivers to thieve, dispossess, plunder, murder, and commit every sort of crime. I often
sent for him and both by threats and by gentle words tried to make him desist from his
wickedness. But it was hatred rather than any reward of justice I got from him, according
to Solomon’s proverb: Reprove not a fool lest he hate thee. The wretch so hated me that he
often plundered and beat and left half-dead the men of the holy church, and was always
looking for pretexts to harm the cathedral or the church of Saint Martin. And so it
happened that once when our men were coming and bringing sea-urchins in vessels, he beat
them and trampled on them and took the vessels. When I learned of this I excommunicated
him, not to avenge my wrong but to correct him more easily of this insanity. But he chose
twelve men and came to clear himself of this crime by perjury. Though I was unwilling to
receive any oath I was compelled by him and my fellow-citizens, and so I sent the rest
away and received his oath only, and ordered that he be taken back into communion. It was
then the first month. When the fifth month came when the meadows are usually cut, he
entered a meadow adjoining his own that belonged to the monks. But as soon as he put
sickle to it he was seized with fever and died on the third day. He had had a tomb made
for him in Saint Martin’s church in the village of Candes, but when it was uncovered his
people found it broken to bits. He was afterwards buried in the portico of the church. The
vessels for which he had perjured himself were brought by his storekeeper after his death.
Here the power of the blessed Mary is evident, in whose church the wretch had taken a
false oath.

[41. Fredegunda is accused of the killing of Prætextatus. 42. Beppolenus leaves Fredegunda
and is made a duke by Gunthram. 43. Palladius, bishop of Saintes, is forced to appear
before Gunthram. 44. Fredegunda attempts to have Gunthram assassinated. 45. Death of Duke
Desiderius. 46. Richared succeeds Leuvigild of Spain.] Here ends the Eighth Book.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK IX

[1. Richared, the new king of Spain, sends legates to Gunthram and Childebert; they are
not received by Gunthram. 2. Death of Radegunda.] 3. Meantime the festival of Saint
Marcellus came, which is celebrated in the seventh month in the city of Chalon, and king
Gunthram was present. And when the ceremony was over and he had approached the holy altar
for the communion, a certain man came as if to say something. And as he hastened to the
king a knife fell from his hand; he was seized at once and they found another knife
unsheathed in his hand. He was immediately led from the holy church and put in fetters and
subjected to torture, and he confessed that he had been sent to kill the king, saying,
“This was the purpose of the man who sent me.” Since the king knew that the hatred of many
men was united on him and he feared that he would be stabbed, he had given orders to his
men to guard him well and no opportunity could be found to get at him with swords unless
he was attacked in the church, where he was known to stand without care or fear. Now the
men who had been named were seized and many were executed, but he let this man go alive,
though severely beaten, because he thought it a crime that a man should be led out of
church and beheaded.

[4. A second son, Theodoric, is born to Childebert. 5. Prodigies. Among others a village
with cottages and men disappeared suddenly.] 6. There was in that year in the city of
Tours a man named Desiderius who claimed to be great and said he could do many miracles.
He boasted too that messengers were kept busy going to and fro between him and the
apostles Peter and Paul. And as I was not at home, the common folk thronged to him
bringing the blind and lame but he did not attempt to cure them by holiness but to fool
them with the delusion of necromancy. For he ordered paralytics and other cripples to be
vigorously stretched as if he were going to cure by taking pains those whose limbs he
could not straighten by the blessing of the divine virtue. And so his attendants would lay
hold of a man’s hands and others his feet, and pull in opposite directions so that one
would think their sinews would be broken, and when they were not cured they would be sent
off half-dead. And the result was that many died under this torture. And the wretch was so
presumptuous that he said he was blessed Martin the younger and put himself on a par with
the apostles. And it is no wonder that he compared himself with the apostles when that
author of wickedness from whom such things proceed is going to assert toward the end of
the world that he is Christ.

Now it was known from the following fact that he was versed in the wicked art of
necromancy as we have said above, because, as they say who observed him, when any one said
any evil of him far away and secretly he would rebuke them publicly and say: “You said so
and so about me and it was not right to say such things of a holy man like me. Now how
else could he have learned of it except that demons were his messengers? He wore a hood
and a goat’s-hair shirt and in public he was abstemious in eating and drinking, but in
secret when he had come to his lodgings he would stuff his mouth so that his servant could
not carry food to him as fast as he asked for it. But his trickery was exposed and stopped
by our people and he was cast out from the territory of the city. We did not know then
where he went, but he said he was a citizen of Bordeaux. Now seven years before there had
been another great impostor who deceived many by his tricks. He wore a sleeveless shirt
and over it a robe of fine stuff and carried a cross from which hung little bottles which
contained as he said holy oil. He said that he came from the Spains and was bringing
relics of the blessed martyrs Vincent the deacon and Felix.

He arrived at Tours at the church of Saint Martin in the evening when we were sitting at
dinner, and sent an order saying: “Let them come to see the holy relics. As the hour was
late I replied: “Let the blessed relics rest on the altar and we will go to see them in
the morning. But he arose at the first break of day and without waiting for me came with
his cross and appeared in my cell. I was amazed and wondered at his hardihood and asked
what this meant. He answered in a proud and haughty voice: “You should have given me a
better welcome; I’ll carry this to the ears of king Chilperic; he will avenge this
contemptuous treatment of me. He paid no more attention to me but went into the oratory
and said a verse, then a second and a third, began the prayer and finished it, all by
himself, then took up his cross again and went off. He had a rude style of speech and was
free with disgusting and obscene terms and not a sensible word came from him. He went on
to Paris. In those days the public prayers were being held that are usually held before
the holy day of the Lord’s ascension.

And as bishop Ragnemod was walking in procession with his people and making the round of
the holy places, this person came with his cross and appearing among the people with his
unusual clothing, he gathered the prostitutes and women of the lower class and formed a
band of his own and made an attempt to walk in procession to the holy places with his
multitude. The bishop saw this and sent his archdeacon to say: “If you have relics of the
saints to show, place them for a little in the church and celebrate the holydays with us,
and when the rites are finished you shall go on your way. But he paid little attention to
what the archdeacon said but began to abuse and revile the bishop. The bishop saw that he
was an impostor and ordered him shut up in a cell. And examining all he had, he found a
great bag full of roots of different herbs and also there were moles’ teeth, the bones of
mice, the claws and fat of bears. He knew that these were the means of sorcery and ordered
them all thrown into the river; he took his cross away and ordered him to be driven from
the territory of Paris. But he made himself a second cross and began to do what he had
done before, but was captured and put in chains by the archdeacon and kept in custody. In
these days I had come to Paris and had my lodging at the church of the blessed martyr
Julian.

The following night the wretch broke out of prison and hastened to Saint Julian’s church
just mentioned, wearing the chains with which he was bound, and fell on the pavement where
I had been accustomed to stand and, overwhelmed with drowsiness and wine, he fell asleep.
Unaware of this I rose at midnight to return thanks to God and found him sleeping. And
such a stench came from him that that stench surpassed the stenches of all sewers and
privies. I was unable to go into the church because of the stench. And one of the clergy
came holding his nose and tried to wake him but could not; for the wretch was so
intoxicated. Then four of the clergy came and lifted him and threw him into one corner of
the church, and they brought water and washed the pavement and scattered sweet-smelling
herbs on it and so I went in to offer the regular prayers. But he could not be wakened
even when we sang the psalms until with the coming of day the sun’s torch climbed higher.
Then I surrendered him to the bishop with a request for his pardon. When the bishops
assembled at Paris I told this at dinner and bade him be brought to receive correction.
And when he stood by, Amelius, bishop of Tarbes, looked at him and recognized him as his
slave who had run away. He secured his pardon and so took him back to his native place.

There are many who practise these impostures and continually lead the common people into
error. It is of these I think that the Lord says in the Gospel that in the latest times
false Christs and false prophets shall arise who shall do signs and wonders and lead the
very elect into error. Let this suffice for this subject; let us rather return to our
task. [7. Ennodius, duke of Tours and Poitiers, is removed from office. The Gascons make
an inroad on Frankish territory, and also the Goths. 8. Childebert desires to punish
Gunthram Boso for the insults he had offered to Brunhilda during Childebert’s minority. 9.
Rauchingus, Ursio, and Bertefred, enemies of Brunhilda, plot Childebert’s death.
Rauchingus is trapped and brutally killed. Ursio and Bertefred take refuge in a
stronghold.] 10. While this was going on king Gunthram sent a second time to his nephew
Childebert saying: “Let there be no delay; come, that I may see you. For it is surely
necessary for your own life as well as for the public welfare that we see one another.
Hearing this he took his mother, sister, and wife and hastened to meet his uncle. Bishop
Magneric of the city of Trèves was present also, and Gunthram Boso came, whom bishop
Ageric of Verdun had received in custody. But the bishop who had pledged his faith for him
was not present, because the agreement was that he should appear before the king without
any defender so that if the king decided that he must die he was not to be begged off by
the bishop; and if the king granted him life he would go free. Now the kings met and he
was judged guilty on various grounds and was ordered to be put to death. When he learned
it he flew to Magneric’s lodging and shutting the doors and sending the clerks and
attendants away he said: “Most blessed bishop, I know that you have great honor with the
kings. And now I flee to you to be rescued. Behold, the executioners are at the door,
whence you may plainly know that if you do not save me I shall kill you and go outside and
die. Let me tell you plainly that either one death overtakes us or an equal life shall
protect us.

O holy bishop, I know that you share with the king the place of father to his son and I am
sure that whatever you ask you will obtain from him; he will not be able to deny your
holiness anything you demand. Therefore either obtain my pardon or we shall die together.
He said this with his sword unsheathed. The bishop was alarmed at what he heard and said:
“And how can I do it if I am kept here by you. Let me go to beg the king’s mercy and
perhaps he will pity you. But he replied: “By no means, but send abbots and men you trust
to carry the message I propose. However, these matters were not reported as they were to
the king, but they said that he was being protected by the bishop. And so the king was
angry and said: “If the bishop refuses to come out let him die together with that doer of
wickedness. The bishop when he was told this sent messengers to the king. And when they
had told their story king Gunthram said: “Set fire to the house and if the bishop cannot
come out let them be burned together. The clerks on hearing this burst open the door by
force and got the bishop out. Then when the wretch saw that he was hemmed in by great
flames on every side he approached the door with his sword.

But as soon as he left the threshold and set foot outside at once one of the people threw
a lance and struck his forehead. He was confused by this stroke and lost his head and
tried to throw his sword but he was wounded by the bystanders with such a multitude of
lances that with the heads sticking in his body and the shafts supporting him he was
unable to fall to the earth. A few who were with him were killed and exposed on the field
at the same time. And permission to bury them was obtained from the princes only with
difficulty. This man was faithless, headlong in avarice, greedy for other men’s property
beyond limit, swearing to all and fulfilling his promises to none. His wife and sons were
sent into exile and his property confiscated. A great quantity of gold and silver and of
valuables of different sorts was found in his stores. Moreover what he had concealed
underground from a consciousness of wrongdoing did not remain hidden. He often made use of
soothsayers and lots, desiring to learn the future from them, but was always deceived.

[11. Gunthram and Childebert settle their differences amicably. 12. Ursio and Bertefred
are dislodged from their stronghold and slain. 13. Baddo is allowed to go free. Dysentery
is severe in Metz. Wiliulf’s wife marries a third time. 14. Bishop Egidius of Rheims makes
his peace with Childebert.] 15. Now at that time in Spain king Richared was influenced by
the divine mercy and summoned the bishops of his religion and said to them: “Why are
quarrels continually going on between you and the bishops who call themselves Catholic,
and when they do many miracles by their faith why can you do nothing of the sort?
Therefore I beg you let us meet with them and examine the beliefs of both sides and find
out what is true; and then either let them take our plan and believe what you say or else
you recognize their truth and believe what they preach. This was done and the bishops of
both sides gathered and the heretics expounded the doctrines that I have often described
them as advocating. Likewise the bishops of our religion made the replies by which, as I
have pointed out in the previous books, the heretics have been often defeated. And above
all the king said that no miraculous cure of the infirm had been done by the bishops of
the heretics, and when he recalled to mind how in his father’s time the bishop who boasted
that he could restore sight to the blind by his faith which was not the true one had
touched a blind man and [thus] condemned him to perpetual blindness and had come off in
confusion—I have told this story more fully in the book of The Miracles—he summoned God’s
bishops to him separately.

