Exhortation to Moral Renewal

The Babylon captivity had taken hold, and through the passage of time, the incomplete and without confidence appeared in dishonor because of being seized by so many evils. But from the bringing forth of virtue and being instructed in philosophy, the first growth and being steadfast and deep in mind, in that very flower of the age, the control and judge of those elders was being shown. But let us see, if it seems to you, by bringing the word back to the beginning, how to be a friend to God is lofty and blessed.

When the city of Jerusalem was taken by war from the Assyrians, the peoples of the Hebrews then were dispersed to Babylon. And there was also the blessed Daniel, a multitude of spear-wielding youths, and a cheerful boy was recounting the war, a small and much-suffering people, having neither an occasion from his kinsmen to appear, nor being considered a worthy gain of war by the enemies; invisible, without glory because of age and because of misfortune; seen only by the one looking well.

For God alone saw the pure soul of the youth, just as a pearl enveloped in shell-like oysters or gold lying in the hollows of the earth; as a bride properly covered with the veils of the dais. And when the appointed time came and it was necessary for the hidden to be revealed, for the invisible to become known, for the despised to be looked upon, for the one hidden by the darkness of misfortune to shine, a little effusion of the Spirit, and the humble of all to be higher; wise he who does not divide the mouth; a judge of hidden things; a critic of judges; sitting on a high throne, having not yet become a servant of courts; the young man avenging temperance being slandered, turning back a wandering people, calling back the vote of the whole city having been wrongly cast.

Listen...

Therefore, hold fast your soul to the reading and to the wonder in every way. And I, having left aside the matters of other books, which the psalms have profitably sung to us with pleasure, which the apostle advised, and which the Lord has masterfully legislated in the gospels, have been drawn to this history.

For I see two youths of excellence: one in the act of judging, and the other in the act of being judged; and Daniel being struck with votes, and Susanna being crowned with the victory of temperance.

Come then, if it seems good, you lovers of beautiful things and of virtue, let us renew the ancient judgment by memory; let us cut away the present lawlessness with ancient temperance, having stepped in as elders, admiring a maidenhood that has become old and a youth that has become urbanized. O defiled elders and leaders of the people, who desire to join those joined by the law of marriage, needing ten thousand teachers for restoration, lurking in temperance, schemers of deceits, quick finders of slander!

You were the ones judging fornication with your lips and condemning adultery; being doctors of others and becoming the disease themselves; being tombs struck full within of uncleanness and beautifying the outward appearance. The high ones, sitting upon the thrones of judges, when you invited lawlessness by creeping into the thickets of plants and shrubs.

Then the accuser of transgressions and the counselor of evils laughed seeing you, how those at the top of the people, the eloquent and the chosen, have drawn near to the land like certain wall-burrowers or robbers, in order to behold an uncontrolled spectacle; and you hid yourselves in the shrubs according to the thickets, which from the tangled and shady places house the birds and unexpectedly leap upon the dwellers.

O, what a similar evil, which the destroyer of human souls from the beginning unto...