Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?

1Those who bring speeches of praise as gifts to rich people seem to me to deserve to be judged not only flatterers and illiberal, since they pretend to bestow as a favor what is actually thankless. They are also impious and treacherous. They are impious because they pass over praising and glorifying the only perfect and good God, from whom are all things and through whom are all things and to whom are all things, and they attach the prize to human beings who wallow in a life that is subject in its entirety to the judgment of God. They are treacherous because wealth by itself is enough to puff up the souls of those who possess it, to corrupt them, and to turn them away from the road by which salvation can be attained. Yet these people further indulge the appetites of the rich with the pleasures of immoderate praise, exalting them and making them despise everything in the whole world except wealth, the very thing for which they are admired. As the saying goes, they pour fire upon fire, drawing off conceit and pouring it upon conceit, and they add to wealth a burden heavier than its naturally heavy load. What they ought to do is take away from it and cut it off all around, as one would with a dangerous and deadly disease. For to the one who is lifted up and magnified, the opposite change is fixed in place: humiliation and fall, as the divine word teaches.

To me it seems far more humane to heal the rich for their salvation in every possible way, asking this from God, who surely and gladly grants such things to his own children, and healing their souls by the word through the grace of the Savior, enlightening them and leading them to the acquisition of the truth. The one who obtains this truth and is made bright by good works alone will carry off the prize of eternal life. Prayer requires a soul that is vigorous and persistent, measured out to the last day of life, and a way of life requires a disposition that is good and steadfast and stretched out toward all the commandments of the Savior.

2The reason salvation seems harder for the rich than for those without money is likely not a simple one, but varied. Some, hearing the Lord's voice at once and without reflection—that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:25)—despaired of themselves as having no hope of life. They granted everything to the world, hung upon the life here as the only one left to them, and turned away from the way there, no longer troubling themselves about whom the Master and Teacher calls rich, or how what is impossible for human beings becomes possible. Others understood this rightly and fittingly, but neglected the works that lead to salvation and did not make the necessary preparation to obtain what they hoped for. I say both these things about the rich who have perceived the power of the Savior and his glorious salvation; about the uninitiated in the truth I care little.

It is necessary, then, that those who love truth and love the brethren. Text breaks off.

3They must neither be bold and insolent toward the rich who have been called, nor again fall down before them out of their own love of gain. First, by the word they must take away their empty despair and show, with the necessary explanation of the Lord's sayings, that the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven has not been cut off from them completely, if they obey the commandments. Then, when they learn that what they fear is a fear without cause and that the Savior gladly receives them when they are willing, they must also point out beforehand and initiate them into how and through what works and dispositions they may enjoy the hope, since it is neither impossible for them nor, on the contrary, something that comes to them without effort.

But just as it is with athletes, to compare small and perishable things with great and imperishable ones, let the person who is rich according to the world reason in the same way about himself. For among those athletes, the one who despairs that he will be able to win and obtain crowns does not enroll in the contest at all. But the one who places this hope in his mind, yet does not accept the labors and exercises and suitable food, remains uncrowned and fails in his hopes. So also let the one who has put on this earthly garment not proclaim himself excluded from the Savior's contests from the start, if he is faithful and perceives the greatness of God's love for humanity; nor again let him remain untrained and uncontested and hope to receive the crowns of incorruption without dust and without sweat. Rather, let him submit himself, bearing it, to the word as trainer and to Christ as judge of the contest. Let his appointed food and drink be the new covenant of the Lord, and the commandments his exercises. Let his seemliness and adornment be the good dispositions: love, faith, hope, knowledge of truth, gentleness, compassion, dignity, so that when the last trumpet signals the end of the race and the departure from here, as from the stadium of life, he may stand before the judge of the contest with a good conscience as victor, acknowledged as worthy of the fatherland above, into which he returns with crowns and angelic proclamations.

4May the Savior grant us, then, as we begin the discourse from this point, to contribute what is true, fitting, and saving to our brothers and sisters—first for hope itself, and second for the approach to hope. What He grants to those who ask, He also teaches to those who request it, and He dissolves ignorance and shakes off despair by bringing forward again the same words about rich persons, words that become their own interpreters and sure expounders. For there is nothing like hearing the sayings themselves again—the very sayings that until now have troubled us when we listened to them unexaminedly and mistakenly, out of childishness.

“As He was setting out on the road, a man ran up and knelt before Him, saying, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God. You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother.’ He answered Him, ‘I have kept all these from my youth.’ Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said, ‘One thing you lack: if you wish to be perfect, sell what you have and distribute it to poor persons, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But he became gloomy at the word and went away grieving, for he had much money and lands.” (Mark 10:17-22)

“Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have money to enter the kingdom of God.’ The disciples were astounded at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is for those who trust in money to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were exceedingly astonished and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ He looked at them and said, ‘What is impossible with human beings is possible with God.’” (Mark 10:23-27)

“Peter began to say to Him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly I tell you, whoever leaves his own things and parents and brothers and sisters and money for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will receive a hundredfold—now in this present time fields and money and houses and brothers and sisters, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’” (Mark 10:28-30)

5“But the first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31).

This is what is written in the Gospel according to Mark. And in all the other acknowledged Gospels, the wording may vary a little here and there, but they all display the same agreement of meaning.

We must know clearly that the Savior does nothing in a merely human way, but everything by divine and mystical wisdom. So we should not listen to his words in a fleshly way, but search out and thoroughly learn the hidden mind in them with the worthy inquiry and understanding they deserve.

For even the things the Lord himself seems to have spoken simply to his disciples are found to require no less attention now—indeed, even more—because of the surpassing excess of wisdom in them.

And where even the things thought to have been opened by him to those within, to those called children of the kingdom, still need greater care, how much more do the things that seemed to be spoken simply and were therefore not even questioned by his hearers, yet bear on the whole end of salvation itself?

These are veiled in a wondrous and supercelestial depth of thought, and it is not fitting to receive them superficially with the ears, but by sending the mind down to the very Spirit of the Savior and the secret of his purpose.