And by questioning them he learned that it was one God that was worshiped with distinction
of three persons, namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Son was not inferior to
the Father nor the Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost inferior to the Father nor the Son, but
they were equal and alike all-powerful, and in this Trinity they confessed the true God.
Then Richared perceived the truth and ending the argument he placed himself under the
Catholic law, and receiving the sign of the blessed cross together with baptism he
believed in Jesus Christ son of God, equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost, reigning for
ages of ages. Amen. Then he sent messengers to the province of Narbonne to tell what he
had done and bring the people to a like belief. The bishop of the Arian sect there at the
time was Athalocus who caused such trouble to God’s churches by his vain doctrines and
false interpretations of the Scriptures that he was believed to be the very Arius who, as
the historian Eusebius relates, lost his entrails in a privy. But when he did not allow
the people of his sect to believe these things and only a few flattered him by agreeing
with him he was transported with spite and went to his cell and laid his head on the bed
and breathed out his worthless soul. And thus the heretics in the province confessed the
inseparable Trinity and departed from error.

[16. King Richared sends an embassy to Gunthram and Childebert. It is not received by
Gunthram. 17. An unusually cold spring. 18. The Bretons ravage the territory of Nantes.]
19. The feud among the citizens of Tours which, as we have stated above, was ended, burst
out again with renewed fury. After slaying Chramsind’s kinsmen Sichar had become very
friendly with him, and they loved one another so dearly that they often ate together and
slept together in one bed. Once Chramsind made ready a dinner towards night and invited
Sichar. He came and they sat down together to dinner. And Sichar became drunk with wine
and made many boasts to Chramsind, and he is reported to have said at last: “Dearest
brother, you owe me great gratitude for killing your kinsmen since you got payment for
them and you have much gold and silver in your house, and if that payment had not given
you a start you would now be naked and in need. But Chramsind heard Sichar’s word with a
bitter heart and said within himself: “Unless I avenge my kinsmen’s death I ought to lose
the name of man and be called a weak woman. And at once he extinguished the lights and
plunged his dagger into Sichar’s head. Sichar made a little cry and immediately fell and
died. The attendants who had come with him rushed away. Chramsind stripped the garments
from his lifeless body and hung it on a picket of the fence and mounted his horse and went
to the king. He entered the church and threw himself at the king’s feet and said:

“I beg for my life, O glorious king, because I have killed men who slew my kinsmen
secretly and plundered all their property. But when the case was gone into in detail queen
Brunhilda was displeased that Sichar, who was under her protection, had been killed in
such a way, and she became angry at Chramsind. When he saw that she was against him he
went to Bouges, a village in the territory of Bourges where his kinsmen lived, because it
was in Gunthram’s kingdom. And Tranquilla, Sichar’s wife, left her sons and her husband’s
property in Tours and Poitiers and went to her kinsmen at Pont-sur-Seine and there married
again. Sichar was twenty years old when he died. He was in his lifetime a fickle, drunken,
murderous person, who offered insults to many when he was drunk. Later Chramsind returned
to the king and it was decided that he must prove that Sichar had killed his kinsmen. This
he did. But since queen Brunhilda had placed Sichar under her protection, as we have said,
she ordered Chramsind’s property to be confiscated. But later it was returned by the court
official Flavian. In addition he went to Agen and got a letter from Flavian directing that
no one should touch him. Flavian had received his property from the queen.

20. In that year, which was also the thirteenth of king Childebert, I went to visit him at
the city of Metz, and received orders to go on an embassy to king Gunthram. I found him at
Chalon and said: “O famous king, your glorious nephew Childebert sends you many greetings
and offers endless thanks to your goodness because he is continually reminded by you to do
the things that please God and are acceptable to you and of advantage to the people. As
regards the matters of which you spoke together he promises to fulfil everything and
engages not to break any of the agreements which are made in writing between you.” And the
king said to this: “I do not offer him like thanks, because his promises to me are being
broken. My part of Senlis is not surrendered; the men whom I wished to go for my good,
since they are my enemies, they have not let go. And in what sense do you mean that my
sweet nephew does not wish to break any of his written agreements?” To this I answered:
“He wishes to do nothing contrary to those agreements but promises to fulfil them all, so
that if you wish to send [men] to divide Senlis there need be no delay; for you shall
receive your own at once. And as to the men you mention let their names be given in
writing and all that is promised shall be fulfilled.” We spoke of these matters and the
king ordered the agreement itself to be read over again in the presence of the bystanders.

Copy of the Agreement. When the most excellent lords, kings Gunthram and Childebert, and
the most glorious lady queen Brunhilda met lovingly in Christ’s name at Andelot to arrange
with full counsel whatever might in any way cause a quarrel among them, it was
affectionately settled, resolved upon and agreed between them by the mediation of the
bishops and chief men and the help of God, that as long as all powerful God wished them to
live in the present world they ought to keep faith and affection pure and undefiled for
each other. In the same way since lord Gunthram in accordance with the agreement which he
had entered into with lord Sigibert of good memory, claimed that the whole share which
Sigibert had received from Charibert’s kingdom belonged entirely to him and [since] the
party of lord Childebert wished to claim from all what his father had possessed, it is
definitely and deliberately agreed between them that the third of the city of Paris with
its territory and people which had gone to lord Sigibert from Charibert’s kingdom by
written agreement, with the castles of Châteaudun and Vendôme and whatever the said king
received of the district of Étampes and the territory of Chartres in that direction, with
their lands and people, were to remain perpetually under the authority and rule of lord
Gunthram, with that which he held before from Charibert’s kingdom while lord Sigibert was
alive.

In like manner king Childebert asserts his right from the present to Meaux and to two-
thirds of Senlis, Tours, Poitiers, Avranches, Aire, Saint Lizier, Bayonne, and Albi with
their territories. The condition being observed that he of these kings whom the Lord wills
to survive shall have a perpetual right to the whole kingdom of him who goes from the
light of the present world without children, and by God’s aid shall leave it to his
descendants. It is especially agreed upon to be in every way inviolably observed that
whatever the lord king Gunthram has given or by God’s favor shall give to his daughter
Clodechild in goods and men, both cities, lands, and revenues, shall remain under her
ownership and control. And if she wishes of her own free will to dispose of lands
belonging to the fisc or valuable articles or money, or to bestow them on any one, let it
be kept with a good title forever and not be taken from any one at any time, and let her
be under the protection and defense of lord Childebert, since she ought to possess in all
honor and security everything that he finds her in possession of at her father’s death.

Likewise the lord king Gunthram promises that if in the uncertainty of human life lord
Childebert should happen to pass from the light while he is living,—may the divine
goodness not allow it and Gunthram does not wish to see it—he will receive under his
protection and guardianship like a good father Childebert’s sons Theodobert and Theodoric
and any others that God wishes to give him, so that they shall possess their father’s
kingdom in all security; and he will receive under his protection with a spiritual love
lord Childebert’s mother, queen Brunhilda, and her daughter Clodosind, sister of king
Childebert, while she is in the country of the Franks, and his queen Faileuba like a good
sister and daughters, and they shall possess all their property in all honor and dignity
with peace and security, namely, cities, lands, revenues, and all rights, and every kind
of property, both what they actually possess at the present time and what they are able
justly to acquire in the future by Christ’s aid, and if they wish to dispose of any of the
lands of the fisc or articles or money of their own free will, or to present them to any
one, let it be kept with a good title forever, and let their will in this respect not be
disregarded by any one at any time.

And as to the cities, namely, Bordeaux, Limoges, Cahors, Lescar, and Cieutat, which it is
well known that Galsuntha, lady Brunhilda’s sister, acquired as dowry or morganegyba, that
is, morning gift, when she came into Francia, and which lady Brunhilda is known to have
acquired by the decision of the glorious lord king Gunthram and of the Franks when
Chilperic and king Sigibert were still alive, it is agreed that the lady Brunhilda shall
have as her property from to-day the city of Cahors with its lands and all its people, but
the other cities named lord Gunthram shall hold while he lives, on condition that after
his death they shall pass by God’s favor with every security under the control of the lady
Brunhilda and her heirs, but while lord Gunthram lives they shall not at any time or on
any pretext be claimed by lady Brunhilda or her son king Childebert or his sons. In the
same way it is agreed that lord Childebert shall hold Senlis in entirety, and as far as
the third therein due to lord Gunthram is concerned he shall be compensated by the third
belonging to lord Childebert which is in Ressons.

Likewise it is agreed that according to the agreements entered into between lord Gunthram
and lord Sigibert of blessed memory, the leudes who originally took oath to lord Gunthram
after the death of lord Clothar, if afterwards they are proved to have gone to the other
side, shall be removed from the places where they are dwelling, and in the same manner
those who after the death of king Clothar are found guilty of having first sworn
allegiance to lord Sigibert and then have passed to the other side shall be removed
likewise. Also whatever the kings mentioned have given to churches or to their followers,
or in future by God’s favor wish to give in accordance with justice, shall be held
securely. And whatever is due to any one of their men in either kingdom according to law
and justice, he shall not suffer any prejudice, but shall be permitted to take and hold
what is due him; and if anything is taken from anyone without fault on his part in an
interregnum, a hearing shall be held and it shall be restored. And as regards that which
each owned through the generosity of previous kings down to the death of lord king Clothar
of glorious memory, let him keep it in security. And whatever has been taken since that
from persons who are faithful let them receive it back at once.

And since a pure and untainted friendship has been formed in God’s name between the kings
mentioned, it is agreed that passage shall at no time be denied in either kingdom to the
men of either king who wish to travel on public or private business. It is likewise agreed
that neither shall entice away the others leudes or receive them when they come. And if
perhaps one thinks that because of some act he has to flee to the other part, let him be
excused in regard to the nature of the fault and sent back. It has been decided also to
add this to the agreement, that if either party shall at any time transgress the present
statute under some clever interpretation, he shall lose all the benefits both prospective
and present, and it shall turn to the advantage of him who faithfully observes all that is
written above, and he shall be freed in all details from the obligation of his oath. All
these matters having been definitely agreed upon, the parties swear by the name of all-
powerful God and the inseparable Trinity and all that is divine and the awful day of
judgment that they will faithfully observe all that is written above without any fraud or
deceit. This compact was made four days before the Kalends of December in the twenty-sixth
year of the reign of the lord king Gunthram and in the twelfth year of lord Childebert.

When the agreement was read over the king said: “May I be struck by the judgment of God if
I transgress in any one of the matters contained here. And he turned to the legate Felix
who had come with us and said: “Tell me, Felix, have you established a close friendship
between my sister Brunhilda and Fredegunda the enemy of God and man? When he replied “no”
I said: “Let the king be sure that the friendship is being kept up between them as it was
started many years ago. For you may be certain that the hatred that was once established
between them is alive yet, it has not withered up. I wish you, most glorious king, would
have less friendship for her. For as we often learn, you receive her embassies with
greater state than ours. He answered: “Let me tell you, bishop of God, that I receive her
embassies in such a way as not to lose the affection of my nephew king Childebert. For I
cannot be friendly with one who has often sent to take my life. Upon this Felix said: “I
suppose it has come to your greatness that Richared has sent an embassy to your nephew to
ask for your niece Clodosinda, your brother’s daughter, in marriage. But he was unwilling
to make any promise without your advice. The king said: “It is not well for my niece to go
to a place where her sister was killed.

I am not at all pleased that the death of my niece Ingunda is not avenged. Felix replied:
“They are very anxious to set themselves right either by oath or on any other terms you
suggest; but only give your consent for Clotosinda to be betrothed to him as he requests.
The king said: “If my nephew keeps the agreements that he bound himself to in the compact
I will do his will in this matter. We promised that he would fulfil all and Felix added:
“He begs your goodness to give him help against the Lombards so that they may be driven
from Italy and the part which his father claimed when alive may return to him, and the
other part be restored by your and his aid to the dominion of the emperor. The king
replied: “I cannot send my army to Italy and expose the soldiers to death uselessly. For a
very severe plague is now wasting Italy. And I said: “You have told your nephew to have
all the bishops of his kingdom meet together since there are many things to be decided.
But it was the opinion of your glorious nephew that each metropolitan according to the
custom of the canons should meet with his provincials, and then what went wrong in each
district would be set right by order of the bishops. For what reason is there that so
great a number should assemble? The faith of the church is not attacked by any danger; no
new heresy is appearing.

