(1) When, again, He says, "When they persecute you in this city, flee ye to the other," He does not advise flight, as if persecution were an evil thing; nor does He enjoin them by flight to avoid death, as if in dread of it, but wishes us neither to be the authors nor abettors of any evil to any one, either to ourselves or the persecutor and murderer. For He, in a way, bids us take care of ourselves. But he who disobeys is rash and foolhardy. If he who kills a man of God sins against God, he also who presents himself before the judgment-seat becomes guilty of his death. And such is also the case with him who does not avoid persecution, but out of daring presents himself for capture. Such a one, as far as in him lies, becomes an accomplice in the crime of the persecutor. And if he also uses provocation, he is wholly guilty, challenging the wild beast.

(12) And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, in what place soever ye enter into a house, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go, and thence depart. And when ye come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.

(615) who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that 8 they were being taken away to be cast into hell.’ And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day’s journey brought them to the place, and there, in the

(4) 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?

(53) And their hands commit lawless deeds, And the sinners devour all whom they lawlessly oppress: Yet the sinners shall be destroyed before the face of the Lord of Spirits, And they shall be banished from off the face of His earth, And they shall perish for ever and ever.

(56) And they shall go up and tread under foot the land of His elect ones, [And the land of His elect ones shall be before them a threshing-floor and a highway:] 7 But the city of my righteous shall be a hindrance to their horses. And they shall begin to fight among themselves, And their right hand shall be strong against themselves, And a man shall not know his brother, Nor a son his father or his mother, Till there be no number of the corpses through their slaughter, And their punishment be not in vain.

(36) But on the day of turbulence and execration and indignation and anger, with flam- ing devouring fire as He burnt Sodom, so likewise will He burn his land and his city and all that is his, and he will be blotted out of the book of the discipline of the children of men, and not be recorded in the book of life, but in that which is appointed to destruc- tion, and he will depart into eternal execration ; so that their condemnation may be always renewed in hate and in execration and in wrath and in torment and in indignation and in plagues and in disease for ever. n. I say and testify to you, my sons, according to the judgment which will come upon the man who wisheth to injure his brother."

(41) By the law of retaliation blood sleeps not after death; Say not, "I shall die and obtain pardon." The retaliation of this world is illusive, Therefore God calls the world "a pastime and a sport," Here punishment is as the repression of quarrels, But this discourse is endless, O Moses, Go and leave these asses to their grazing! Let them fatten themselves with the food they love, Zu'l Qarnain at Mount Qaf. Zu'l Qarnain journeyed to Mount Qaf;

(12) Thus one of the Wicked curses the other, who has caused him to commit such Wickedness; the Inferior his Superior that has given him Offence, [and been a Stumbling-block to him;] the Laity curse the Clergy or Priests, who have given them evil Examples, and seduced them with false Doctrine; the wicked Curser, Swearer, and Blasphemer, bites and gnaws his Tongue, which has so murdered him; the Mind beats the Head against the Stones; and the Ungodly hide themselves in the Caves and Holes of the Earth, before the Terror of the LORD; for there is great Quaking and Stirring in the Essences of the Anger and fierce Wrath of the LORD; and the Anguish breaks the Heart, and yet there is no Dying; for the Anger is stirring, and the Life of the Ungodly flows up in the Anger. There the Ungodly curses the Heaven and the Earth that bore him, as also the Constellation [or Stars] that led him, and the Hour of his Birth; all his Uncleanness stands before his Eyes, and he sees the Cause of his Horror, and condemns himself; he cannot look upon the Righteous for very Shame; all his Works stand in his Mind, and in the Essences cry, Woe to him that did them, they accuse him; the Tears of those he has afflicted and oppressed are like a fiery stinging Serpent; he desires Rest or Ease, but there is no Comfort, Despair rises up in him, for Hell terrifies him.

(37) And here is fulfilled that which King David descants upon; Detraction, Shame, or Disgrace, Thou shalt rejoice to see how the Wicked are recompensed; how the wicked Driver, [Hunter or Oppressor,] and P Incendiary of Malice and Wickedness, is tormented in his Prison; for the Sins that are washed away shall not appear in Heaven (as in the Abyss of Hell) in the Form of Fire; but as Isaiah said, Though thy Sins were as red as Blood [or Scarlet,] (if thou turn) they shall be like Wool, white as Snow; they shall stand in a heavenly Figure, for Men to sing of in a Hymn of Praise, and a Psalm of Thanksgiving, for their Deliverance from the Driver.