6Our Lord and Savior has been asked a question that suits him perfectly: Life is asked about life, the Savior about salvation, the Teacher about the chief point of the doctrines he teaches, the Truth about true immortality, the Word about the paternal Word, the Perfect One about perfect rest, the Incorruptible about sure incorruptibility. He has been asked about the very things he came down to teach and to give, so that he might show the substance of the gospel: that it is the gift of eternal life. As God, he knew beforehand what he would be asked and what answer someone would give him. Who else would know this better than the Prophet of prophets and Lord of every prophetic spirit? When he was called good, he took his starting point from that very word and began his teaching there, turning the disciple toward God, who is good and first and the only steward of eternal life, which the Son gives us after receiving it from him.

7So the greatest and highest of the lessons that lead to life must be deposited in the soul right from the start: to know the eternal God, the giver of eternal things, the first and highest and one and good God. He is to be acquired through knowledge and comprehension. For this is the unchangeable and unshakable beginning and foundation of life: the understanding of God who truly is, and who gives the things that are—that is, the eternal things—from whom all other beings receive both their existence and their continuance. Ignorance of him is death, but the knowledge of him, and kinship with him, and love toward him, and likeness to him—this alone is life.

8So he urges the one who is to live the true life to know first of all him whom "no one knows except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). Then, after him, he must learn the greatness of the Savior and the newness of the grace, because, as the apostle says, "the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). And the things given through a faithful servant are not equal to the things bestowed by the true-born Son.

If the law of Moses had been sufficient to provide eternal life, then the Savior would have come in vain and suffered in vain, running through our humanity from birth to the sign. And in vain would the man who had kept all the commandments of the law "from his youth" (Mark 10:20) kneel before another and ask for immortality. For he has not only fulfilled the law, but he did so beginning right from his earliest age. After all, what is so great or brilliant about an old age barren of the wrongs that youthful desires give birth to, or that boiling anger or love of money produce? But if someone in the leaping of youth and the burning heat of that age shows a mind ripe and older than his years, that man is a marvelous and distinguished athlete, gray in judgment.

And yet this man, for all that, is thoroughly convinced that he lacks nothing when it comes to righteousness, but that he is entirely lacking in life. That is why he asks for it from the only one who can give it. He approaches the law with confidence, but he begs the Son of God. He is moving "from faith to faith" (Romans 1:17); as one who rocks dangerously in the law and lies at anchor in peril, he changes his mooring to the Savior.

9So Jesus does not rebuke him for failing to fulfill everything in the law. On the contrary, he loves him and defends him for his obedience in what he has learned. But he says he is incomplete with respect to eternal life, because he has not fulfilled the perfect things. He is a worker of the law, but idle in true life. Those things are good—who would deny it? For “the commandment is holy”—but only as a kind of child-leading with fear and preliminary teaching for the one advancing toward the supreme legislation and grace of Jesus. “Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4). He does not make them slaves, as a slave would, but sons and brothers and co-heirs—those who accomplish the will of the Father.

10"If you wish to be perfect." So he was not yet perfect, for nothing is more perfect than the perfect. And the divine "if you wish" revealed the free will of the soul conversing with him. The choice belonged to the man, as a free being; the gift belonged to God, as Lord. He gives to those who are willing, who are exceedingly eager, who ask, so that in this way their salvation becomes their own. For God does not compel; force is hateful to God. He provides for those who seek, he gives to those who ask, and he opens to those who knock (Matthew 7:7). If you wish, then, if you truly wish and do not deceive yourself, acquire what is lacking. "One thing you lack" (Mark 10:21): the one thing, which is mine. The good. What is already beyond the law. What the law does not give. What the law cannot contain, what belongs to the living. Indeed, the man who fulfilled all the things of the law "from his youth" and boasted of his excessive accomplishments could not add this one thing to all the rest: the special gift of the Savior, so that he might receive the eternal life he longed for. But he went away vexed, disgusted by the command of life. For he did not truly want life, as he claimed; he was only clothing himself in the reputation of a good choice. He was capable of busying himself with many things, but the one thing, the work of life, he was unable, unwilling, and too weak to accomplish. It was like what the Savior said to Martha, who was busy with many things, being dragged around and troubled in her serving, and who complained about her sister for leaving the service and sitting at his feet in the leisure of a disciple: "You are troubled about many things; Mary has chosen the good part, and it will not be taken from her" (Luke 10:41-42). So also he commanded this man to let go of his restless busyness and cling to the one thing and sit beside it, the grace of the one who grants eternal life.

11What was it, then, that urged him to flee and made him desert the teacher, the supplication, the hope, the life, the labors he had already undertaken? "Sell your possessions" (Mark 10:21). And what does this mean? It is not what some hastily take it to be, a command to throw away the substance that belongs to him and to part with his money. Rather, it means expelling from the soul the opinions about money, the attachment to it, the excessive desire for it, the excitement and sickness about it, the cares, the thorns of life that choke the seed of life (Matthew 13:22). For it is no great and enviable thing to be without money for no reason, if it is not for the sake of life. If it were, then those who have nothing at all anywhere, poor persons and beggars who live from day to day, poor persons cast along the roads, who do not know God and the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3), would be, by the bare fact of their extreme lack and helplessness and want of even the smallest things, the most blessed and most beloved of God, and the only ones who have eternal life. Nor is it a new thing to renounce wealth and give it to poor people or to one's country. Many did this before the Savior's coming, some for the sake of leisure for words and dead wisdom, others for empty fame and vainglory: the Anaxagorases, the Democrituses, the Cratetes.

12What then does he command as something new and proper to God, the only thing that makes alive, which did not save those who came before? If the new creation, the Son of God, reveals and teaches something exceptional, he is not commanding the outward thing that others have done, but something else signified through it, greater and more divine and more complete: to strip bare the soul itself and its disposition of the passions that underlie it, and to cut out and cast away root and branch the things alien to the judgment. For this is the lesson proper to the believer, and the teaching worthy of the Savior. Those who came before despised external things and let their possessions go and wasted them, but the passions of their souls, I think, they even increased. For they fell into arrogance and boastfulness and vainglory and contempt for other human beings, as if they themselves had done something beyond human. How then would the Savior advise those who are to live forever to avoid the things that harm and ruin them for the life he promises? And there is also this: a person can unload his possessions and nonetheless still have the desire and craving for money ingrained and living with him. He has thrown away the use of it, but being at a loss and at the same time longing for what he squandered, he is grieved twice over—both by the absence of the service it gave and by the presence of regret. For it is impossible and impracticable for someone who lacks the necessities for living not to have his judgment broken down and not to be drawn away from better things, trying to procure them somehow and from somewhere.