What need will there be for so many bishops to meet together? And he said: “There is much
to be looked into that has gone wrong, both acts of incest and matters which are in
discussion between us. But the most important case of all is that of God, since you must
investigate why bishop Prætextatus was slain by the sword in his church. Moreover there
ought to be an examination of those who are accused of wantonness so that if found guilty
they can be corrected by the bishops’ sentence, or if they prove innocent that the falsity
of the charge can be publicly recognized. Then he gave orders for the synod to be
adjourned to the Kalends of the fourth month. After this conversation we went to church;
it was the day of the anniversary of the Lord’s resurrection. After mass he invited us to
a dinner which was as abundant in dishes as rich in cheer. For the king talked always of
God, building churches and helping the poor, and then he made pious jokes and to please us
he went on to say this: “I hope my nephew will keep his promises; for all I have is his.
Still, if he is disturbed because I receive my nephew Clothar’s legates, I’m not so mad,
am I, but that I can mediate between them and keep the trouble from going further? I know
it is better to cut it short than to carry it too far.

If I decide that Clothar is my nephew I will give him two or three cities in some part, so
that he shall not seem to be disinherited, and what I leave to Childebert will not then
disquiet him. After this talk he bade us go on our way, treating us affectionately and
loading us with gifts, and telling us always to give king Childebert good advice to live
by. 21. The king himself, as we have often said, was great in almsgiving and unwearied in
watches and fasting. It was told at the time that Marseilles was suffering greatly from
the bubonic plague and that the disease had spread swiftly as far as the village in the
country of Lyons called Octavus. But the king like a good bishop was for providing
remedies by which the wounds of the sinful people could be cured, and ordered all to
assemble at the church and engage devoutly in prayer. He directed that nothing else than
barley bread and clean water should be taken in the way of food and that all without
intermission should keep watch. And this was done and for three days he gave alms with
more than usual generosity and he showed such fear for all the people that he was now
believed to be not merely a king but a bishop of God, placing all his hope in God’s mercy,
and in the purity of his faith turning all his thoughts to him by whom he believed that
these thoughts could be given effect. It was then commonly told among the faithful that a
woman whose son was suffering from a four-day fever and was lying in bed very ill,
approached the king’s back in the throng of people and secretly broke off the fringe of
the royal garment and put it in water and gave to her son to drink, and at once the fever
died down and he was cured. I do not regard this as doubtful since I have myself heard
persons possessed by demons in their furies call on his name and admit their ill deeds,
recognizing his power.

22. Since we have told above that the city of Marseilles was sick with a deadly plague it
seems suitable to give more details of what the city suffered. In these days bishop
Theodore had gone to the king to speak to him against the patrician Nicetius. But when he
got no hearing from king Childebert on this matter he made ready to return home. Meantime
a ship from Spain put in at the port with its usual wares and unhappily brought the seed
of this disease. And many citizens bought various merchandise from her, and one household
in which were eight souls was quickly left vacant, its inmates all dying of this plague.
But the fire of the plague did not at once spread through all the houses, but after a
definite time like a fire in standing grain it swept the whole city with the flame of
disease. However the bishop went to the city and shut himself within the walls of St.
Victor’s church with the few who then remained with him, and there devoted himself to
prayer and watching while the people of the city perished, praying for God’s mercy that
the deaths might at length cease and the people be allowed to rest in peace. The plague
passed away in two months, and when the people, now reassured, had returned to the city
the disease came on again and they who returned perished. Later on the city was many times
attacked by this death.

[23. Ageric, bishop of Verdun, dies of chagrin because Gunthram Boso, whose safety he had
pledged, had been killed, and because Bertefred had been killed in his oratory. 24.
Phronius the new bishop of Vence. 25. Childebert makes war on the Lombards and suffers a
defeat “the like of which in former times is not recalled.” 26. Gregory assists queen
Ingoberga in making her will.] 27. Duke Amalo sent his wife to another estate to attend to
his interests, and fell in love with a certain free-born girl. And when it was night and
Amalo was drunk with wine he sent his men to seize the girl and bring her to his bed. She
resisted and they brought her by force to his house, slapping her, and she was stained by
a torrent of blood that ran from her nose. And even the bed of the duke mentioned above
was made bloody by the stream. And he beat her, too, striking with his fists and cuffing
her and beating her otherwise, and took her in his arms, but he was immediately
overwhelmed with drowsiness and went to sleep. And she reached her hand over the man’s
head and found his sword and drew it, and like Judith Holofernes struck the duke’s head a
powerful blow. He cried out and his slaves came quickly. But when they wished to kill her
he called out saying: “I beg you do not do it, for it was I who did wrong in attempting to
violate her chastity. Let her not perish for striving to keep her honor.” Saying this he
died. And while the household was assembled weeping over him the girl escaped from the
house by God’s help and went in the night to the city of Chalon about thirty-five miles
away; and there she entered the church of Saint Marcellus and threw herself at the king’s
feet and told all she had endured. Then the king was merciful and not only gave her her
life but commanded that an order be given that she should be placed under his protection
and should not suffer harm from any kinsman of the dead man. Moreover we know that by
God’s help the girl’s chastity was not in any way violated by her savage ravisher.

[28. Brunhilda’s messenger to the Spanish king is detained by Gunthram. 29. Childebert
sends an army against the Lombards.] 30. King Childebert at the invitation of Bishop
Maroveus sent assessors to Poitiers, namely, Florientian, the queen’s majordomo, and
Romulf, count of the palace, to make new tax lists in order that the people might pay the
taxes they had paid in his father’s time. For many of them were dead and the weight of the
tribute came on widows and orphans and the weak. And they made an orderly examination and
released the poor and sick and subjected to the public tax those who should justly pay.
And so they came to Tours. But when they wished to impose the payment of taxes on the
people, saying they had the book in their hands, showing how they had paid in the time of
previous kings, I answered saying: “It is well known that the city of Tours was assessed
in the time of king Clothar and those books were taken to the presence of the king, but
the king was stricken with fear of the holy bishop Martin and they were burned. After king
Clothar’s death this people swore allegiance to king Charibert and he likewise swore that
he would not impose new laws or customs on the people but would thereafter maintain them
in the status in which they lived in his father’s reign, and he promised that he would not
impose any new ordinance which would tend to despoil them. And count Gaiso in the same
time began to exact tribute, following a capitulary which we have said was written at a
more ancient time.

But being stopped by bishop Euphronius he went with the little he had collected to the
king’s presence and pointed to the capitulary in which the tributes were contained. But
the king uttered a groan and fearing the power of Saint Martin he had it burned, and sent
back the gold coins that had been collected to the church of Saint Martin, asserting that
no one of the people of Tours should pay tribute. After his death king Sigibert ruled this
city and did not lay upon it the weight of any tribute. Moreover in the fourteen years of
his reign from his father’s death up to now Childebert has demanded nothing, and this city
has not groaned with the burden of tribute. It is now for your decision whether to assess
tribute or not; but be careful lest you do some harm if you plan to go against his oath.
When I had said this they answered: “Behold, we have the book in our hands in which a tax
was imposed on this people. But I said: “This book was not brought from the king’s
treasury and it has had no authority for many years. It is no wonder, considering the
enmities among these citizens, if it has been kept in some one’s house. God will give
judgment on those who have brought out this book after so long a time to despoil our
citizens.

And while this was going on the son of Audinus, who had brought out the book, was seized
with a fever on the very day and died three days after. We then sent messengers to the
king asking him to send his commands on this matter. And they at once sent a letter
ordering that out of respect for Saint Martin the people of Tours should not be assessed.
Upon receipt of the letter the men who had come for this purpose returned home. [31. An
expedition of king Gunthram against Septimania is defeated. 32. Misunderstanding between
Childebert and Gunthram. 33. Quarrel between Ingytrude, head of the convent within St.
Martin’s walls, and her daughter.] 34. Rigunda, daughter of Chilperic, often made
malicious charges against her mother and said that she was mistress and that her mother
ought to serve her, and often attacked her with abuse and sometimes struck and slapped
her, and her mother said to her: “Why do you annoy me, daughter? Come, take your father’s
things that I have and do as you please with them.” And she went into the store-room and
opened a chest quite full of necklaces and costly jewels. For a long time she took them
out one by one and handed them to her daughter but finally said: “I am tired; you put in
your hand and take what you find.” And she thrust in her arm and was taking things from
the chest when her mother seized the lid and slammed it down on her head. And she was
holding it down firmly and the lower board was pressing against her daughter’s throat so
that her eyes were actually ready to pop out when one of the maids who was within called
loudly: “Run, I beg you, run; my mistress is being choked to death by her mother.” And
those who were awaiting their coming outside rushed into the little room and saved the
girl from threatening death and led her out. After that their enmity was more bitter and
there were continual quarrels and fighting between them, above all because of the
adulteries Rigunda was guilty of.

35. Beretrude, when dying, appointed her daughter heir, leaving certain property to the
nunneries she had founded and to the cathedrals and churches of the holy confessors. But
Waddo, whom we mentioned in a former book, complained that his horses had been taken by
her son-in-law, and he proposed to go to an estate of hers which she had left to her
daughter and which was within the territory of Poitiers, saying: “He came from another
kingdom and took my horses and I will take his estate. Meantime he sent orders to the
bailiff that he was coming and to make everything ready for his use. The bailiff on
hearing this gathered all the household and got ready to fight, saying: “Unless I’m killed
Waddo shall not enter my master’s house. Waddo’s wife heard that warlike preparations were
being made against her husband, and she said to him: “Do not go there, dear husband; for
you will be killed if you go and my children and I will be miserable. And she laid hold of
him and wished to detain him, and her son also said: “If you go, we will be killed
together and you will leave my mother a widow and my brothers orphans. But these words
altogether failed to hold him back and he was enflamed with madness at his son, and
calling him cowardly and soft he threw his ax and almost crushed his skull. But the son
dashed it partly aside and escaped the stroke.

Then they mounted their horses and went off, sending word again to the bailiff to sweep
the house and spread covers on the benches. But he paid little attention to the order and
stood with his throngs of men and women before his master’s door, as we have said,
awaiting Waddo’s coming. He came and at once entered the house and said: “Why are these
benches not spread with covers and the house swept? And he raised his hand with his dagger
in it and struck the man’s head and he fell and died. Upon seeing this the dead man’s son
hurled his lance from in front against Waddo and pierced the middle of his belly with the
blow, and the spear-head came out of his back and he fell to the ground, and the multitude
which had gathered drew near and began to stone him. Then certain of those who had come
with him rushed up amid the showers of stones and covered him with a cloak and the people
were calmed, and his son, uttering mournful cries, got him upon his horse and took him
back home still living. But he died soon amid the laments of his wife and sons. And so his
life was unhappily ended and his son went to the king and obtained his property.

[36. Childebert sends his son Theodobert to represent him in Soissons. 37. Bishop
Droctigisil goes insane from excessive drinking or because evil arts had been practiced on
him. 38. A plot against Brunhilda and Childebert’s wife. 39-43. The story in detail of the
secession of forty nuns from the convent at Poitiers, with documents involved in the case.
44. The weather.] Here ends the Ninth Book.


THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS
=========================

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS continued

BOOK X

1. In the fifteenth year of king Childebert our deacon returned from Rome with relics of
the saints and related that in the ninth month of the previous year the river Tiber so
flooded the city of Rome that ancient temples were destroyed and the store-houses of the
church were overturned and several thousand measures of wheat in them were lost. A
multitude of snakes, among them a great serpent like a big log, passed down into the sea
by the channel of this river, but these creatures were smothered among the rough and salty
waves of the sea and cast up on the shore. Immediately after came the plague which they
call inguinaria. It came in the middle of the eleventh month and according to what is read
in the prophet Ezekiel: “Begin at my sanctuary,” it first of all smote the pope Pelagius
and soon killed him. Upon his death a great mortality among the people followed from this
disease. But since the church of God could not be without a head all the people chose
Gregory the deacon. He belonged to one of the first senatorial families and from his youth
was devoted to God and with his own means had established six monasteries in Sicily and a
seventh within the Roman walls; and giving to these such an amount of land as would
suffice to furnish their daily food, he sold the rest and all the furniture of his house
and distributed the money among the poor;

and he who had been used to appear in the city arrayed in silken robes and glittering
jewels was now clad in cheap garments, and he devoted himself to the service of the Lord’s
altar and was assigned as seventh levite to aid the pope. And such was his abstinence in
food, his sleeplessness in prayer, his determination in fasting that his stomach was
weakened and he could scarcely stand upright. He was so versed in grammar, dialectic, and
rhetoric that he was believed second to none in the city. He strove earnestly to avoid
this high office for fear that a certain pride at attaining the honor might sweep him back
into the worldly vanities he had rejected. And so he sent a letter to the emperor
Mauricius whose son he had taken from the holy font, adjuring him and entreating him with
many prayers never to grant his consent to the people to raise him to this place of honor.
But Germanus, prefect of Rome, forestalled the messenger and had him arrested and the
letter destroyed, and himself sent to the emperor the choice which the people had made.
And the emperor on account of his friendship with the deacon thanked God that he had found
a place of honor and sent his command to appoint him.…

[Because of the plague Gregory makes an address to the people of Rome to meet it by
prayer.] When he spoke these words bands of clergy gathered and he bade them sing psalms
for three days and pray for God’s mercy. Every three hours choirs of singers came to the
church crying through the streets of the city “Kyrie eleison.” Our deacon who was there
said that in the space of one hour while the people uttered cries of supplication to the
Lord eighty fell to the ground and died. But the bishop did not cease to urge the people
not to cease from prayer. It was from Gregory while he was still deacon that our deacon
received the relics of the saints as we have said. And when Gregory was making ready to go
to a hiding place he was seized and brought by force to the church of the blessed apostle
Peter and there he was consecrated to the duties of bishop and made pope of the city. Our
deacon did not leave until Gregory returned from the port to become bishop, and he saw his
ordination with his own eyes.

