(2) "Hearken moreover that I may tell you the word in truth, in what type the mystery of baptism forgiveth sins. Now, therefore, if the souls sin when they are still in the world, the retributive servitors indeed come and are witnesses of all the sins which the soul committeth, lest in sooth they should come forth out of the regions of the chaos, in order that they may convict them in the judgments which are outside the chaos. And the counterfeiting spirit becometh witness of all the sins which the soul shall commit, in order that it may convict it in the judgments which are outside the chaos, not only that it may bear witness of them, but--all the sins of the souls--it sealeth the sins and maketh them fast on to the soul, in order that all the rulers of the chastisements of the sinners may recognize it, that it is a sinning soul, and that they may know of the number of sins which it hath committed, by the seals which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to it, so that it shall be chastized according to the number of sins which it hath committed. This do they with all sinning souls. "Now, therefore, he who shall receive the

(35) But now when he does thus commit Sins, yet he commits them not in the new Man; but the old [Man] in Sin, who is subjected under Sin, who is in the Anger of God; he is driven by the Anger, so that he does not always that which is right; and if he does any Thing that is good, yet he does it out of his own Will and Ability, but the new Man compels him to it, that he must do it; for the old [Man] is corruptible, but the Soul is incorruptible; and therefore the poor Soul is always in Strife, and sticks between the Door and the Hinges, and must be often pinched and bruised.

(3) Nevertheless, herefore shalt thou not go back, nor yet be overfeared of thy failing. For an it so be that thou mayest have grace to destroy the pain of thine foredone special deeds, in the manner before said—or better if thou better mayest—sure be thou, that the pain of the original sin, or else the new stirrings of sin that be to come, shall but right little be able to provoke thee.

(3) And therefore whoso were reformed by grace thus to continue in keeping of the stirrings of his will, should never be in this life—as he may not be without these stirrings in nature—without some taste of the endless sweetness, and in the bliss of heaven without the full food. And therefore have no wonder though I stir thee to this work. For this is the work, as thou shalt hear afterward, in the which man should have continued if he never had sinned: and to the which working man was made, and all things for man, to help him and further him thereto, and by the which working a man shall be repaired again. And for the defailing of this working, a man falleth evermore deeper and deeper in sin, and further and further from God. And by keeping and continual working in this work only without more, a man evermore riseth higher and higher from sin, and nearer and nearer unto God.

(17) But if any now will excuse himself for sin, by refusing to take what is evil unto himself, and laying the guilt thereof upon the Evil Spirit, and thus make himself out to be quite pure and innocent (as our first Parents Adam and Eve did while they were yet in paradise; when each laid the guilt upon the other), he hath no right at all to do this; for it is written, “There is none without sin.” Therefore I say; reproach, shame, loss, woe, and eternal damnation be to the man who is fit and ready and willing that the Evil Spirit and falsehood, lies and all untruthfulness, wickedness and other evil things should have their will and pleasure, word and work in him, and make him their house and habitation.

(2) There, as it seemed to me from listening, Were lamentations none, but only sighs, That tremble made the everlasting air. And this arose from sorrow without torment, Which the crowds had, that many were and great, Of infants and of women and of men. To me the Master good: "Thou dost not ask What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are? Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther, That they sinned not; and if they merit had, 'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest; And if they were before Christianity, In the right manner they adored not God; And among such as these am I myself. For such defects, and not for other guilt, Lost are we and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire." Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard, Because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended. "Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord," Began I, with desire of being certain Of that Faith which o'ercometh every error,

(36) But yet we do not say, that Sin in the old Man is no Hurt; though indeed it cannot sway the new Man, yet it gives Offence; and we must with the new Man live to God [and serve him,] though it is not possible to be perfect in this World, yet we must continually go on and hold out; and the new Man is in a Field, where the Ground is cold, bitter, sour, and void of Life.

(43) But what its Putrefaction is, my Soul does not desire to try by participating with them; for it is their abominable Sins, which are kindled in the Anger of God; there must the poor Soul bathe, till it comes into the Rest, through the small Faith; where its Clarification [or Glorification] shall not in Eternity be like the true-born Saints. Although indeed they are redeemed out of Hell, and have Fruition of the heavenly Joy; yet the greatest Joy stands in the earnest Regeneration, wherein there springs up paradisical Virtue [or Power,] and Wonders.

(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?