13And how much more useful is the opposite: to have enough, so that you neither suffer hardship over your possessions yourself nor fail to help those you ought to help? For what sharing would be left among human beings if no one had anything? How could this teaching not be found plainly opposed to many other fine teachings of the Lord, and fighting against them? "Make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings" (Luke 16:9). "Store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:20). How could anyone feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, or take in the homeless—things for which he threatens fire and outer darkness to those who do not do them—if each person were already lacking all these things himself? But the Lord himself is received as a guest by Zacchaeus and Levi and Matthew, rich persons and tax collectors, and he does not command them to let go of their money. Instead, he imposes the just use of it and takes away the unjust use, and he declares, "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:9). He praises their use of money so much that he commands sharing with this addition: give drink to the thirsty, give bread to the hungry, take in the homeless, clothe the naked. But if it is not possible to fulfill these needs without money, and he commands us to give up money, what else would the Lord be doing but urging the same things to be given and not given, to feed and not to feed, to take in and to shut out, to share and not to share—which is the most irrational thing of all.

14So money that also benefits our neighbors must not be thrown away. Possessions are called possessions because they can be possessed, and money is called money because it is useful, prepared by God for human use. These things lie at hand and are placed beneath us like some material and instruments for good use by those who know how. If you use an instrument skillfully, it is skillful; if you lack the skill, it enjoys the fruit of your lack of culture, though it is without blame. Wealth is an instrument of this kind. You can use it justly, and it serves righteousness. Someone uses it unjustly, and it is found to be a servant of injustice. For it has been born to serve, not to rule. We must not blame what has neither good nor evil in itself and is without blame, but rather what is able to use these things well or badly, depending on what it chooses, and is for that very reason the cause. That is the mind of a human being, which has within itself a free judgment and the power of self-determination in handling what has been given. So let no one destroy possessions rather than the passions of the soul, which do not permit the better use of what one has. Then, having become good and noble, he will be able to use these possessions well. The command to renounce all that one has and sell all that one has must therefore be understood in this way, as spoken about the passions of the soul.

15I myself would say this as well. Since some things are within the soul and others are outside it, if the soul uses them well, these too appear good, but if badly, they appear evil. Does the one who commands us to alienate our possessions reject these first—the things whose removal still leaves the passions in place—or rather those things whose removal makes even possessions useful? For the person who has thrown away his worldly wealth can still be rich in passions even when the material is absent. His disposition does its own work: it chokes and presses his reasoning and burns with the desires that have grown up with him. So it has done him no good to become poor in money while he is rich in passions. He has not thrown away what should be thrown away, but only indifferent things. He has cut himself off from what could serve him, and by his lack of outward things he has kindled the innate fuel of evil. One must therefore renounce the possessions that cause harm, not those that can also help if someone understands their right use. Things managed with wisdom, self-control, and reverence do good, but the things that cause loss must be thrust away. Outward things do not harm.

So then the Lord also introduces the need for outward things.

16He commands us to put away, not the things of life, but the things that are used badly. These are the sicknesses and passions of the soul. The wealth of these, when present, is deadly to everyone; when destroyed, it brings salvation. A person must present his soul pure from this wealth—that is, poor and naked—and only then can he hear the Savior say, “Come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). For he himself already becomes a way for the one pure in heart, but the grace of God does not slip into an unclean soul. And the soul that is unclean is the one rich in desires, tormented by many worldly loves.

17For the one who has possessions and gold and silver and houses as gifts of God, and who serves God the giver with them for the salvation of human beings, and who knows that he has acquired these things for his brothers and sisters rather than for himself, and who remains master of his possessions rather than a slave to what he has acquired, and who does not carry these things around in his soul or define and circumscribe his own life by them, but is always laboring at some good and divine work—even if he must one day be deprived of these things, he is able with a gracious mind to bear their removal just as he bore their abundance. This is the one who is called blessed by the Lord and named poor in spirit, an heir ready for the kingdom of heaven, not a rich person unable to live.

But the one who carries wealth in his soul, and instead of the Spirit of God carries gold or a field in his heart, and always makes his possession boundless and is always looking for more, bent downward and bound by the snares of the world, being earth and about to go away into earth—how can such a one desire or care about the kingdom of heaven? A human being wearing not a heart but a field or a mine, who will necessarily be found in the things he has chosen? For where a person's mind is, there also is his treasure (Luke 12:34).

The Lord knows two kinds of treasure: the good kind—for the good person brings good out of the good treasure of the heart (Luke 6:45)—and the evil kind. For the evil person brings evil out of the evil treasure, because the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart (Luke 6:45). Just as there is not only one kind of treasure with him, as there is also with us—the kind that gives a sudden great gain when found—but also a second kind, profitless and unenvied and hard-won and harmful, so also wealth is of two kinds: one of good things, one of evil things, since we know that wealth and treasure are not separated from each other in nature. And one kind of wealth is worth acquiring and keeping, while the other is not worth acquiring and should be thrown away. In the same way, poverty too: the spiritual kind is blessed. That is why Matthew added: Blessed are poor persons—how?—in spirit (Matthew 5:3). And again: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God (Matthew 5:6). Therefore the opposite poor persons are wretched: they have no share in God, and even less share in human possessions, and they are without taste of the righteousness of God.