2. Grippo returned from the emperor Maurice and reported that in the preceding year he and
his companions had taken ship and landed at an African port and gone on to Carthage the
Great. While they were remaining there, awaiting the orders of the prefect who was in the
city as to how they were to reach the emperor’s presence, one of the men belonging to
Evantius, who had gone out with him, snatched an article of value from a trader’s hand and
took it to their lodging. The owner of the article followed him and demanded his property
back. But the man put him off and the quarrel grew greater from day to day, and one day
the trader met the man on the street and took hold of his clothes and held fast saying:
“I’ll never let you go until you return to my possession what you took by violence. But
the other after trying to shake him off did not hesitate to snatch his sword and kill the
fellow, and he at once returned to the lodging but did not disclose to his comrades what
had happened. Now as I have said the legates were Bodigisel, son of Mummolinus of
Soissons, and Evantius, son of Dinamius of Arles, and this Grippo, a Frank, and they had
arisen from dinner and retired to rest and sleep.

But when the act of their man was reported to the ruler of the city he gathered soldiers
and all the people put on their armor and he sent them to their lodging. But the legates
were amazed on being wakened to see what was going on, having had no expectation of it.
Then the leader cried out saying: “Lay your arms aside and come out to us, that we may
peaceably learn how the homicide happened. On hearing this they were alarmed as they did
not yet know what had happened, and they asked for a pledge so that they could go out
safely without arms. The men swore that they could but their hastiness did not allow them
to keep their oath. But soon after Bodigisil went out they killed him with the sword and
likewise Evantius. And when they lay before the door of the lodging Grippo seized his
armor and went out to them with the men he had with him, saying: “We do not know what has
happened and behold here are the comrades of my journey who were sent to the emperor lying
slain by the sword. God will avenge our wrong and will atone for their death by your
destruction, since you butcher us in this way when we do not harm you but come in peace.
There shall not be peace any longer between our kings and your emperor. It was for peace
we came and to bring aid to your state.

To-day I call God to witness that it is your crime that has caused the promised peace to
be kept no longer between the princes. When Grippo had spoken these words and more to the
same effect, this Carthaginian troop dispersed and each returned to his home. The prefect
went to Grippo and attempted to calm him as to these occurrences and arranged for his
going to the presence of the emperor. He went and told the business on which he had been
sent and described the fate of his comrades. At this the emperor was greatly annoyed and
promised to avenge their death in accordance with the judgment king Childebert should
give. Then Grippo received gifts from the emperor and returned without being molested. 3.
These matters were related by Grippo to king Childebert, who at once commanded his army to
march into Italy and sent twenty dukes to conquer the Lombards. I have not thought it
necessary to set their names down here in order. But duke Audovald with Wintrio set the
people of Champagne on the march and when he came to the city of Metz which is on the way
he plundered, slew, and mistreated the inhabitants in such a manner that it might have
been thought that he was leading an army against his own country. Moreover the other dukes
did the same with their phalanxes and ravaged their own country and the people who
remained behind, before they won any victory over the enemy. When they reached the Italian
boundary Audovald with six dukes invaded the right side and reached the city of Milan, and
there they pitched their camp at a distance on the plain. And duke Olo went rashly to
Bellinzona, a stronghold of this city, situated on the plains called Canini, and was
wounded with a dart under the nipple and fell and died. Moreover when they went out to
plunder in order to get food, they were slain by the Lombards who rushed upon them
everywhere. There was a lake in the territory of Milan called Ceresium out of which a
small but deep stream flowed. Upon the shore of this lake they heard that the Lombards
were encamped.

They came to it, but before they could cross the stream we have mentioned one of the
Lombards standing on the shore, armed with a coat of mail and helmet and carrying a lance
in his hand, shouted against the army of the Franks, saying, “To-day it shall appear to
whom the Divinity will grant a victory. It may be understood that the Lombards had
arranged this as a sign. Then a few crossed and fought this Lombard and slew him. And
behold the whole army of the Lombards took to flight. Our men crossed the river but found
none of them, seeing only the camp arrangements, where they had their fires and pitched
their tents. And when they could capture none of them they returned to their own camp and
there the emperor’s legates came to them bringing the news that an army was at hand to
help them, and saying, “After three days we will come with it, and this shall be a sign
for you: when you see the houses of this village which is on the mountain burn with fire
and the smoke rising up to heaven, be assured that we are close at hand with the army
which we promised. However they waited according to agreement six days and saw none of
them come.

And Chedinus with thirteen dukes entered Italy on the left and took five strongholds and
exacted oaths of fealty. But dysentery affected his army severely—because the air was new
to his men and disagreed with them—and many died of it. But when the wind rose and it
rained and the air began to freshen a little it brought health in place of sickness. Why
more? For about three months they wandered through Italy without accomplishing anything or
being able to take vengeance on their enemies, since they were shut up in strongholds, or
to capture the king and take vengeance on him, since he was shut up within the walls of
Pavia, and then the army sickened as we have said because of the unhealthfulness of the
air and grew weak from hunger and prepared to return home after exacting oaths of fidelity
and subjecting to the king’s rule the people of the country which his father had held
before and from which they took captives and other booty. And returning thus they were so
starved that they sold their armor and clothing to buy food before they came to their
native place.…

4. Maurice caused the Carthaginians who had killed king Childebert’s legates the previous
year, to be bound and loaded with chains and sent them to Childebert’s presence, twelve in
number, under these conditions, that if he wished to put them to death he should have
permission: or if he would allow them to be ransomed he should receive three hundred gold
pieces for each and be content; and thus he was to choose whichever he wished, that the
disagreement might be more readily forgotten and no further cause of enmity arise between
them. But king Childebert refused to accept the bound men and said: “It is uncertain in my
mind whether these men you bring are the homicides or others, perhaps slaves of somebody
or other, whereas our men who were killed in your country were free born.” Grippo in
particular, who had been legate at the time with the men who were killed, was present and
said: “The prefect of the city with two or three thousand men whom he had gathered made an
attack on us and killed my comrades; and I would have perished with them if I hadn’t been
able to make a brave defence. I can go to the place and identify the men. It is these that
your emperor ought to punish if, as you say, he proposes to keep peace with our master.”
And so the king decided to send to the emperor for the guilty men and he bade these
depart.

5. In these days Chuppa, who had once been king Chilperic’s constable, made an inroad into
the territory of Tours and desired to take flocks and other property as if he were taking
booty. But the inhabitants had warning and a multitude gathered and began to pursue him.
He lost his plunder and two of his men were killed: he escaped with nothing and two other
men were captured; they were sent in fetters to king Childebert. He ordered them to be
thrown into prison and examined as to who it was by whose aid Chuppa escaped from being
captured by his pursuers. They answered that it was through a stratagem of the vicar
Animodus, who had the power of a judge in that district. At once the king sent a letter
and ordered the count of the city to send him in chains to the king’s presence; and if he
should attempt resistance he was to crush him by force and even kill him, if he wished to
gain the king’s favor. But Animodus made no resistance but gave sureties and went as he
was told, and finding Flavian the court-official he pleaded together with his companion
and was not found guilty; they were acquitted and ordered to return home. However he first
gave presents to the court-official. Chuppa a second time roused some of his people and
purposed to carry off the daughter of Badigysel, former bishop of Mans, to marry her. He
made a night attack with a band of his companions on the village of Mareil to fulfil his
purpose, but Magnatrude, the mother of the girl and head of the household, had warning of
him and his treachery; she went out against him with her slaves and repelled him by force,
killing many of his men; and he did not come off without disgrace.

[6. Miraculous deliverance of prisoners in a jail in Auvergne.] 7. In the same city king
Childebert most piously remitted all the tribute of the churches as well as of the
monasteries and of the clergy who were attached to a church and of whoever were engaged in
cultivating the church land. For the collectors of the tribute had suffered great losses,
since in the course of long time and succeeding generations the estates had been divided
into small parts and the tribute could be collected only with difficulty, and Childebert
by inspiration of God directed that the trouble should be remedied and the amount which
was due to the fisc from these should not be exacted from the collectors, and that
arrearage should not deprive any tiller of church land of his benefice. 8. Where the
territories of Auvergne, Gévaudan, and Rouergue meet, a synod of bishops was held to hear
the case against Tetradia, widow of Desiderius, from whom count Eulalius claimed the
property which she had taken with her when she fled from him. I think that I ought to
relate this case in full detail and how she left Eulalius and fled to Desiderius.
Eulalius, as a young man will, had behaved in several matters in a senseless fashion, and
so it came about that he was often reproached by his mother and began to hate when he
should have loved her. Now she used frequently to devote herself to prayer in the oratory
of her house and to spend the watches of the night in prayer and tears while her servants
slept, and at last she was found strangled in the hair shirt in which she prayed. And
though no one knew who had done this nevertheless her son was charged with the murder.
When Cautinus, bishop of Clermont, heard of this, he excommunicated him. But when the
citizens gathered with the bishop at the festival of the blessed martyr Julian, Eulalius
threw himself at the feet of the bishop complaining that he had been excommunicated
without a hearing. Then the bishop permitted him to attend the service of the mass with
the others. But when the time for communion came and Eulalius went forward to the altar
the bishop said: “Common talk among the people declares that you are a murderer.

Now I do not know whether you have done this crime or not: therefore I leave it to the
judgment of God and the blessed martyr Julian. You then, if you are fit to do so, as you
say, approach and take a share of the Eucharist and put it in your mouth. For God will
know your conscience. Eulalius received the Eucharist and had communion and departed. He
had a wife, Tetradia by name, noble on her mother’s side, of low rank by her father. And
in his house he took the maidservants for concubines and began to neglect his wife, and
when he returned from these harlots he would often beat her severely. Moreover because of
his many ill-deeds he contracted a number of debts and often used his wife’s jewels and
gold for these. Finally when his wife was in this hard situation since she had lost all
the honor she had in her husband’s house, and he was gone to the king, Virus,—this was the
man’s name—her husband’s nephew, fell in love with her and wished to marry her since he
had lost his wife. Virus however was afraid of his uncle’s enmity and sent the woman to
duke Desiderius with the intention of marrying her later on. And she took with her all her
husband’s substance both in gold and silver and garments and all she could take, together
with her older son, but she left the younger son at home. Eulalius returned from his
journey and learned what had happened.

And when his grief was lessened and he had taken a little rest he rushed upon his nephew
Virus and killed him in a narrow valley of Auvergne. And Desiderius who had lately lost
his wife heard that Virus had been killed and married Tetradia. But Eulalius took a girl
by force from the convent at Lyons and married her. But his concubines impelled by envy,
as some say, made her insane by evil arts. A long time after Eulalius secretly attacked
and killed Emerius, cousin of this girl. In like manner he killed Socratius, brother of
his half-sister whom his father had had by a concubine. He committed also many other
crimes, too many to tell. John, his son, who had gone off with his mother ran away from
Desiderius’s house and went to Auvergne. And Innocent being now a candidate for the
bishopric of Rodez, Eulalius sent a message to him that he could recover by Innocent’s aid
the property that was rightfully his in the territory of this city. Innocent replied: “If
I receive one of your sons to make a cleric of and to keep to help me, I will do what you
ask. Eulalius sent the boy named John and received his property back. And Innocent
received the boy and shaved the hair of his head and put him in the care of the archdeacon
of his church.

