Virtue, Protection, and the Tabernacles

Like a barren one and as a small leaf in a vineyard where no cluster exists for eating the firstfruits. Having spoken with an enigma regarding the fruitlessness that had occurred, he makes it manifest in the following words: 'Woe, O soul, because a pious one has perished from the earth, and the upright one does not exist among men; all are judged into blood, each one crushing his neighbor with crushing. They prepare their hands for evil.' For how should they not be punished, being consumed by the punishment of fire, those who follow such evils.

Toward one of the interpreted ones of the chiliarchs the Lord says: 'I have given my words into your mouth as fire, and this people as wood, and they shall be devoured' (Jeremiah 2:22), through which he chose to have fruitlessness. This same thought exists in that prophesied in Isaiah: 'And the light of Israel shall be as fire, and it shall consume like grass the wood, and it shall be consumed from soul even to flesh' (Isaiah 10:18), that is, from the mind's intent to evil deeds; for through the soul he touched the intention, and through the flesh the deeds.

Those placed as a snare of fire, the chiliarchs, accomplish the same thing as the coal taken from the spiritual and heavenly altar by a Seraph; who, having brought it to the mouth of the prophet, removed his iniquities and cleansed his lips. But whom do the snare and the bright lamp of fire consume—the right and well-named ones? It is time to say. The false appearances of the ungodly and sinners are well-known in themselves; but those who falsely pretend to be virtuous are thought to be right.

Both, indeed, are forbidden, the divine word says: 'Make straight paths for your feet, and direct your ways. Do not turn to the right or to the left' (Proverbs 4:26-27), neither into excesses nor into deficiencies; for both are evils. Of freedom—and this is the social choice—when it is lacking, the well-named deviation is stinginess, which is thought to be right, while profligacy is the consuming of resources not on what is necessary and as it should be, but upon the prey of shameful pleasures. Since therefore both the stingy man and the profligate man are found worthy of rebuke, both the snare of fire and the bright lamp are extinguished. Through many it has been demonstrated to us how, middle...

Since virtues are present, their deficiencies and excesses are found to be evils, in which we have written about virtues by word.

What has been said—that right and left are found almost around all men, being in a circle around all the peoples—has been spoken. When the peoples around the holy city experience punishment, it shall be inhabited as it is by itself, guarded by the one who built it and chose it, according to what was said concerning its safety: 'Mountains are around it, and the Lord is around his people' (Zech 2:5). Concerning such a guard, it is also brought forth in the present prophet as the Pantokrator: 'The Lord as a wall of fire' (Zech 2:5) shall be around it, which was made clear in the beginning of Zechariah, when Jerusalem is being inhabited as it is, and those who militarily besieged it have fled, according to what was said by the one dwelling in it: 'All the nations encircled me, and in the name of the Lord I defended them' (Zech 8:13), and the following words.

What, then, is brought forward in harmony with the holy city inhabiting as it is, or with the Lord saving the tabernacles of Judah as in the beginning, if not other things being the specific virtues? Concerning these, the proverbial ordinance proclaims: 'Tabernacles shall stand, having been made firm.' Concerning what is becoming to them as beloved, the hymnodist sings, asserting: 'How beloved are your tabernacles, Lord of Powers' (Ps 84:1). For how could they be celebrating, being full of things desired? For a voice of rejoicing and confession is heard of those celebrating, singing not elsewhere but in the tabernacles of the righteous.

The Lord saves the tabernacles of Judah as in the beginning, before evil and impiety of men seize hold. It is possible to say, as from the beginning, that the tabernacles being saved are the bodies in which we are surrounded. And salvation will come when our corruptible body, the dishonorable and weak, puts on incorruption, both glory and power, becoming a spiritual body from a psychic body (1 Cor 15:42-44). Often, having been attributed to be tabernacles, the progresses are called so—for these are houses of those walking—and these are saved from God as from the beginning, of the perfect state and of virtue being added.

The things spoken shall exist from God as good, so that, each of the saved boasting in the Lord, no one is still throwing himself upon himself, but upon the cause of the perfect good, the boasting of the house.