(3) He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

(4) The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases; For the blest ardour that irradiates all things In that most like itself is most vivacious. With all of these things has advantaged been The human creature; and if one be wanting, From his nobility he needs must fall. 'Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him, And render him unlike the Good Supreme, So that he little with its light is blanched, And to his dignity no more returns, Unless he fill up where transgression empties With righteous pains for criminal delights. Your nature when it sinned so utterly In its own seed, out of these dignities Even as out of Paradise was driven, Nor could itself recover, if thou notest With nicest subtilty, by any way, Except by passing one of these two fords: Either that God through clemency alone Had pardon granted, or that man himself Had satisfaction for his folly made. Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss Of the eternal counsel, to my speech As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

(3) And Mary answered and said: "My Lord, in what type then do the baptisms forgive sins? I heard thee say: 'The retributive servitors follow the soul, being witnesses to it for all the sins which it committeth, that they may convict it in the judgments.' Now, therefore, my Lord, do the mysteries of the baptisms wipe out the sins which are in the hands of the retributive servitors, so that they forget them? Now, therefore, my Lord, tell unto us the type, how they forgive sins; nay, we desire to know it with sureness." mysteries of the baptisms, then the mystery of them becometh a great, exceedingly violent, wise fire and it burneth up the sins and entereth into the soul secretly and consumeth all the sins which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to it. And when it hath finished purifying all the sins The separation of the portions by the mystery of baptism. which the counterfeiting spirit hath made fast on to the soul, it entereth into the body secretly and pursueth all the pursuers secretly and separateth them off on the side of the portion of the body. For it pursueth the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny and separateth them off from the power and from the soul and putteth them on the side of the body, so that it separateth off the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny and the body into one portion; the soul and power on the other hand it separateth into another. The mystery of baptism on the contrary remaineth in the midst of the two, continually separating them from one another, so that it maketh them clean and purifieth them, in order that they may not be stained by matter. "Now, therefore, Mary, this is the way in which the mysteries of the baptisms forgive sins and all iniquities."

(3) "O Shem, they are deceived by manifold demons, thinking that through baptism with the uncleanness of water, which is dark, feeble, idle, and disturbing, the water will take away sins. And they do not know that from the water to the water there is bondage, error, unchastity, envy, murder, adultery, false witness, heresies, robberies, lusts, babblings, wrath, bitterness. . . . Therefore, there are many deaths that burden their thoughts. For I foretell it to those who have understanding. They will refrain from the impure baptism. And those who have understanding from the light of the spirit will not have dealings with the impure rubbing. And their heart will not grow faint, nor will they curse, nor will they give honor to the water. Where the curse is, there is the deficiency. And the blindness is where the honor is. For if they mix with the evil ones, they become empty in the dark water. Where the water has been mentioned, there is nature, and the oath, and the lie, and the loss. For only in the unconceived spirit, where the exalted light rested, has the water not been mentioned, nor can it be mentioned.

(9) We should mark and know of a very truth that all manner of virtue and goodness, and even that Eternal Good which is God Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so long as it is outside the soul; that is, so long as the man is holding converse with outward things through his senses and reason, and doth not withdraw into himself and learn to understand his own life, who and what he is. The like is true of sin and evil. For all manner of sin and wickedness can never make us evil, so long as it is outside of us; that is, so long as we do not commit it, or do not give consent to it. Therefore although it be good and profitable that we should ask, and learn and know, what good and holy men have wrought and suffered, and how God hath dealt with them, and what He hath wrought in and through them, yet it were a thousand times better that we should in ourselves learn and perceive and understand, who we are, how and what our own life is, what God is and is doing in us, what He will have from us, and to what ends He will or will not make use of us.

(57) Seeing then out of this unrighteous People, there should an Host [or Generation] be born to the Kingdom of Heaven, and seeing none lived upon Earth that was not defiled with this Wickedness, and yet that in the Love of God there was a Possibility found [that such (who are sorry and grieved at this forementioned evil Beast, and desire to go out from it) might come to the Grace of God, and yet no otherwise but in this Christ; and yet that it is daily found among the regenerated Christians, that the old earthly Body is so kindled in such Wickedness, and that (although they would fain go out from it and leave it quite) yet they cannot, for the Anger holds us captive in the old Man, and the Devil is Lord therein, who drives the Body (in the Spirit of this World) often into Evil and Wickedness, which Man intended not to do, for the Wickedness of the Ungodly (by his Cursing and Falshood) kindles the Anger of the old Man, and although he be inwardly [new] born in God, yet it is not known, therefore (seeing our Falshood and Unrighteousness, as also our Offences are manifested before God, and appear in the Tincture, and that we could not [otherwise] be freed from such Evil) Christ has taken upon him all our Transgressions.