And he became so abstemious that he ate barley instead of wheat, drank water instead of
wine, used an ass instead of a horse, and wore the meanest garments. And so the bishops
and leading men met, as we have said, at the confines of the cities mentioned, and
Tetradia was represented by Agyn and Eulalius appeared to speak against her. When Eulalius
asked for the things she had taken from his home when she went to Desiderius, Tetradia was
ordered to repay what she took fourfold, and the children that she had by Desiderius were
declared illegitimate; they also directed that if she paid Eulalius what she was ordered
to pay him, she would have the liberty of going to Auvergne and of enjoying without
disturbance the property which had come to her from her father. This was done. [9.
Gunthram sends an expedition against the Bretons which proves a failure.] 10. In the
fifteenth year of king Childebert which is the twenty-ninth of Gunthram, while king
Gunthram was hunting in the Vosges forest he found traces of the killing of a buffalo. And
when he harshly demanded of the keeper of the forest who had dared to do this in the
king’s forest, the keeper named Chundo the king’s chamberlain. Upon this he ordered Chundo
to be arrested and taken to Chalon loaded with chains. And when the two were confronted
with each other in the king’s presence and Chundo said that he had never presumed to do
what he was charged with, the king ordered a trial by battle. Then the chamberlain offered
his nephew to engage in the fight in his place and both appeared on the field; the youth
hurled his lance at the keeper of the forest and pierced his foot; and he presently fell
on his back. The youth then drew the sword which hung from his belt but while he sought to
cut his fallen adversary’s throat he himself received a dagger thrust in the belly. Both
fell dead. Seeing this Chundo started to run to Saint Marcellus’s church. But the king
shouted to seize him before he touched the sacred threshold and he was caught and tied to
a stake and stoned. After this the king was very penitent at having shown himself so
headlong in anger as to kill hastily for a trifling guilt a man who was faithful and
useful to him.

[11. King Clothar is dangerously ill. 12. Ingytrude, abbess of a convent attached to St.
Martin’s church, dies, directing that her disobedient daughter should not even be allowed
to pray at her tomb. 13. One of Gregory’s priests is “infected with the malignant poison
of the Sadducean heresy.” He is overcome in argument by Gregory. 14. Story of the drunken
priest Theodulf who falls off the wall of Angers and is killed.] 15. The scandal which by
the help of the devil had arisen in the monastery at Poitiers was growing worse every day
and Chrodield was sitting all prepared for strife, having gathered to herself, as I have
said above, murderers, sorcerers, adulterers, run-away slaves and men guilty of all other
crimes. And so she gave orders to them to break into the monastery at night and drag the
abbess from it. But the latter heard the uproar coming and asked to be carried to the
chest containing the relics of the holy cross—for she was painfully troubled with
gout—thinking that she would be kept safe by their aid. Accordingly when the men had
entered and lit the candles and were hurrying with weapons ready here and there through
the monastery looking for her, they went into the oratory and found her lying on the
ground before the chest of the holy cross. Thereupon one who was fiercer than the rest,
having come on purpose to commit this crime, namely, to cleave the abbess in two with the
sword, was given a knife stab by another, the divine providence aiding in this, I suppose.
The blood gushed out and he fell to the ground without fulfilling the vow he had foolishly
made. Meantime Justina, the prioress, and the other sisters had taken the cloth of the
altar which was before the Lord’s cross and covered the abbess with it, putting the lights
out at the same time.

But the men came with drawn swords and spears and tore the nuns’ clothes and almost
crushed their hands and seized the prioress instead of the abbess, since it was dark, and
pulled her robes off and tore her hair down and dragged her out and carried her off to
place her under guard at St. Hilary’s Church; but, as the dawn was coming on, they
perceived when near the church that it was not the abbess, and presently they told the
woman to return to the monastery. They returned, too, and seized the abbess and dragged
her away and confined her near St. Hilary’s Church in a place where Basina lodged, setting
guards at the door so that no one should give aid to the captive. At the next twilight
they entered the monastery and when they found no candles to light they took a cask from
the storehouse which had been pitched and left to dry and set fire to it, and there was a
great light while it burned, and they made plunder of all the furniture of the monastery,
leaving only what they were unable to carry off. This happened seven days before Easter.
And as the bishop was distressed at all this and could not calm this strife of the devil,
he sent to Chrodield, saying: “Let the abbess go, so that she shall not be kept in prison
during these days;

otherwise I will not celebrate the Lord’s Easter festival nor shall any catechumen receive
baptism in this city unless you order the abbess to be set free from the confinement in
which she is held. And if you refuse to let her go, I will call the citizens together and
rescue her. When he said this, Chrodield appointed assassins, saying: “If any one tries to
carry her off by violence, give her a thrust with the sword at once. Now Flavian came in
those days; he had lately been appointed domesticus, and by his aid the abbess entered St.
Hilary’s Church and was free. Meantime murders were being committed at the holy
Radegunda’s tomb, and certain persons were hacked to death in a disturbance before the
very chest that contained the relics of the holy cross. And since this madness increased
daily because of Chrodield’s pride, and continual murders and other deeds of violence,
such as I have mentioned above, were being done by her faction, and she had become so
swollen up with boastfulness that she looked down with lofty contempt upon her own cousin
Basina, the latter began to repent and say: “I have done wrong in supporting haughty
Chrodield. Behold I am an object of contempt to her and am made to appear a rebel against
my abbess. She changed her course and humbled herself before the abbess and asked for
peace with her; and they were equally of one thought and purpose.

Then when the outrages broke out again, the men who were with the abbess, while resisting
an attack which Chrodield’s followers had made, wounded one of Basina’s men who fell dead.
But the abbess’ men took refuge behind the abbess in the church of the confessor, and on
this account Basina left the abbess and departed. But the men fled a second time, and the
abbess and Basina entered again into friendly relations as before. Afterward many feuds
arose between these factions; and who could ever set forth in words such wounds, such
killings, and such wrong-doings, where scarcely a day passed without a murder, or an hour
without a quarrel, or a moment without tears. King Childebert heard of this, and sent an
embassy to king Gunthram to propose that bishops of both kingdoms should meet and punish
these actions in accordance with the canons. And king Childebert ordered my humble self to
sit on this case, together with Eberegisel of Cologne and Maroveus himself, bishop of
Poitiers; and king Gunthram sent Gundigisil of Bordeaux with his provincials, since he was
the metropolitan of this city. But I began to object, saying: “I will not go to this place
unless the rebellion which has arisen because of Chrodield, is forcibly put down by the
judge. For this reason a command was sent to Macco, who was then count, in which he was
ordered to put the rebellion down by force if they should resist.

Chrodield heard of this and ordered her assassins to stand armed before the door of the
oratory, thinking they would fight against the judge, and if he wished to use force, they
would resist with equal force. So it was necessary for this count to go there with armed
men and to beat some with clubs and pierce others with spears, and when they resisted
fiercely he had to attack and overwhelm them with the sword. When Chrodield saw this, she
took the Lord’s cross, the miraculous power of which she had before despised, and came out
to meet them saying: “Do no violence to me, I beg of you, for I am a queen, daughter of
one king and cousin of another; don’t do it, lest a time may come for me to take vengeance
on you. But the throng paid little heed to what she said but rushed, as I have said, upon
those who were resisting and bound them and dragged them from the monastery and tied them
to stakes and beat them fiercely and cut off the hair of some, the hands of others, and in
a good many cases the ears and nose, and the rebellion was crushed and there was peace.

Then the bishops who were present sat on the tribunal of the church, and Chrodield
appeared and gave vent to much abuse of the abbess and many charges, asserting that she
had a man in the monastery who wore woman’s clothes and was treated as a woman although he
had been very clearly shown to be a man, and that he was in constant attendance on the
abbess herself, and she pointed her finger at him and said: “There he is himself. And when
this man had taken the stand before all in woman’s clothes, as I have stated, he said that
he was impotent and therefore had put these clothes on; but he did not know the abbess
except by name and he asserted that he had never seen her or spoken with her, as he lived
more than forty miles from the city of Poitiers. Then as she had not proved the abbess
guilty of this crime, she added: “What holiness is there in this abbess who makes men
eunuchs and orders them to live with her as if she were an empress. The abbess, being
questioned, replied that she knew nothing of this matter. Meantime when Chrodield had
given the name of the man who was a eunuch, Reoval, the chief physician, appeared and
said: “This man when he was a child was diseased in the thigh and was so ill that his life
was despaired of; his mother went to the holy Radegunda to request that he should have
some attention.

But she called me and bade me give what assistance I could. Then I castrated him in the
way I had once seen physicians do in Constantinople, and restored the boy in good health
to his sorrowing mother; I am sure the abbess knows nothing of this matter. Now when
Chrodield had failed to prove the abbess guilty on this charge also, she began fiercely to
make others. But I have decided that it is better to insert the charges and the rebuttals
of each in my narrative just as they are contained in the decision which was given as
regards these same persons. 16. Copy of the Decision. To the most glorious kings the
bishops who are present [send greetings]. By God’s favor religion properly discloses her
causes to the pious and orthodox kings who are given to the people and to whom the country
is granted, knowing well that through the mediation of the holy spirit she is made a
partner in the decree of the rulers and is supported by it. And whereas in accordance with
the command of your majesties we are assembled at Poitiers on account of the situation in
the monastery of Radegunda of holy memory, in order to take cognizance at first hand of
the disputes between the abbess of the said monastery and the nuns who left the flock for
no sound reason; we summoned the parties and interrogated Chrodield and Basina as to why
they had so boldly departed contrary to the rule, breaking the doors of the monastery, and
why the united congregation had at this time been broken in two. In answer they asserted
that they could not endure any longer the risk of starvation, nakedness, and above all of
beating; and they added also that several men had bathed in their bath contrary to
decency, and that the abbess played games, and that worldly persons dined with her, and
that a betrothal had actually taken place in the monastery;

that she had impiously made a dress for her niece out of a silk altar cloth, and that she
had frivolously taken the golden leaves which were on the border of the altar cloth and
sinfully hung them about her niece’s neck; and she had made a fillet with gold ornaments
for her niece without any need for it, and that she had a masquerade in the monastery. We
asked the abbess what she had to answer to this, and she said that as to the complaint
about starvation, they had never endured too great privation considering the poverty of
the time. And as to clothes, she said that if one were to examine their boxes, [he would
find] they had more than was necessary. And as to the charge about the bath, she related
that the bath had been built in the time of Lent and that on account of the disagreeable
smell of the limestone, in order that the newness of the building might not do harm to the
bathers, lady Radegunda had given orders for the servants of the monastery to use it as a
common thing until all harmful odor had disappeared. It had been in common use by the
servants through Lent and until Pentecost. To this Chrodield answered: “And later on in
the same way many men bathed at different times. The abbess replied that she did not
approve of what they reported but she did not know whether it was true;

moreover she found fault with them for not informing the abbess if they had seen it. As to
the games she played, she answered that she had played when lady Radegunda was alive and
it was not regarded as a sin, and she said that neither in the rule nor the canons was
there any reference in writing to their prohibition. However at the order of the bishops
she promised that she would bow her head and do whatever penance should be demanded. As to
the dinners, she said she had introduced no new custom but had merely offered the blest
bread to orthodox Christians as had been done under lady Radegunda, and it could not be
proved against her that she had ever dined with them. As to the betrothal, she said that
she had received the earnest money in behalf of her niece, an orphan girl, in the presence
of the bishop, the clergy and the leading men, and if this was a sin, she would ask for
pardon in the presence of all; however not even on that occasion had she made a feast in
the monastery.

In answer to the charge about the altar cloth, she brought forward a nun of noble family
who had given her as a gift a silk robe she had received from her relatives, and she had
cut off a part of this to do what she wished with it, and from the rest, which was
sufficient, she had made a suitable cloth to adorn the altar, and she used the scraps left
over from the altar cloth to trim her niece’s tunic with purple; and she said she gave
this to her niece when she was serving in the monastery. All this was confirmed by Didimia
who had given the robe. As to the leaves of gold and the fillet adorned with gold, she
offered Macco your servant, who is here, as a witness, since it was by his hand that she
received twenty pieces of gold from the betrothed of the said girl her niece, from which
she had purchased these articles openly, and the property of the monastery was not
involved in it at all.

Chrodield and Basina were asked whether perchance they imputed adultery to the abbess,
which God forbid, or whether they could say she had committed a murder or a sorcery or a
capital crime for which she should be punished. They replied they had nothing to say to
this; they only asserted that she had acted contrary to the rule in the matters they had
mentioned. Finally they said that nuns whom we believed to be innocent were with child
because of these faults, namely, that the doors were broken open and the wretched women
were at liberty to do what they would for many months without discipline from their
abbess. When we had discussed these charges in order and had found no wrong-doing for
which to degrade the abbess, we gave her a fatherly admonition for the pardonable faults
she had committed, and urged her not to incur any reproof later. Then we inquired into the
case of the opposing party who had committed greater crimes, that is to say, who, when
within the monastery, had despised the warning of their bishop not to go forth in despite
of their bishop and had left him in the monastery under the greatest contempt and had
broken the bars and doors and foolishly departed, involving other nuns in their sin.
Moreover when the archbishop Gundigisil with his provincials had received notice of this
case and come to Poitiers by order of the king and had summoned them to a hearing at the
monastery, they disregarded his summons, and when the bishops went to them at the church
of St. Hilary the Confessor where they were staying, going to them as is seemly for
anxious pastors to do; while they were receiving the admonition of the bishops a
disturbance arose, and they attacked the bishops and their attendants with clubs, and even
shed the blood of deacons within the church.