18So then, the rich persons who will enter the kingdom of heaven with difficulty must be understood with exact discernment—not clumsily, not boorishly, not fleshly. For that is not how the saying was spoken. Nor does salvation depend on external things: not on whether they are many or few, small or great, honored or dishonored, esteemed or unesteemed. It depends on the virtue of the soul—on faith, hope, love, brotherly love, knowledge, gentleness, freedom from pride, and truth, whose prize is salvation. For no one will live because of bodily beauty, nor will anyone perish for the opposite reason. Rather, the one who uses the body he has been given purely and according to God will live, but the one who destroys the temple of God will be destroyed. A person who is ugly can act licentiously, and a person who is beautiful can be self-controlled. Neither bodily strength nor size gives life, nor does the lack of any bodily member destroy. It is the soul that uses these things that provides the cause in either direction. "Endure," he says, "when you are struck on the face." A person who is strong and vigorous can obey this, and again a person who is weak can transgress it through lack of self-control in judgment. So also a person who is without resources and without livelihood may be found drunk on desires, while a person rich in money may be sober, poor in pleasures, persuaded, intelligent, pure, and disciplined. If, then, the soul is what will live above all and first, and virtue growing in it saves while wickedness kills, it is now clearly evident that the soul which is poor in the things by which a person is corrupted through wealth is saved, and the soul which is rich in the things that wealth wears down is put to death. And let us no longer seek the cause of the end anywhere else except in the soul's condition and disposition toward obedience to God and purity, and toward transgression of the commandments and the collection of wickedness.

19So the truly and rightly rich person is the one rich in virtues, able to use every circumstance in a holy and faithful way. The false rich person is the one rich according to the flesh, who has transferred his life to outward possessions that pass away and decay, that belong now to one person and now to another, and in the end to no one at all. In the same way again, there is a genuine poor person and another poor person who is bastard and falsely named. The one is poor according to the spirit, which is his own; the other is poor according to the world, which is alien to him. He says to the one who is not poor according to the world but rich in the passions, and to the one who is not poor according to the spirit but rich according to God: “Stand away from the alien possessions that dwell in your soul, so that, becoming pure in heart, you may see God”—which is the same thing, in another phrase, as entering the kingdom of heaven. And how will you stand away from them? By selling them. What then? Will you take money in exchange for possessions, making an exchange of wealth for wealth, having turned your visible substance into silver? Not at all. Instead, in place of the things that formerly dwelt in the soul you long to save, you bring in another wealth that makes divine and supplies eternal life: the dispositions that follow the commandment of God. In return for these you will have a reward and honor: unceasing salvation and eternal incorruption. In this way you sell your possessions well—the many and superfluous ones that shut off the heavens to you—exchanging them in return for the things that are able to save.

20Let those who are poor in the flesh and in need of such things keep them. But you, taking in exchange the spiritual wealth, would already have treasure in heaven.

The man of much money and lawful in the law did not understand these things in the right way, nor how the same person can be both poor and rich, and can both have money and not have it, and can use the world and not use it. So he went away gloomy and downcast, abandoning the order of life—the very thing he was able only to desire, but not to attain, because he made what was difficult impossible for himself. For it was difficult for the soul not to be carried about and dazzled by the luxuries that attend visible wealth and by its blooming enchantments, but it was not impossible to lay hold of salvation even in this, if someone transfers himself from perceptible wealth to the wealth that is understood and taught by God, and learns to use indifferent things well and properly, as one setting out toward eternal life.

The disciples too at first were themselves very fearful and astonished. When they heard this, why was it? Was it because they also possessed much money? No—they had long ago left behind those very things that were their only possessions: the little nets and hooks and the small boats that served them. What then did they fear when they said, "Who can be saved?" (Mark 10:26). They had heard well, as disciples, what the Lord had said in parable and obscurely, and they perceived the depth of the words. On account of their lack of possessions, then, they were hopeful about salvation. But since they were conscious that they had not yet completely put away the passions—for they were newly taught and had only recently been enlisted by the Savior—they were "utterly astonished" and despaired of themselves no less than that man of much money who clung so terribly to his possession, which he preferred to eternal life. It was altogether fitting, then, for the disciples to be afraid. For if both the one who possesses money and the one who is pregnant with the passions—with which they too were rich—will alike be driven away from heaven, then salvation belongs to souls that are free from passions and pure.

21And the Lord answers: “What is impossible among humans is possible for God” (Mark 10:27). This too is full of great wisdom. For a person who practices and labors at freedom from passions on his own accomplishes nothing; but if he becomes clearly one who desires this exceedingly and has set his whole heart on it, he prevails through the addition of power from God. For God breathes together with willing souls—but if they abandon their eagerness, the Spirit given by God is also withdrawn. To save the unwilling is the act of one using force; to give grace to those who choose it is the act of one who gives freely. Nor does the kingdom of God belong to those who sleep and are idle, but “the violent seize it” (Matthew 11:12). For this alone is a noble violence: to force God, and to seize life from God. And God, knowing those who cling violently—or rather, steadfastly—yields to them. For God rejoices to be defeated in such contests.

When blessed Peter heard these things—Peter the chosen, the exceptional, the first of the disciples, for whom alone and for himself the Savior pays the tax—he quickly seized and grasped the meaning. And what does he say? “Look, we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). Now if by “everything” he means his own possessions, leaving perhaps four obols, so to speak, he exalts himself and, by valuing the kingdom of heaven at the level of these, would forget the kingdom of heaven. But if—as we have just now been saying—they have thrown away the old mental possessions and psychic diseases and follow in the footsteps of the teacher, this would already belong to those who are about to be enrolled in heaven. For this is truly to follow the Savior: to pursue his sinlessness and perfection, and to adorn and order one's soul as a mirror toward him, and to dispose all things alike in all respects.

22Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, whoever leaves his own things and parents and brothers and money for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will receive back a hundredfold” (Mark 10:29-30). But let this not disturb us, nor the still harsher saying uttered elsewhere in the words: “Whoever does not hate father and mother and children, and even his own soul, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). For the God of peace is not introducing hatred and separation from those most loved—he who urges us to love even our enemies. If enemies must be loved, then by the same reasoning, moving upward from them, so must those nearest in family; or if those of one's own blood must be hated, then the saying, moving downward, teaches that enemies must be hated far more, so that the two sayings would be shown to refute each other. But they do not refute each other, nor come close. For from the same mind and disposition and on the same principle a person would hate a father and love an enemy—one who neither takes revenge on an enemy nor reverences a father more than Christ. In the one saying he cuts out hatred and wrongdoing; in the other, the deference toward intimates. If it harms salvation—if, say, a father or son or brother is godless to someone and becomes a hindrance to faith and an obstacle to the life above—let him not join with that one or be of one mind with him, but let him dissolve the fleshly kinship because of the spiritual enmity.