(16) And for this cause, so long as a man is an Adam or his child, he is without God. Christ saith, “He who is not with Me is against Me.”20 Now he who is against God, is dead before God. Whence it followeth that all Adam’s children are dead before God. But he who standeth with Christ in perfect obedience, he is with God and liveth. As it hath been said already, sin lieth in the turning away of the creature from the Creator, which agreeth with what we have now said. For he who is in disobedience is in sin, and sin can never be atoned for or healed but by returning to God, and this is brought to Pass by humble obedience. For so long as a man continueth in disobedience, his sin can never be blotted out; let him do what he will, it availeth him nothing. Let us be assured of this. For disobedience is itself sin. But when a man entereth into the obedience of the faith, all is healed, and blotted out and forgiven, and not else. Insomuch that if the Evil Spirit himself could come into true obedience, he would become an angel again, and all his sin and wickedness would be healed and blotted out and forgiven at once. And could an angel fall into disobedience, he would straightway become an evil spirit although he did nothing afresh. If then it were possible for a man to renounce himself and all things, and to live as wholly and purely in true obedience, as Christ did in His human nature, such a man were quite without sin, and were one thing with Christ, and the same by grace which Christ was by nature. But it is said this cannot be. So also it is said: “There is none without sin.” But be that as it may, this much is certain; that the nearer we are to perfect obedience, the less we sin, and the farther from it we are, the more we sin. In brief: whether a man be good, better, or best of all; bad, worse, or worst of all; sinful or saved before God; it all lieth in this matter of obedience. Therefore it hath been said: the more of Self and Me, the more of sin and wickedness.

BUT it is not so with them that continually work in the work of this book. For their meditations be but as they were sudden conceits and blind feelings of their own wretchedness, or of the goodness of God; without any means of reading or hearing coming before, and without any special beholding of any thing under God. These sudden conceits and these blind feelings be sooner learned of God than of man. I care not though thou haddest nowadays none other meditations of thine own wretchedness, nor of the goodness of God (I mean if thou feel thee thus stirred by grace and by counsel), but such as thou mayest have in this word SIN, and in this word GOD: or in such other, which as thee list. Not breaking nor expounding these words with curiosity of wit, in beholding after the qualities of these words, as thou wouldest by that beholding increase thy devotion. I trow it should never be so in this case and in this work. But hold them all whole these words; and mean by sin, a lump, thou wottest never what, none other thing but thyself. Me think that in this blind beholding of sin, thus congealed in a lump, none other thing than thyself, it should be no need to bind a madder thing, than thou shouldest be in this time. And yet peradventure, whoso looked upon thee should think thee full soberly disposed in thy body, without any changing of countenance; but sitting or going or lying, or leaning or standing or kneeling, whether thou wert, in a full sober restfulness.

(4) Now, people say when they commit sin, that they do not intend to do so always; they intend to turn away from sin. That is just as though a man were to kill himself and suppose that he could make himself alive again by his own strength. That is, however, impossible; but to turn from sin by one's own power and come to God is still much more impossible. Therefore, whosoever is to turn from sin and come to God in His heavenly kingdom, must be drawn by the heavenly Father with the might of His divine power.

The Father also draws the Son who comes to help us with His grace, by stimulating our free will to turn away from, and hate sin, which has drawn us aside from God, and from the immutable goodness of the Godhead. Then, if she is willing, He pours the gift of His grace into the soul, which renounces all her misery and sin, and all her works become living. Now, this grace springs from the centre of Godhead and the Father's heart, and flows perpetually, nor ever ceases, if the soul obeys His everlasting love. Therefore He saith in the prophets: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." Out of the overflow of His universal love He desires to draw all to Himself, and to His Only-begotten Son, and to the Holy Ghost in the joy of the heavenly kingdom.

Now, we should know that before our Lord Jesus Christ was born, the Heavenly Father drew men with all His might for five thousand, two hundred years; and yet, as far as we know, brought not one into the heavenly kingdom. So, when the Son saw that the Father had thus strongly drawn men and even wearied Himself, and yet not succeeded, He said to the Father: "I will draw them with the cords of a man." It was as though He said, "I see well, Father, that Thou with all Thy might, canst not succeed, therefore will I myself draw them with the cords of a man."

(21) Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.

(2) By not enduring on the power that wills Curb for his good, that man who ne'er was born, Damning himself damned all his progeny; Whereby the human species down below Lay sick for many centuries in great error, Till to descend it pleased the Word of God To where the nature, which from its own Maker Estranged itself, he joined to him in person By the sole act of his eternal love. Now unto what is said direct thy sight; This nature when united to its Maker, Such as created, was sincere and good; But by itself alone was banished forth From Paradise, because it turned aside Out of the way of truth and of its life. Therefore the penalty the cross held out, If measured by the nature thus assumed, None ever yet with so great justice stung, And none was ever of so great injustice, Considering who the Person was that suffered, Within whom such a nature was contracted. From one act therefore issued things diverse; To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing; Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.