Then when the venerable priest Teuthar by command of the princes came to judge this case,
and the time for rendering the judgment had been fixed, they did not wait for it but
attacked the monastery like rebels, setting fire to casks in the court-yard and breaking
the doors with crow-bars and axes, and setting fire, and beating and wounding nuns in the
very oratories within the walls, and plundering the monastery, and stripping the clothes
off the abbess and tearing her hair and dragging her violently through the streets in
derision and thrusting her into a place where, although not in fetters, she was not free.
And when the festival of Easter came, which is always honored, the bishop offered a ransom
for the prisoner so that she could aid in baptism, but his entreaty could not secure this
for any consideration,—Chrodield answered that she had neither known of such a crime nor
ordered it, adding further that it was at a sign from her that the abbess was not killed
by her people, from which we may be confident in inferring that they were becoming more
cruel—and they had killed a slave of their own monastery who was fleeing to the blessed
Radegunda’s tomb, and instead of improving had gone deeper into crime; and later they
entered the monastery and took possession of it;

and at the order of the kings to produce the rebels in public they refused to obey, and
rather took up arms against the king’s command and wickedly rose with arrows and lances
against the count and the people. Then lately when they appeared for a public hearing they
took the holy and most sacred cross secretly and wrongfully, which they were later forced
to restore to the church. Having taken cognizance of so many capital crimes and of a
wickedness that was not restrained but continually increased, we told them that they
should beg the abbess for pardon for their sin and restore what they had wrongfully taken.
But they were unwilling to do this but talked rather of killing her, a design they
admitted in public. Then we opened and read the canons, and it seemed most just that until
they made a suitable repentance they should be excommunicated and the abbess should
continue permanently in her place. This is what we suggest should be done in accordance
with your command, as far as the interests of the church are concerned, having read the
canons and having made no distinction of persons. For the rest, as to the property of the
monastery and the deeds given by the kings your kinsmen which have been stolen, and which
they say they have but disregard our orders and fail to return, it belongs to your piety,
your power and royal authority to compel them to be returned to their place, in order that
your reward and that of the previous kings may continue for ever. Do not permit them to
return or think of returning again to the place which they so impiously and sacrilegiously
destroyed, lest worse may come. With the aid of the Lord let all be wholly restored and
returned to God under the catholic kings; let religion lose nothing; let the decision of
the fathers and the canons be maintained and be of profit to us for worship and bring you
gain. May Christ the Lord support and guide you, may He bestow on you a long reign and the
blessed life.

17. After this when the decision was made known and they were excommunicated and the
abbess restored to the monastery, they went to king Childebert, adding crime to crime,
naming forsooth certain persons to the king who not only lived in adultery with the abbess
but also sent messengers daily to his enemy Fredegunda. On hearing this the king sent men
to bring them in chains. But when they were examined and no wrongdoing was found, they
were let go. [18. Attempt on the life of Childebert. 19. Bishop Egidius is removed from
office. 20. Basina and Chrodield are pardoned. 21. Waddo’s sons are punished. 22. Death of
Childeric.] 23. In this year there was such a light shed over the earth in the night that
one would think it mid-day; moreover balls of fire were frequently noticed at night
speeding across the sky and lighting the world. There was doubt about Easter for the
reason that Victor wrote in his cycle that Easter came on the fifteenth day of the moon.
But to prevent Christians from celebrating this festival at the same time of the moon as
the Jews, he added: “But the Latins [place it] on the twenty-second of the moon.” For this
reason many in Gaul celebrated on the fifteenth of the moon but we celebrated on the
twenty-second. We made careful inquiry but the springs in Spain which are filled by a
divine power were filled at our Easter.

There was a great earthquake on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of the fifth month,
being the fourth day [of the week], early in the morning when dawn was coming. The sun was
eclipsed in the middle of the eighth month and its light was so diminished that it
scarcely gave as much light as the horns of the moon on the fifth day. There were heavy
rains, loud thunders in the autumn and the streams were very full. The bubonic plague
cruelly destroyed the people of Viviers and Avignon. [24. An Armenian bishop visits Tours
and tells the story of the destruction of Antioch.] 25. Now in the Gauls the disease I
have mentioned attacked the province of Marseilles, and a great famine oppressed Angers,
Nantes, and Mans. These are the beginning of sorrows according to what the Lord says in
the Gospel: “There shall be pestilence and famines and earthquakes in different places and
false Christs and false prophets shall arise and give signs and prodigies in the heavens
so as to put the elect astray: as is true at the present time. For a certain man of
Bourges, as he himself told later, went into the deep woods to cut logs which he needed
for a certain work and a swarm of flies surrounded him, as a result of which he was
considered crazy for two years; whence it may be believed that they were a wickedness sent
by the devil. Then he passed through the neighboring cities and went to the province of
Arles and there wore skins and prayed like one of the devout, and to make a fool of him
the enemy gave him the power of divination. After this he rose from his place and left the
province mentioned in order to become more expert in wickedness, and entered the territory
of Gévaudan, conducting himself as a great man and not afraid to say that he was Christ.
He took with him a woman who passed as his sister to whom he gave the name of Mary. A
multitude of people flocked to him bringing the sick, whom he touched and restored to
health.

They who came to him brought him also gold and silver and garments. These he distributed
among the poor to deceive them the more easily, and throwing himself on the ground and
praying with the woman I have mentioned and rising, he would give orders to the bystanders
to worship him in turn. He foretold the future and announced that disease would come to
some, to others losses and to others health. But all this he did by some arts and
trickeries of the devil. A great multitude of people was led astray by him, not only the
common folk but bishops of the church. More than three thousand people followed him.
Meantime he began to spoil and plunder those whom he met on the road; the booty, however,
he gave to those who had nothing. He threatened with death bishops and citizens, because
they disdained to worship him. He entered La Velay and went to the place called Puy and
halted with all his host at the churches near there, marshalling his line of battle to
make war on Aurilius who was then bishop, and sending messengers forward, naked men who
danced and played and announced his coming. The bishop was amazed at this and sent strong
men to ask what his doings meant. One of these, the leader, bent down as if to embrace his
knees and check his passage and [the impostor] ordered him to be seized and spoiled.

But the other at once drew his sword and cut him into bits and that Christ who ought
rather to be named anti-Christ fell dead; and all who were with him dispersed. Mary was
tortured and revealed all his impostures and deceits. But the men whom he had excited to a
belief in him by the trickery of the devil never returned to their sound senses, but they
always said that this man was Christ in a sense and that Mary had a share in his divine
nature. Moreover through all the Gauls many appeared who attracted poor women to
themselves by trickery and influenced them to rave and declare their leaders holy, and
they made a great show before the people. I have seen some of them and have rebuked them
and endeavored to recall them from error. [26. A Syrian trader, Eusebius, becomes bishop
of Paris.] 27. Among the Franks of Tournai a great feud arose because the son of one often
angrily rebuked the son of another who had married his sister, for leaving his wife and
visiting a prostitute. And when reform on the part of the guilty man did not follow, the
anger of the youth became so great that he rushed upon his brother-in-law and killed him
and his men, and was himself killed by his opponents, and there was only one left from
both parties who lacked a slayer. Upon this the kinsmen on both sides raged at one
another, but were frequently urged by queen Fredegunda to give up their enmity and become
friends lest their persistence in the quarrel might cause a greater disturbance. But when
she failed to reconcile them with gentle words she tamed them on both sides with the ax.
For she invited many to a feast and caused these three to sit on the same bench, and when
the dinner had been prolonged until night covered the earth, the table was taken away
according to the custom of the Franks and they sat on the bench in their places. Much wine
had been drunk and they were so overcome by it that the slaves were intoxicated and were
lying asleep in the corners of the house, each where he fell. Then by the woman’s order
three men with axes stood behind these three and while they were talking together the
hands of the men flashed in a single blow, so to speak, and they were struck down and the
banquet ended. Their names were Charivald, Leodovald, and Valden. When this was told to
their kinsmen they began to watch Fredegunda closely and sent messengers to king
Childebert to seize her and put her to death. The people of Champagne were angry because
of this matter, but while Childebert was interposing delay she was saved by the help of
her people and hastened to another place.

[28. Baptism of Clothar. 29. Miracles of the abbot Aridius. 30. The plague. 31. The
bishops of Tours from the beginning to Gregory.] The nineteenth was I, unworthy Gregory,
who found the church of Tours, in which the blessed Martin and the other bishops of the
Lord were consecrated in the pontifical office, shattered and ruined by fire. I rebuilt it
larger and higher, and dedicated it in the seventeenth year after being ordained; and in
it as I learned from the old priests the relics of the blessed Maurice and his companions
had been placed by the ancients. I found the very box in the treasury of the church of St.
Martin, and in it the relics, greatly decayed, which had been brought because of their
miraculous power. And while vigils were being kept in their honor I wished to visit them
again by the light of a torch. And I was examining them intently when the keeper of the
church said to me: “Here is a stone with a cover, but I don’t know what it has in it and I
haven’t been able to learn from my predecessors who have had charge here. Let me bring it
and you look carefully to see what it contains. I took it and opened it of course,—and
found a silver box containing relics of the witnesses of the blessed legion as well as of
many saints both martyrs and confessors. We also found other stones hollow like this one,
containing relics of the holy apostles and the rest of the martyrs. I wondered at this
bounty divinely given and after giving thanks, keeping vigil, and saying mass, I placed
them in the cathedral.

I placed the relics of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian in St. Martin’s cell close to
the cathedral. I found the walls of the holy church consumed by fire and ordered skilful
workmen to repaint and adorn them with their former splendor. I had a baptistery built
close by the church, where I placed the relics of the holy martyrs John and Sergius, and
in what had been the baptistery I placed the relics of the martyr Benignus. And in many
localities in the territory of Tours I dedicated churches and oratories and glorified them
with relics of the saints, but I think it tiresome to speak of them in order. I wrote ten
books of Histories, seven of Miracles, one on the Lives of the Fathers; a commentary in
one book on Psalms; one book also on the Services of the Church. And though I have written
these books in a style somewhat rude, I nevertheless conjure you all, God’s bishops who
are destined to rule the lowly church of Tours after me, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ and the judgment day, feared by the guilty, if you will not be condemned with the
devil and depart in confusion from the judgment, never cause these books to be destroyed
or rewritten, selecting some passages and omitting others, but let them all continue in
your time complete and undiminished as they were left by us. And bishop of God, whoever
you may be, if our Martianus has trained you in the seven disciplines, that is, if he has
taught you by means of grammar to read, by dialectic to apprehend the arguments in
disputes, by rhetoric to recognize the different meters, by geometry to comprehend the
measurement of the earth and of lines, by astrology to contemplate the paths of the
heavenly bodies, by arithmetic to understand the parts of numbers, by harmony to fit the
modulated voice to the sweet accents of the verse; if in all this you are practiced so
that my style will seem rude, even so I beg of you do not efface what I have written. But
if anything in these books pleases you I do not forbid your writing it in verse provided
my work is left safe.

I am finishing this work in the twenty-first year after my ordination. Although in what I
have just written of the bishops of Tours I have told their years, still this calculation
does not agree with the [total] number of years, because I have not been able to learn
accurately the length of time between the different ordinations. Now the grand total of
years of the world is as follows: From the beginning to the flood 2242 years From the
flood to the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel 1404 years From the
crossing of this sea to the resurrection of the Lord 1538 years From the resurrection of
the Lord to the death of St. Martin 412 years From the death of St. Martin to the year
mentioned above, namely, the twenty-first year after my ordination, which is also the
fifth of Gregory, pope of Rome, the thirty-first of king Gunthram, and the nineteenth of
Childebert the second 197 years The grand total of which is 5792 years

Here Ends in Christ’s Name the Tenth Book of the Histories.