23Think of the matter as a legal contest. Let your father seem to stand beside you and say: "I sowed you and nourished you; follow me and join in wrongdoing, and do not obey the law of Christ," and whatever else a blasphemous man, dead by nature, might say. On the other side, hear the Savior: "I begot you again, after the world had begotten you badly unto death; I freed you, healed you, ransomed you. I will give you life unceasing, eternal, above the world. I will show you the face of God the good Father. 'Call no one your father on earth' (Matthew 23:9). 'Let the dead bury their own dead, but you follow me' (Matthew 8:22). For I will lead you up into rest and the enjoyment of good things that cannot be spoken or told, 'things no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no human heart has conceived' (1 Corinthians 2:9), things angels long to look into and see, the good things God has prepared for the holy and for the children who love him (1 Peter 1:12; 1 Corinthians 2:9). I am your nourisher, giving myself as bread, of which no one who tastes any longer experiences death, and daily giving a drink of immortality. I am a teacher of lessons above the heavens. For you I contended against death and paid your death, which you owed for your former sins and your unbelief toward God." When you have heard these words from both sides, judge for yourself and carry up the vote for your own salvation. And if a brother says similar things, or a child, or a wife, or anyone at all, let Christ the victor be in you above all. For he contends on your behalf.

24Can you stand above your money? Then say so. Christ does not drag you away from what you own, and the Lord does not begrudge you. But do you see yourself being defeated by your possessions and overturned by them? Then let them go. Throw them away. Hate them, renounce them, flee from them. "If your right eye causes you to stumble, cut it out quickly" (Mark 9:47). It is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to be thrown into the fire with both eyes intact. And if it is your hand, or your foot, or even your very soul—hate it. For if it is destroyed here for Christ's sake, it will be saved there.

25The passage that follows holds to the same judgment. "Now in this present time," Jesus says, "to have fields and money and houses and brothers with persecutions—to what end?" For he does not call people to life without money, without a home, without brothers. He has called rich people too, but in the way we have already described, and brothers in the same way—like Peter with Andrew, and James with John, the sons of Zebedee—but brothers who agree with one another and with Christ. What he rejects is having each of these things "with persecutions." One kind of persecution comes from outside, from people who drive out the faithful through hatred or envy or greed or the working of the devil. But the harshest persecution is from within, sent out from each person's own soul when it is ravaged by godless desires and varied pleasures and base hopes and corrupting dream-fancies—when the soul, always reaching for more and raging with savage loves and burning, is goaded by the passions that cling to it as by stings or a gadfly toward mad pursuits and despair of life and contempt for God. This persecution is heavier and harsher, springing from within, always present, and the one persecuted cannot escape it; for he carries the enemy around inside himself everywhere. So too a burning that falls from outside produces testing, but a burning from within brings about death. And a war brought from outside is easily ended, but the war in the soul is measured out until death. If with such a persecution you have visible wealth, or brothers by blood, or the other pledges, abandon the total possession of these things that leads to evil; give yourself peace; free yourself from a long persecution; turn away from those things to the gospel; choose the Savior before all things, the advocate and defender of your soul, the ruler of boundless life. "For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18); and in the present time they are short-lived and unstable.

26"But in the age that is coming there is eternal life."

"The first will be last and the last first" (Mark 10:31). This saying is rich in meaning, both in its hidden sense and in its clear explanation, but it does not need to be examined right now. It applies not only to those who possess much, but simply to all human beings who give themselves over to faith once for all. So let us set this matter aside for the present.

What we have set before us, I think, has been shown to be in no way inferior to the promise. The Savior has in no way shut out the rich because of wealth itself or the surrounding of possessions, nor has he cut off salvation from them by a trench—if they are able and willing to bow under the commandments of God, to prefer their own life to temporary things, and to look toward the Lord with a fixed gaze, like sailors watching the signal of a good helmsman to see what he wants, what he commands, what he signals, what sign he gives to his own sailors, and where and from what direction he promises the harbor.

For what wrong does someone do if, by paying attention to his judgment and being sparing before faith, he collected a sufficient livelihood? Or is his case even more blameless if God, who allots fortune, settled him immediately into the house of such people, into a family abounding in money and prevailing in wealth? If someone is driven away from life because of an involuntary birth into wealth, then he is wronged by the very God who begot him—deemed worthy of temporary pleasure but deprived of eternal life. And why should wealth ever have sprung up from the earth at all, if it is the supplier and agent of death?

But if someone is able to bend the power of his possessions inward, to think moderate thoughts, to be self-controlled, to seek God alone, to breathe God, and to live as a citizen with God, then this man stands before the commandments as a poor person—free, unconquered, without sickness, unwounded by money. But if not, a camel will enter through a needle's eye more quickly than such a rich person will pass into the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25).

27Let the camel, then, also signify something higher as it reaches the rich person through the narrow and constricted way—a mystery of the Savior that can be learned in the exposition of first principles and theology. But for now, let the first and obvious meaning, the reason the parable was spoken, be presented. Let it teach those who have means that they must not neglect their own salvation as if they were already condemned in advance, nor must wealth be sunk in the sea again, nor condemned as a plotter and enemy of life. Instead, they must learn in what manner and how wealth must be used and life must be acquired. For since no one is destroyed simply because he is rich and afraid, and no one is saved simply because he is confident and believes he will be saved, come, let us consider what hope the Savior sketches out for them, and how what is hopeless might become secure, and what is hoped for might arrive at possession.

So the Teacher, when asked which is the greatest of the commandments, says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5 (cf. Mark 12:30)). He says that no commandment is greater than this, and very rightly so, for it was commanded concerning the first and greatest reality—God our Father himself, through whom all things came to be and exist, and to whom all that are saved return again. Since we were first loved by him and received our very coming into being, it is not holy to hold anything else as older or more precious than him. We repay this one small favor for the greatest gifts, and we have nothing at all to devise as recompense for a God who lacks nothing and is perfect. But by the very act of loving the Father, we receive incorruption as our own strength and power. For as much as someone loves God, by that much he slips further inside God.