(5) And their fathers were witnesses (of their destruc- tion), and after this they were bound in the depths of the earth for ever, until the day of the great con- demnation, when judgment is executed on all those who have corrupted their ways and their works before the Lord. n. And He | destroyed! all from their places, and there jwasf not left one of them whom He judged not according to all their wickedness.

(23) And those who have escaped will not return from their wickedness to the way of righte- ousness, but they will all exalt themselves to deceit and wealth, that they may each take all that is his neighbour's, and thev will name the great name, but not in truth and not in righteousness, and they will defile the holy of holies with their uncleanness and the corruption of their pollution.

(106) Now God has therefore kindled nature so much and so hard, and did so kindle the burning in his wrath therein, that he might thereby build a dwelling-house for the devils, and keep them prisoners therein, in that they were the children of wrath, in whom he ruleth, with his fierce zeal or jealousy, and they rule in the wrath.

(75) Thus thou shalt know in what Manner it is Sin before God; thou hast in thyself the [one eternal pure] Element, which is a Joy in the Presence of God; and now if thou ragest and ravest with the Source [Quality or Property] of Hell, then thou touchest [or troublest] the Element; and thou stirrest up the did, when he awakened [or stirred up,] and kindled the Fierce and Stones; thou sinnest [piercing] into the Heaven in the Presence of God, upon which the Prophets complained in many Places, That the Disobedient did grieve their God. Though (in himself) he felt no Pain, yet his Wrath was kindled in the first Principle, in the Gate of the Deep, wherein the Soul stands, and that is a mere Abomination before him.

(84) And now the angels of Thy heavens are guilty of trespass, And upon the flesh of men abideth Thy wrath until the great day of judgement.

(1) The multitude, also, are accustomed to doubt in common the very same thing concerning providence, viz. why certain persons are afflicted undeservedly, as they have not done any thing unjustly prior to their being thus afflicted. For neither here is it possible to understand [perfectly] what the soul is, and its whole life, how many offences it has committed in former lives, and whether it now suffers from its former guilt. In this life, also, many unjust actions are concealed from human knowledge, but are known to the Gods, since neither is the same scope of justice proposed to them as to men. For men, indeed, define justice to be the soul’s performance of its own proper business, and the distribution of desert, conformably to the established laws, and the prevailing polity. But the Gods, looking to the whole orderly arrangement of the world, and to the subserviency of souls to the Gods, form a judgment of what is just. Hence the judgment of just actions with the Gods is different from what it is with us. Nor is it wonderful, if we are unable, in most things, to arrive at the supreme and most perfect judgment of more excellent natures.

(71) Criminals and sinners, even in the course of sinning, Their sins are veiled among the heart's secrets, Yet the criminal himself exposes them to view, Saying, "Behold me wearing a pair of horns, A cow of hell in sight of all men." Thus, even here, in the midst of thy sin, thy hand and foot Thy secret thought is as a governor who says to thee, "Tell forth thy convictions, withhold them not;" Especially in seasons of passion and angry talk Thy secret sins and crimes govern hand and foot,

(26) Now if Man awakens Sin, then the fierce Anger [or severity] of God is stirred in himself, viz. in Man, which otherwise (if Man stood in Humility) would rest and be turned into great Joy, as was often mentioned before. But now when he burns [in Wrath,] then one People devours the other, and one Sin destroys another. If Israel had been upright, they had not been put to make War, but they should have entered in with Wonders, and have converted the People; Moses should have led them into the [promised Land] with his [Miracles] or Deeds of Wonder. But because they were wicked, they could not enter in (with the brightness of Moses, with Deeds of Wonder, in the Luster [or Glance] of the Father) to convert the Heathens; but Moses (with his Deeds of Wonder) must stay in the Wilderness, and the whole People was consumed and devoured in the Wrath; and Joshua must war with the Heathens, and destroy them, for one

(1) But as the proclamation [of the Gospel] has come now at the fit time, so also at the fit time were the Law and the Prophets given to the Barbarians, and Philosophy to the Greeks, to fit their ears for the Gospel. "Therefore," says the Lord who delivered Israel, "in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee. And I have given thee for a Covenant to the nations; that thou mightest inhabit the earth, and receive the inheritance of the wilderness; saying to those that are in bonds, Come forth; and to those that are in darkness, Show yourselves." For if the "prisoners" are the Jews, of whom the Lord said, "Come forth, ye that will, from your bonds," - meaning the voluntary bound, and who have taken on them "the burdens grievous to be borne" by human injunction - it is plain that "those in darkness" are they who have the ruling faculty of the soul buried in idolatry.

(12) Afterwards they set the righteous man apart from the wicked; and then the righteous is for heaven (garôdmân), and they cast the wicked back to hell.