SELECTIONS FROM THE EIGHT BOOKS OF MIRACLES

Attitude toward Secular Learning (Preface, Book in Honor of the Martyrs) The priest
Jerome, next to the apostle Paul the best teacher of the church, tells us that he was
brought before the judgment-seat of the eternal Judge and subjected to torture and
severely punished because he was in the habit of reading Cicero’s clevernesses and
Vergil’s lies, and that he said in the presence of the holy angels and the very Ruler of
all that he would never thereafter read these, but would occupy himself in future only
with such [writings] as would be judged worthy of God and suited to the edification of the
church. Moreover the apostle Paul says: “Let us follow after things which make for peace
and things whereby we may edify one another.” And elsewhere: “Let no corrupt speech
proceed out of your mouth; but such as is good for edifying, that it may give grace to
them that hear.” Therefore we too ought to follow after, to write, and to speak the things
that edify the church of God, and by holy instruction bring weak minds to a knowledge of
the perfect faith. And we ought not to relate lying tales nor to pursue the wisdom of
philosophers that is hateful to God, lest by God’s judgment we fall under sentence of
eternal death.…

Observance of the Lord’s Day (Ibid., ch. 15) In the territory of this city [Tours] at
Lingeais, a woman who lived there moistened flour on the Lord’s day and shaped a loaf, and
drawing the coals aside she covered it over with hot ashes to bake. When she did this her
right hand was miraculously set on fire and began to burn. She screamed and wept and
hastened to the village church in which relics of the blessed John are kept. And she
prayed and made a vow that on this day sacred to the divine name she would do no work, but
only pray. The next night she made a candle as tall as herself. Then she spent the whole
night in prayer, holding the candle in her hand all the time, and the flame went out and
she returned home safe and sound. Relics Handed Down in Gregory’s Family (Ibid., ch. 83)

I shall now describe what was brought to pass through the relics which my father carried
with him in former times. When Theodobert gave orders that sons of men in Auvergne should
be taken as hostages, my father, at that time lately married, wished to be protected by
relics of the saints, and he asked a certain bishop kindly to give him some, thinking he
would be kept safe by such protection when absent on his distant journey. Then he enclosed
the holy ashes in a gold case the shape of a pea-pod and placed them around his neck; but
the man did not know the blessed names. He was accustomed to relate that he was saved by
them from many dangers; for he bore witness that by their miraculous power he had often
escaped attacks of highwaymen and dangers on rivers and the furies of civil war and
thrusts of the sword. And I shall not fail to tell what I saw of these with my own eyes.
After my father’s death my mother always wore these precious things on her person. Now the
grain harvest had come and great grain stacks were gathered at the threshing places. And
in those days when the threshing was going on, a cold spell came on, and seeing that
Limagne has no forests, being all covered with crops, the threshers made themselves fires
of straw, since there was nothing else to make a fire of. Meantime all went away to eat.

And behold, the fire gradually increased and began to spread slowly straw by straw. Then
the piles suddenly caught, with the south wind blowing; it was a great conflagration and
there began a shouting of men and shrieking of women and crying of children. Now this was
happening on our own land. My mother, who wore these relics hanging on her neck, learned
this, and sprang from the table and lifted up the holy relics against the masses of flame,
and all the fire went out in a moment so that scarcely a spark of fire could be found
among the burnt piles of straw and it did no harm to the grain which it had just caught.
Many years later I received these relics from my mother; and when we were going from
Burgundy to Auvergne, a great storm came upon us and the sky flashed with many lightnings
and roared with heavy crashes of thunder. Then I drew the blessed relics from my bosom and
raised my hand against the cloud; it immediately divided into two parts and passed on the
right and left and did no harm to us or any one else thereafter. But being a young man of
an ardent temperament I began to be puffed up with vain glory and to think silently that
this had been granted not so much to the merits of the saints as to me personally, and I
openly boasted to my comrades on the journey that I had merited by my blamelessness what
God had bestowed. At once my horse suddenly shied beneath me and dashed me to the ground;
and I was so severely shaken up by the fall that I could hardly get up. I perceived that
this had come of vanity, and it was enough to put me on guard thenceforth against being
moved by the spur of vain glory. For whenever it happened after that that I had the merit
to behold any of the miracles of the saints, I loudly proclaimed that they were wrought by
God’s gift through faith in the saints.

Comparative “Merit” of Gregory and his Mother (Ibid. ch. 85) … On this matter I recall
what I heard told in my youth. It was the day of the suffering of the great martyr
Polycarp, and his festival was being observed at Riom, a village of Auvergne. The reading
of the martyrdom had been finished and the other readings which the priestly canon
requires, and the time came for offering the sacrifice. The deacon, having received the
tower in which the mystery of the Lord’s body was contained, started with it to the door,
and when he entered the church to place it on the altar, it slipped from his hand and
floated along in the air and thus came to the altar, and the deacon was never able to lay
hands on it; and I believe this happened for no other reason than that he was defiled in
his conscience. For it was often told that he had committed adultery. It was granted only
to one priest and three women, of whom my mother was one, to see this; the rest did not
see it. I was present, I confess, at this festival at the time, but I had not the merit to
see this miracle.

A Fly might be a Demon (Ibid. ch. 103) Pannichius, a priest of Poitou, when sitting at
dinner with some friends he had invited, asked for a drink. When it was served, a very
troublesome fly kept flying about the cup and trying to soil it. The priest waved it off
with his hand a number of times, but it would go off a little and then try to get back,
and he perceived that it was a crafty device of the enemy. He changed the cup to his left
hand and made a cross with his right; then he divided the liquor in the cup into four
parts and lifted it up high and poured it on the ground. For it was very plain that it was
a device of the enemy. Miracles in Gregory’s Family (Book on the Miracles of St. Julian,
Ch. 23, 24) At that time my father’s brother Gallus was bishop of Auvergne, and I do not
think I should fail to tell how he was aided in his youth by a miracle of the saint. Now I
have often described the ruin king Theodoric brought upon Auvergne, when none of their
property was left to either old or young except the bare land which the barbarians were
unable to carry off. In those days, then, my uncle of glorious memory who afterwards, as I
have told, governed the church of Auvergne in the high office of bishop, was a ward; and
his property was so plundered by the soldiers that there was nothing at all left that was
available; and he himself used often to go on foot with only one attendant to the village
of Brioude. It happened once when he was trudging along on this journey, that he took his
shoes off on account of the heat, and as he walked in his bare feet he stepped on a sharp
thorn. This by chance had been cut, but was still lying on the ground and was concealed
point upward in the green grass. It entered his foot and went clear through and then broke
off and could not be drawn out. The blood ran in streams and as he could not walk he
begged the blessed martyr’s aid and after the pain had grown a little less he went on his
way limping. But the third night the wound began to gather and there was great pain.

Then he turned to the source from which he had already obtained help and threw himself
down before the glorious tomb; when the watch was finished he returned to bed and was
overcome by sleep while awaiting the miraculous help of the martyr. On arising later he
felt no pain and examining his foot he could not see the thorn which had entered it; and
he perceived it had been drawn from his foot. He looked carefully for it and found it in
his bed and saw with wonder how it had come out. When bishop he used to exhibit the place,
where a great hollow was still to be seen, and to testify that this had been a miracle of
the blessed martyr. A long time after, when the festival of the blessed martyr came, my
father with all his household made haste to attend the joyful celebration. As we were on
the way, my older brother Peter was seized by a fever and became so ill that he could not
move about or take food. We journeyed on in great grief and it was doubtful whether he
would recover or die. In this state of distress we at length arrived; we entered the
church and worshipped at the holy martyr’s tomb. The sick boy cast himself down on the
pavement, praying for a cure by the glorious martyr. Finishing his prayer he returned to
his lodging and the fever went down a little. When night came we hastened to keep watch
and he asked to be carried along, and lying before the tomb he begged the martyr’s favor
all night long. When the watch was over he asked them to gather dust from the blessed tomb
and give it to him in a drink, and hang it about his neck. This was done, and the heat of
the fever went down so that on the very same day he took food without suffering and walked
about wherever his fancy took him.

Gregory’s Modesty (Preface, The Four Books on the Miracles of St. Martin) The miracles
which the Lord our God deigned to work through the blessed Martin, his bishop, when living
in the body, He still deigns to confirm daily in order to strengthen the faith of
believers. He who worked miracles through him when he was in the world, now honors his
tomb with miracles, and He who at that time sent him to save the perishing heathen, [now]
bestows through him blessings on the Christians. Therefore let no one have doubt about the
miracles worked in former time when he sees the bounty of the present wonders bestowed,
when he looks upon the lame being raised up, the blind receiving sight, demons being
driven out and every other kind of disease being cured through his healing power. As for
me I will establish belief in the book written about his life by earlier writers, by
relating for posterity at God’s command his present-day miracles as far as I can recall
them. This I would not presume to do if I had not been warned twice or thrice in a vision.
I call all-powerful God to witness that I once saw in a dream at mid-day many who were
crippled and overwhelmed by various diseases being cured in St. Martin’s church, and I saw
this in the presence of my mother who said to me: “Why are you so sluggish about writing
of these things that you see? I replied:

“You know well enough that I am unskilled in letters, and that, simple and untrained as I
am, I would not dare to describe such wonderful miracles. I wish Severus or Paulinus were
alive or that Fortunatus at the least were here to describe them. I have no skill for such
a task and I should be blamed if I undertook it. But she said: “Don’t you know that now-a-
days on account of the people’s ignorance one who speaks as you can is more clearly
understood? Therefore do not hesitate or delay, for you will be guilty if you pass this
over in silence. So I wished to follow her advice and was doubly tortured with grief and
fear; grief that miracles as great as were done under our predecessors should not be
recorded; fear of undertaking so noble a task, ignorant as I am. However, led on by the
hope of divine mercy, I am going to attempt the task thus urged upon me. For, as I
suppose, He who produced water in the desert from a dry rock and cooled the thirsty
people, is able to set these matters forth in my words; and it will be surely proved that
he has again opened the ass’s mouth if he deigns to open my lips and make known these
miracles through an untaught person like me. But why should I fear my ignorance when the
Lord our God and Redeemer chose not orators, but fishermen, not philosophers, but
countrymen, to destroy the vanity of worldly wisdom.

I have confidence, then, thanks to your prayers, that even if my rude speech cannot adorn
the page, the great bishop will give it fame by his glorious miracles. Remarkable Exercise
of “Virtue” by St. Martin (Ibid., Book I, Ch. 20) Since I have told two or three times how
miracles were performed and dangers averted by the mere invocation of the glorious name, I
shall now describe how the blessed bishop was called upon and brought help to one who was
falling headlong to death! Ammonius, an officer of the holy church, arose from dinner
somewhat under the influence of wine, and, the enemy giving him a push, he fell headlong
over a lofty cliff that bordered the road. There was there a drop of about two hundred
feet. While he was whirling about as he fell headlong and was flying down without wings he
kept crying for aid from St. Martin at every instant of his fall. Then he felt as if he
were tossed from a saddle by some one and he landed among the trees that were in the
valley. And thus coming down slowly limb by limb he reached the ground without danger of
death. However that the plotter’s undertaking might not seem to have been completely in
vain, he suffered a slight injury in one foot. But he went to the glorious master’s church
and prayed and was relieved of all pain.

Miracles Worked on Gregory (Ibid., Book I, ch. 32, 33) Having related the miracles
performed for others, I shall tell what the miraculous power of this protector has done
for my unworthy self. In the hundred and sixtieth year after that holy and praiseworthy
man, the blessed bishop Martin, was taken up to heaven, when the holy bishop Eufronius was
governing the church of Tours in his seventh year, and in the second year of the glorious
king Sigibert, I became ill with malignant pimples and fever, and being unable to eat or
drink I was reduced to such a state that I lost all hope of the present life and thought
of nothing but of the details of my burial. For death was constantly raging at me, eager
to separate my soul from my body. Then when I was almost dead I called on the name of the
blessed champion Martin and made some improvement, and began slowly and painfully to
prepare for my journey; for I had made my mind up that I ought to visit his venerable
tomb. And my desire was so great that I did not even wish to live if I was to be delayed
in going. Although I had scarcely escaped from a dangerous fever, I began to be on fire
again with the fever of desire. And so, although not yet strong, I hastened to go with my
people. After two or three stages, on entering the forest, I fell ill of the fever again,
and was in such a serious condition that they all said I was dying.

Then my friends came to me and saw I was very weak, and said: “Let us return home and if
God wishes to call you, you will die in your own home; and if you recover, you will make
the journey you have vowed more easily. For it is better to return home than to die in the
wilderness. On hearing this I wept bitterly and bewailed my ill-luck, and said: “I adjure
you by all-powerful God and the day of judgment which all fear who have to make answer
there, that you agree to my request. Don’t give up the journey we have begun, and if I
have merit to see the holy Martin’s church, I shall thank God; but if not, carry my dead
body there and bury it, because I am determined not to return home, if I have not the
merit to appear at his tomb. Then we all wept together and went on, and, guarded by the
glorious master, we arrived at his church.… The third night after arriving at the holy
church we planned to keep watch and did so. In the morning when the bell for matins rang,
we returned to our lodging and going to bed we slept until nearly the second hour.