28He says the second commandment is not at all smaller than this one: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So then, love God more than yourself. When the man he was speaking with asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he did not define it the way the Jews did—not the blood relative, not the fellow citizen, not the convert, not the one circumcised in the same way, not the one who uses one and the same law. Instead, he leads the discussion to a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and shows him stabbed by robbers, thrown half-dead on the road, passed by a priest, overlooked by a Levite, but pitied by the Samaritan—the one reviled and set apart—who did not pass by as the others did by chance, but came equipped with what the man in danger needed: wine, oil, bandages, an animal, payment for the innkeeper—part given at once, part promised for later. “Which of these,” he said, “became a neighbor to the man who suffered these terrible things?” And when the man answered, “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said, “You go and do likewise,” since love sprouts good-doing.

29In both commandments, then, he introduces love, but he has divided it by rank: in the one he kindles the first honors of love for God, and in the other he assigns the second honors to the neighbor. Who else could this be but the Savior himself? Or who has shown us more mercy than he—us, who were nearly put to death by the world-rulers of the darkness with many wounds: fears, desires, fits of anger, griefs, deceptions, pleasures? Of these wounds the only physician is Jesus, who cuts out the passions completely, root and branch. He does not do what the law does, which deals only with the bare results, the fruits of the wicked plants; instead he brings his own axe to the roots of evil. This is the one who poured out the wine—the blood of the vine of David—upon our wounded souls. This is the one who brought the oil—the mercy from the Father's bowels—and lavished it on us. This is the one who showed us the unbreakable bonds of health and salvation: love, faith, hope. This is the one who commanded angels and rulers and authorities to serve us for a great reward, because they too will be set free from the futility of the world at the revelation of the glory of the sons of God. Him, then, we must love equally with God. And the one who loves Christ Jesus is the one who does his will and keeps his commandments. "For not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father" (Matthew 7:21). And: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46). And: "Blessed are you who see and hear what neither the righteous nor the prophets saw or heard" (Luke 10:23–24)—if you do what I say.

30So the first person is the one who loves Christ. The second is the one who honors and cares for those who have believed in him. For whatever someone does for a disciple, the Lord receives as done to himself and makes it entirely his own. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you gathered me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and gather you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?" And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Then, from the opposite side, he casts into the eternal fire those who did not provide these things to them, because they did not provide them to him.

31And in another place he says, "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever rejects you rejects me" (Matthew 10:40). These he calls children, little ones, infants, and friends, and small here in comparison with their future greatness above. "Do not despise one of these little ones," he says, "for their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:10). And elsewhere: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father was pleased to hand over to you the kingdom of heaven" (Luke 12:32). In the same way he says that the least in the kingdom of heaven—that is, his own disciple—is greater than John, the greatest among those born of women. And again: "Whoever receives a righteous person or a prophet in the name of a righteous person or a prophet will receive that person's reward. And whoever gives a disciple a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple will not lose his reward" (Matthew 10:41-42). This reward alone, then, is one that is not lost. And again: "Make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal tents" (Luke 16:9). By nature he declares that every possession which a person keeps for himself as his own and does not place in common for those in need is unrighteous; yet from this unrighteousness it is possible to produce a deed that is both righteous and saving—to give rest to one of those who have an eternal tent with the Father.

Observe first that he has not commanded you to wait to be asked or to be pestered, but to seek him himself, those who will fare well, being worthy disciples of the Savior. The apostle's word is good: "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7)—one who rejoices in giving and does not sow sparingly, so that he may not reap in the same way; one who shares without grumbling, division, or grief, which is pure beneficence. But better than this is what the Lord said in another place: "Give to everyone who asks you" (Luke 6:30). For such generosity is truly God's own.

32This saying surpasses every divine teaching: do not wait to be asked, but seek out for yourself the one who is worthy to receive good. And then he fixes so great a reward for the sharing: an eternal dwelling. O beautiful exchange, O divine marketplace! Someone buys incorruption with money, and by giving the perishing things of the world he receives in return an eternal home for them in the heavens. Sail toward this, rich man, if you are wise; if need be, go around the whole earth. Do not spare dangers or hardships, so that here you may buy the kingdom of heaven. Why do shining stones and emeralds and a house delight you so much? Food for fire, or a plaything of time, or a byproduct of earthquake, or an outrage of a tyrant? Desire to dwell in the heavens and to reign with God; a human being imitating God will give you this kingdom. Here he receives a little, and there he will make you a co-dweller for all ages. Beg him to take it; hurry, struggle, fear that he may refuse you. For he has not been commanded to take, but you to provide. Indeed, the Lord did not say, "Give," or "Provide," or "Do good," or "Help," but "Make a friend." And a friend is not made from a single gift, but from whole rest and long companionship. For neither faith nor love nor endurance belongs to a single day, but "the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13).

33How then does a human being give these things? Because the Lord gives them for the sake of that person's honor, goodwill, and kinship. For he says, "I will give not only to friends, but also to the friends of friends." And who is this friend of God? Do not judge who is worthy and who is unworthy, for you may miss the mark in your judgment. Since the matter is uncertain through ignorance, it is better to do good even to the unworthy for the sake of the worthy than to be on guard and, by avoiding the less good, fail to encounter the excellent. For from sparing and pretending to test who will rightly receive or not, you may neglect some who are loved by God, and the penalty for that is fiery eternal punishment. But from giving to all in turn who are in need, you must certainly find some who are able to be saved with God. "Do not judge, then, so that you may not be judged; with the measure you measure, it will be measured back to you; a good measure, pressed down and shaken and running over, will be given to you" (Luke 6:38; cf. Matthew 7:1-2). Open your inward parts to all who are enrolled as disciples of God. Do not look at the body with contempt; do not be disposed carelessly toward age; and if someone appears without possessions or poorly clothed or ugly or weak, do not be annoyed in your soul at this and turn away. This shape is wrapped around us from outside as a means for our entrance into the world, so that we may be able to enter this common training place. But within dwells hidden the Father and his Son, who died for us and rose with us.

34This visible shape deceives death and the devil, for the wealth within and its beauty are invisible to them. They rage around the little flesh, which they despise as weak. Blind to the possessions within, they do not know what a great treasure in an earthen vessel we carry (2 Corinthians 4:7), walled around by the power of God the Father, the blood of God the child, and the dew of the Holy Spirit. But do not let yourself be deceived. You who have tasted the truth and been deemed worthy of the great redemption—enroll for yourself, in contrast to other people, an army unarmed, unwarlike, bloodless, without anger, undefiled: elders who fear God, orphans beloved of God, widows armed with gentleness, men adorned with love. Acquire such people with your wealth and your body and your soul as bodyguards, over whom God is general. Because of them a ship being swamped is lifted up, steered by the prayers of the holy alone. A raging disease is subdued, driven off by the laying on of hands. An attack of robbers is disarmed, stripped of its spoil by devout prayers. The violence of demons is shattered, convicted by urgent commands.

35All these soldiers are effective and steadfast guards. None is idle, none is useless. One is able to obtain something for you from God. Another can comfort the weary. Another can weep and groan with sympathy for you before the Lord of all. Another can teach you something useful for salvation. Another can admonish you with boldness. Another can counsel you with goodwill. And all of them can love truly—without deceit, without fear, without hypocrisy, without flattery, without pretense.

O sweet services of those who love! O blessed ministries of those who have confidence! O sincere faith of those who fear God alone! O truth of words among those who cannot lie! O beauty of deeds among those who are persuaded to serve God! They persuade God, they please God. They seem not to touch your flesh, but each one, concerning his own soul, does not speak to a brother, but to the King of the ages dwelling in you.

36All the faithful, then, are beautiful and god-fearing, and worthy of the address they wear like a diadem. Yet there are already some who are more elect than the elect, and all the more so as they are less conspicuous. In a way, they haul themselves up out of the world's rough water and bring themselves to safety, not wishing to seem holy. And if someone speaks of them, they are ashamed, hiding the inexpressible mysteries in the depth of their mind. They scorn their own nobility being seen in the world. The Word calls these people "the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14) and "the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13). This is the seed, the image and likeness of God, and His true child and heir, sent here as if to a foreign sojourn by the Father's great plan and proportion. For its sake both the visible and invisible things of the world have been created—some for service, some for training, some for its learning. And as long as the seed remains here, all things are held together; when it is gathered up, all things will very quickly be dissolved.

37What more is needed? Gaze upon the mysteries of love, and then you will gaze upon the bosom of the Father, which the only-begotten God alone has revealed (John 1:18). God himself is love (1 John 4:8), and through love he was seen by us. His inexpressible aspect is Father; his compassion toward us became Mother. The Father loved, and was made feminine. And a great sign of this is the one he begot from himself; and the fruit born from love is love. For this reason he himself came down. For this reason he clothed himself in humanity. For this reason he willingly suffered the things of human beings, so that, measured against our weakness, he might measure us whom he loved against his own power. And when he was about to be poured out as a libation and to give himself as a ransom, he leaves us a new covenant: "I give you my love." What is this love, and how great is it? For each one of us he laid down his soul, the soul worth the whole of all things. This he demands back from us for one another. If we owe our souls to our brothers and sisters, and we have made such an agreement with the Savior, shall we still shut up the things of the world—poor, alien, flowing-away things—by storing them away? Shall we lock away from one another what the fire will soon possess? Divinely and with the Spirit's breath John says, "The one who does not love his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15), a seed of Cain, a nursling of the devil. He has no compassion of God; he has no hope of better things. He is unsown; he is barren. He is not a branch of the ever-living vine above the heavens; he is cut off, and awaits the gathered fire.

38But you, learn the way according to excess that Paul points to for salvation. "Love does not seek its own things," but is poured out upon the brother. It is frantic for him, and soberly raves for him. "Love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). "Perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). "It does not boast; it is not puffed up. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Prophecies are abolished; tongues cease; healings are left behind upon the earth. But these three remain: faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13). And rightly so. For faith departs when we are persuaded by seeing God with our own eyes, and hope vanishes when the things hoped for are handed over. But love comes together into fullness and grows all the more when the perfect things are handed over. If someone casts this love into his soul, he can—even if he was born in sins, even if he has done many of the things that are forbidden—grow the love, receive pure repentance, and fight back against the things he has done wrong.

39Do not let this lead you into despair or recklessness, even if you learn who the rich person is who has no place in the heavens, and in what way someone using the things that exist might escape the difficulty of wealth and its danger to life, and might be able to enjoy the eternal good things. Suppose someone, whether through ignorance or weakness or involuntary circumstances, has fallen into certain sins or transgressions after the seal and the redemption, so as to be completely overcome. This person has been utterly condemned by God. For the doors have been opened to everyone who turns to God with truth from the whole heart, and the Father receives with exceeding joy a son who truly repents. True repentance is no longer being liable to the same sins, but rooting out completely from the soul the sins for which one has condemned oneself to death. For when these are destroyed, God will again take up residence in you. For he says that there is great and unsurpassable joy and a feast in heaven for the Father and the angels when one sinner turns and repents (Luke 15:7, 10). Therefore he has also cried out: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). "I do not desire the death of the sinner, but repentance" (Ezekiel 33:11). "Even if your sins are like crimson wool, I will make them white as snow; even if they are blacker than darkness, I will wash them and make them like white wool" (Isaiah 1:18). For to God alone is it possible to grant forgiveness of sins and not to count transgressions, since indeed the Lord also commands us each day to forgive our brothers and sisters when they repent. If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more is "the Father of mercies" (2 Corinthians 1:3), the good Father "of all comfort" (2 Corinthians 1:3), the compassionate and merciful one, patient by nature! He waits for those who turn. And to turn truly from sins is to stop and no longer look back (Luke 9:62).

40For the things that have already happened, God grants forgiveness; for the things that are still to come, each person grants it to himself. And this is what it means to repent: to condemn what is past and to ask the Father for pardon of these things. He alone of all beings is able to make the things that have been done undone, wiping away former sins by the mercy that comes from Him and by the dew of the Spirit. "For in whatever I find you," He says, "in that I will also judge you," and at every turn He proclaims the end of all things. So even for the one who has done the greatest good deeds throughout his life, if at the end he has run aground on wickedness, all his former labors are useless, since he has become utterly wretched at the catastrophe of the drama. But for the one who has lived more carelessly and badly before, it is possible later, by repenting, to overcome a long time of wicked conduct by the time that follows repentance. Yet great precision is needed, just as bodies that have suffered from a long illness need a regimen and greater attention. You who steal, do you want to receive forgiveness? Steal no longer. You who have committed adultery, burn no longer. You who have fornicated, be pure from now on. You who have seized what belongs to others, give it back and give back more besides. You who have borne false witness, practice the truth. You who have sworn falsely, swear no more. And cut short the other passions as well—anger, desire, grief, fear—so that at your departure you may be found to have already settled with your adversary here. It is perhaps impossible to cut off at once passions that have grown up with us, but with the power of God and human supplication and the help of brothers and sisters and sincere repentance and constant practice, it is accomplished.