Then I woke up and found that all weakness and pain were gone and I had recovered my
former health, and I gladly called my usual attendant to wait on me.… And I shall not
forget to say that after forty days that one was the first on which I took pleasure in
drinking wine, since because of my illness I detested it until then. (Ibid., Book II, Ch.
1) In the second month after my ordination, when I was at a country place, I suffered from
dysentery and high fever and began to be so ill that I altogether despaired of living.
Everything that I could eat was always vomited before it had been digested and I loathed
food, and when my stomach had no more strength as a result of no food the fever was the
only thing that gave me strength; I could in no way take anything substantial and
strengthening. I had severe pain, too, that darted all through my stomach and went down
into my bowels, exhausting me by its pain no less than the fever had done. And when I was
in such a condition that no hope of life was left and everything was being made ready for
my death and the physician’s medicine could do nothing for one whom death had laid claim
to, I was in despair and called the chief physician Armentarius and said to him: “You have
used every trick of your profession, you have tried the power of all your remedies, but
secular means are of no avail to the perishing. There is only one thing left for me to do.
I will show you a great remedy: let them bring dust from the holy master’s tomb and make a
potion for me from it. And if this does not cure me, every means of escape is lost.” Then
the deacon was sent to the tomb of the holy bishop just mentioned and he brought the
sacred dust and put it in water and gave me a drink of it. When I had drunk, soon all pain
was gone and I received health from the tomb. And the benefit was so immediate that
although this happened in the third hour, I became quite well and went to dinner that very
day at the sixth hour.

(Ibid., Book III, Preface and Ch. 1) … Whenever headache comes on or a throbbing in the
temples or a dulness of hearing or a dimness of sight or a pain attacks some other part, I
am cured at once when I have touched the affected part on the tomb or the curtain hanging
before it, and I wonder within myself that at the very touch the pain is immediately gone.
I shall place first in this book a miracle that I experienced recently. We were sitting at
dinner after a fast and eating, when a fish was served. The sign of the cross of the Lord
was made over it, but as we ate, a bone from this very fish stuck in my throat most
painfully. It caused me great distress, for the point was fastened in my throat and its
length blocked the passage. It prevented my speaking and kept the saliva which comes
frequently from the palate, from passing. On the third day, when I could get rid of it
neither by coughing or hawking, I resorted to my usual resource. I went to the tomb and
prostrated myself on the pavement and wept abundantly and groaned and begged the
confessor’s aid. Then I rose and touched the full length of my throat and all my head with
the curtain. I was immediately cured and before leaving the holy threshold I was rid of
all uneasiness. What became of the unlucky bone I do not know. I did not cough it up nor
feel it go down into my stomach. One thing only I know, that I so quickly perceived that I
was cured that I thought that some one had put in his hand and pulled out the bone that
hurt my throat.

A Phantom Attacks a Woman (Ibid., Book III, Ch. 37) At this time when a certain woman
remained alone at the loom when the others had gone, a most frightful phantom appeared as
she sat, and laid hold of the woman and began to drag her off. She screamed and wept since
she saw there was no one to help, but still tried to make a courageous resistance. After
two or three hours the other women returned and found her lying on the ground half dead
and unable to speak. Still she made signs with her hand, but they did not understand and
she continued speechless. The phantom which had appeared to her attacked so many persons
in that house that they left it and went elsewhere. In two or three months’ time the woman
came to the church and had the merit to recover her speech. And so she told with her own
lips what she had endured.

Procedure in Case of a Miracle (Ibid., Book III, ch. 45) The facts that I relate ought not
to seem to any one unworthy of belief, because the names of individuals are not mentioned
in the account. The cause of it is this: when they are restored to health by the saint of
God, they leave immediately, and they sometimes go so secretly that, so to speak, they are
noticed by no one. And when the report has spread that a miracle has been done by the
blessed bishop, I summon those who have charge of the church and inquire into what has
happened; but I do not always learn the names from them. I generally tell by name of those
I have been able to see or examine personally. Minor Miracles Worked on Gregory (Ibid.,
Book IV, Ch. 2) At one time my tongue became uncomfortably swelled up, so that when I
wished to speak it usually made me stutter, which was somewhat unseemly. I went to the
saint’s tomb and drew my awkward tongue along the wooden lattice. The swelling went down
at once and I became well. It was a serious swelling and filled the cavity where the
palate is. Then three days later my lip began to have a painful beating in it. I went
again to the tomb to get help and when I had touched my lip to the hanging curtain the
pulsation stopped at once. And I suppose this came from an over abundance of blood; still
trusting to the saint’s power I did not try to lessen the [amount of] blood and this
matter caused me no further trouble.

Gregory’s Uncle, St. Gall (The Lives of the Fathers, Ch. 6) St. Gall was a servant of God
from his youth up, loving the Lord with his whole heart, and he loved what he knew to be
beloved by God. His father was named Georgius and his mother Leocadia, a descendant of
Vectius Epagatus who, as the history of Eusebius relates, was a martyr at Lyons. They
belonged among the leading senators so that no family could be found in the Gauls better
born or nobler. And although Gall’s father wished to ask for a certain senator’s daughter
for him, he took a single attendant and went to the monastery at Cournon, six miles from
Clermont, and besought the abbot to consent to give him the tonsure. The abbot noticed the
good sense and fine bearing of the youth and inquired his name, his family and native
place. He replied that he was called Gall and was a citizen of Auvergne, a son of the
senator Georgius. When the abbot learned that he belonged to one of the first families, he
said: “My son, what you wish is good, but you must first bring it to your father’s
attention and if he gives his consent, I will do what you ask.” Then the abbot sent
messengers in regard to this matter to his father, asking what he wished to be done with
the youth. The father was a little disappointed, but said: “He is my oldest son and I
therefore wished him to marry, but if the Lord deigns to receive him into His service, let
His will rather than mine be done.” And he added: “Consent to the child’s request which he
made by God’s inspiration.”

2. The abbot on receiving this message made him a clerk. He was very chaste and as if
already old he had no wicked desires: he refrained from a young man’s mirth; he had a
voice wonderfully sweet and melodious; he devoted himself constantly to reading; he took
pleasure in fasting and was very abstemious. When the blessed bishop Quintian came to this
monastery and heard him sing, he did not allow him to stay there any longer, but took him
to the city and, like the heavenly father, fed him on the sweetness of the spirit. On his
father’s death, when his voice was improving day by day and he was a great favorite among
the people, they reported this to king Theodoric, who at once sent for him and showed him
such affection that he loved him more than his own son; he was loved by the queen with a
similar love, not only for his beautiful voice, but also for his chastity. At that time
king Theodoric had taken many clerks from Auvergne whom he ordered to serve God in the
church at Trèves; but he never allowed the blessed Gall to be separated from him. So it
came that when the king went to Cologne, he went with him. There was there a heathen
temple full of various articles of worship where the neighboring barbarians used to make
offerings and stuff themselves with food and drink until they vomited;

there also they worshipped images as god, and carved limbs in wood, each one the limb in
which he had suffered pain. When the holy Gall heard of this, he hastened to the place
with only one clerk when none of the benighted pagans was present, and set it on fire. And
they saw the smoke of the fire rolling up to the sky and searched for the one who had set
it, and found him and pursued him sword in hand. He fled and took refuge in the king’s
court. But when the king had learned from the pagans’ threats what had been done, he
pacified them with agreeable words and so calmed their furious rage. The blessed man would
often weep in telling this story, and say: “Unhappy me that I did not stand my ground and
let my life be ended in this affair. He was deacon at the time.…

3. Later when the blessed bishop Quintian passed from this world by God’s command, the
holy Gall was living in Clermont, and the people of the city assembled at the house of the
priest Inpetratus, Gall’s uncle on his mother’s side, lamenting at the bishop’s death and
asking who should be appointed in his place. After long debate they returned each to his
own house. On their departure the holy Gall called one of the clerks and said, the holy
spirit rushing into him: “What are these people muttering about? Why are they running to
and fro? What are they debating? They are wasting their time,” said he. “I am going to be
bishop; the Lord will deign to bestow this honor on me. Now when you hear that I am
returning from the king’s presence, take my predecessor’s horse with the saddle on him and
come and bring him to me. If you refuse to obey me, take care you are not sorry for it
later.” As he said this, he was lying on his bed. The clerk was angry at him and abused
him and struck him on the side, breaking the bed at the same time, and went off in a rage.
On his departure the priest Inpetratus said to the blessed Gall: “My son, hear my advice:
don’t waste a minute, but go to the king and tell him what has happened here, and if the
Lord inspires him to bestow this holy office on you, I shall give thanks to God; otherwise
you can at least recommend yourself to the man who is appointed.” He went and reported to
the king what had happened.…

And the clerks of Clermont, with the choice of the foolish, went to the king with many
gifts. Even then that seed of iniquity had begun to germinate, that bishoprics were sold
by kings and bought by the clerks. Then they heard from the king that they were going to
have St. Gall as bishop. He was ordained priest and the king gave orders to invite the
citizens to a feast at the expense of the treasury and to make merry over the promotion of
Gall the future bishop. This was done. He was in the habit of telling that he had given no
more for the office of bishop than a third of a gold piece which he had given to the cook
who prepared the feast. Then the king appointed two bishops to accompany him to Clermont.
And the clerk, Viventius by name, who had struck him on the side when he was in bed,
hastened to meet the bishop according to his command, but not without great shame, and he
presented himself and the horse which Gall had ordered. When they had gone into the bath
together, Gall gently reproached him for the pain in his side which he had incurred from
the contemptuous violence of the clerk, and he caused him great shame, not in a spirit of
anger, however, but only delighting in a pious joke. After that he was received into the
city with much singing and was ordained bishop in his own church.


SOURCES AND CREDITS
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Where each text comes from, and the licence under which it may be reused.

THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY English translation: an older public-domain translation as
collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE DIVINE NAMES English translation: an older public-domain translation as collected in
the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-Nicene, Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions. SermonIndex has only divided
it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the translator’s own. No Greek or
Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English version has been made. Licence:
Public domain.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY English translation: an older public-domain translation as
collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY English translation: an older public-domain translation as collected
in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-Nicene, Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions. SermonIndex has only
divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the translator’s own. No Greek
or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English version has been made.
Licence: Public domain.

THE LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS English translation: an older public-domain translation as
collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE LITURGY OF SAINT DIONYSIUS English translation: an older public-domain translation as
collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY English translation by H. R. James, from The Consolation of
Philosophy of Boethius , translated into English prose and verse by H. R. James (London:
Elliot Stock, 1897); public domain, as transcribed by Jonathan Ingram, Karina Aleksandrova
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team for Project Gutenberg (ebook 14328).
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. Footnotes and the editor’s introduction are left out. No original-
language text is shown beside it, and no modern English version has been made. Licence.
The translation was published in 1897 and is in the public domain. Licence: Public domain.

INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF GILDAS English translation: an older public-domain
translation as collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from
the Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

ON THE RUIN OF BRITAIN English translation: an out-of-copyright translation as
transcribed, or commissioned and given to the public domain, by Roger Pearse for his
collection Early Church Fathers – Additional Texts ( tertullian.org/fathers ). SermonIndex
has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the translator’s own.
No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English version has been
made. Licence. published 1899. Licence: Public domain.

FRAGMENTS OF THE LETTERS OF GILDAS English translation: an older public-domain translation
as collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE LORICA English translation: an older public-domain translation as collected in the
Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-Nicene, Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions. SermonIndex has only divided
it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the translator’s own. No Greek or
Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English version has been made. Licence:
Public domain.

THE PENITENTIAL OF GILDAS English translation: an older public-domain translation as
collected in the Writings-Database (HistoricalChristianFaith), mostly from the Ante-
Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers and similar nineteenth-century editions.
SermonIndex has only divided it into chapters and short sections; the wording is the
translator’s own. No Greek or Latin text is shown beside it yet, and no modern English
version has been made. Licence: Public domain.

THE HISTORY OF THE FRANKS English translation by Ernest Brehaut, from History of the
Franks by Gregory, Bishop of Tours , translated with an introduction by Ernest Brehaut
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1916; Records of Civilization 2); public domain, as
transcribed for Project Gutenberg (ebook 74955). SermonIndex has only divided it into
chapters and short sections; the wording is the translator’s own. Footnotes and the
editor’s introduction are left out. No original-language text is shown beside it, and no
modern English version has been made. Licence. The translation was published in 1916 and
is in the public domain. Licence: Public domain.