41So then, you who are proud and powerful and rich must by all means set over yourself some man of God, as a pilot and a steersman. Respect at least one person; fear at least one person; practice listening to at least one person who speaks boldly and stings and heals at the same time. For it is not good for the eyes to remain unrestrained forever; sometimes they must weep and be bitten for the sake of greater health. In the same way, nothing is more destructive to the soul than continuous pleasure, for it is blinded by its own wasting away if it remains unmoved by the word that speaks boldly. Fear this man when he is angry, be grieved when he groans, respect him when he puts a stop to anger, and get ahead of him when he pleads for punishment to be averted. Let him stay awake many nights on your behalf, interceding for you before God and charming the Father with his accustomed supplications, for he his heart cannot hold out against his children when they beg. He will pray purely if he is honored by you as an angel of God and is not grieved by you in anything, but only on your behalf. This is unfeigned repentance. God is not mocked, nor does he attend to empty words, for he alone examines the marrows and kidneys of the heart, and he hears those in the fire and listens to those begging in the belly of the sea-monster, and he is near to all who believe and far from the godless, unless they repent.

42And so that you may take courage, having truly repented in this way, that a worthy hope of salvation remains for you, listen to a story that is not a story, but a true account handed down about John the apostle and preserved in memory. For after the tyrant died, John returned from the island of Patmos to Ephesus. He used to go out, when invited, to the neighboring regions of the Gentiles, in some places to appoint bishops, in others to fit together whole churches, in others to choose by lot one of those indicated by the Spirit. So he came also to one of the cities not far away, whose name some even mention, and after refreshing the brothers in other matters, he looked at the appointed bishop and saw a young man able in body, pleasing in appearance, and fervent in soul. "This one," he said, "I entrust to you with all earnestness, before the church and Christ as witness." The bishop accepted him and promised everything, and again John insisted on the same things and bore witness. Then John departed for Ephesus, and the bishop took the young man entrusted to him home, nourished him, kept him close, cherished him, and finally baptized him. After this he relaxed his greater care and watchfulness, since he had set upon him the perfect safeguard, the seal of the Lord. But the young man seized freedom before the right time, and certain idle and dissolute companions of his own age, familiar with evils, corrupted him. First they drew him in through lavish banquets. Then they took him along when they went out at night for robbery, and then they demanded that he join them in something greater. He gradually grew accustomed to it, and because of the greatness of his nature he bolted like an unbridled and strong horse leaving the straight road and biting the bit, and was carried all the more violently toward the pits. Despairing completely of salvation in God, he no longer planned anything small, but since he had already perished once, he resolved to suffer the same fate as the others. Taking these very companions and forming a band of robbers, he was a ready robber chief, the most violent, the most murderous, the most savage. Time passed, and when some need arose they called John back. When he had settled the other matters for which he had come, he said, "Come now, bishop, give back to us the deposit which I and Christ entrusted to you before the church over which you preside, as witness." The bishop was at first astonished, thinking he was being falsely accused about money which he had not received, and he could neither believe about what he did not have nor disbelieve John. But when John said, "I demand the young man and the soul of the brother," the bishop groaned from deep within and wept a little, and said, "He is dead." "How, and by what death?" "He is dead to God," he said. "For he went away wicked and ruined and, in sum, a robber, and now instead of the church he has seized the mountain with a band like an army." The apostle tore his clothing and struck his head with a great lamentation. "A fine guard," he said, "I left for the soul of the brother! But let a horse be ready for me now, and let someone be my guide on the road." He rode out, just as he was, straight from the church. When he came to the place, he was seized by the robbers' lookout, neither fleeing nor resisting, but crying out, "This is why I have come: lead me to your chief." The chief was waiting, armed as he was. But when he recognized John approaching, he turned in shame to flee. John pursued him at full speed, forgetting his own age, crying out, "Why do you flee from me, child, from your own father, the naked, the old man? Have mercy on me, child; do not be afraid. You still have hopes of life. I will give an account to Christ for you. If it is necessary, I will willingly endure your death, as the Lord did for us. For you I will give my own life in exchange. Stop, believe: Christ sent me." When the young man heard this, he first stood looking down. Then he threw away his weapons. Then, trembling, he wept bitterly. When the old man approached, he embraced him, defending himself with groans as best he could and being baptized a second time with his tears, concealing only his right hand. But John, pledging and swearing that he had found forgiveness for him from the Savior, praying, falling on his knees, kissing that very right hand as cleansed by repentance, led him back to the church. And with abundant prayers he interceded for him, with constant fastings he struggled alongside him, and with varied consolations of words he soothed his mind, and he did not leave, as they say, until he had restored him to the church, giving a great example of true repentance and a great sign of regeneration, a visible proof of resurrection.

The angels rejoice with radiant ones, singing hymns, opening the heavens. And before all things the Savior himself comes to meet them, welcoming them, offering light without shadow, without ceasing, leading them into the bosom of the Father, into eternal life, into the kingdom of heaven. Let a person believe these things, both the disciples of God and God as guarantor, the prophecies, the gospels, the apostolic words. Living with these and giving ear to them and practicing their works, at the very moment of departure he will see the end and the demonstration of the teachings. For the one who receives the angel of repentance here will not repent then, when he leaves the body, nor will he be put to shame when he sees the Savior coming with his own glory and his army. He does not fear the fire. But if someone chooses to continue sinning continually in pleasures and prefers the luxury here to eternal life, and turns away when the Savior offers forgiveness, let him no longer blame God or wealth or his fall, but his own soul, which perishes willingly. But to the one who looks toward salvation and longs for it and asks with shamelessness and force, the good Father in the heavens will grant the true purification and the unchangeable life. To him, through the child Jesus Christ, the Lord of the living and the dead, and through the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, power, eternal majesty, both now and to generations of generations and to the ages of ages. Amen.