Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you? For you were not already in my memory before I learned of you. Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you, unless in yourself above me? Yet there is no place. We go backward and we go forward,^[1] yet there is no place. O truth, you do preside over all things, even those that take counsel with you, and you do answer in the same time all who consult you, however diverse their questions. You do answer clearly, but all do not hear clearly. All seek counsel concerning what they wish, but they do not always hear what they wish. He serves you best who does not so much expect to hear the thing from you that he himself desires, but rather to desire what he hears from you.

If someone perseveres continually in this watchfulness, therefore, he will effectively bring to pass what is quite plainly expressed by the prophet Habakkuk: I will stand on my watch and go upon my rock, and I will look out to see what he will say to me and what I should reply to him who reproaches me. The laboriousness and difficulty of this is very clearly proved by the experiences of those who dwell in the desert of Calamus or Porphyrion.

Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk understood to say, And the Lord answered me, and said, ‘Write the vision openly on a tablet of boxwood so that the one who reads these things may understand.’ For the vision is yet for a time appointed, and it will arise in the end, and it will not become void. If it delays, wait for it, because it will surely come and will not be delayed.

You are perhaps distressed that you are driven outside the walls, but you shall dwell under the protection of the God of heaven. The angel who watches over the church has gone out with you. So they lie down in empty places day by day, bringing upon themselves heavy judgment as seen in the dispersion of the people. And, if in all this there is sorrow to be borne, I trust in the Lord that it will not be without its use to you. Therefore, the more have been your trials, look for a more perfect reward from your last judge. Do not take your present troubles ill. Do not lose hope. Yet a little while and your helper will come to you and will not tarry.

The all-merciful and beneficent Father has [a heart for] those who fear him, and kindly and lovingly he bestows his favors upon those who come to him with a simple mind. Therefore let us not be double-minded; neither let our soul be lifted up on account of his exceedingly great and glorious gifts. Far from us be that which is written, Wretched are they who are of a double mind and of a doubting heart; who say, ‘These things we have heard even in the times of our fathers, but, behold, we have grown old, and none of them has happened unto us.’ You foolish ones! Compare yourselves with a tree; take the vine. First of all, it sheds its leaves, then it buds, next it puts forth leaves, and then it flowers; afterwards comes the sour grape, and then follows the ripened fruit. You perceive how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall his will be accomplished, as the Scripture also bears witness, saying, Speedily will he come, and will not tarry,^[1] and The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, even the holy one, for whom you look.^[2] 1

He is blessed who is named by another prophet, He that comes, in the passage, Yet a little while, and he that comes will come and will not tarry,^[1] who also came in the name of the Lord God his Father. And he is the Lord God that appeared for us. For he insists that he has come in the name of his Father when he says to the Jews, I have come in my Father’s name, and you receive me not. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.^[2] He, then, who appeared for us—the Lord God, the blessed, who comes in the name of the Lord—was also the stone that those of old built up on the foundation of the Mosaic teaching, which they set aside and which, though set aside by them, has become the head of the corner of the church of the Gentiles. The oracle says it is wonderful, not to all that look on it but only to the eyes of the prophets, when it says, And it is wonderful in our eyes.

[The Lord] who keeps the truth forever.^[1] If we are crushed by falsehood and deceit, let us not grieve over it. The Lord is the guardian of truth for all eternity. Someone has lied against us, and the liar is given more credence than we who are telling the truth. We must not despair. The Lord keeps faith forever. Aptly said, keeps. He keeps truth and keeps it in his own treasury; he pays back to us what he has stored away for us. Who keeps truth forever. Christ is truth; let us speak truth, and truth will safeguard truth for us. [The Lord] secures justice for the oppressed.^[2] Even if justice delays its coming, do not give up hope; it will surely come, and bring salvation, securing justice for the oppressed. May our conscience testify only that we are not suffering on account of our sins and that we are not guilty of the charge brought against us.

Therefore pride is contrary to this justice of God, because it puts its trust in its own works. Thus the psalm continues, Let not the foot of pride come to me.^[1] This justice is the grace of the New Testament, by which the faithful are just, while they live by faith,^[2] until, by the perfection of justice, they are brought to the face-to-face vision, as they are also equally brought to immortality of the body itself, by the perfection of salvation.

Those just people also were saved by their salutary faith in him as man and God who, before he came in the flesh, believed that he was to come in the flesh.^[1] Our faith is the same as theirs, since they believed that this would be, while we believe that it has come to pass. Hence the apostle Paul says, But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: ‘I believed for which cause I have spoken,’ we also believe for which cause we speak also.^[2] If, then, those who foretold that Christ would come in the flesh had the same faith as those who have recorded his coming, these religious mysteries could vary according to the diversity of times, yet all refer most harmoniously to the unity of the same faith. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostle Peter said, Now therefore why do you make trial of your God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus just as they will.^[3] If, therefore, they, that is, the fathers, being unable to bear the yoke of the old law, believed that they were saved through grace of the Lord Jesus, it is clear that this grace saved even the just people of old through faith, for the just man lives by faith.^[4]

But Mary, the other sister of Lazarus, took a pound of perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the ointment fragrance.^[1] We have heard what happened; let us search out the hidden meaning. You, whoever wishes to be a faithful soul, together with Mary anoint the Lord’s feet with costly perfume. That perfume was justice, and so it was a full pound.^[2] However, it was perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. What does pistic mean? We might believe it to be some place in which this was costly perfume; and yet this is not an idle phrase and is quite well consonant with the mystery. The Greek word means faith.^[3] You were seeking to work justice: the just man lives by faith.^[4] Anoint Jesus’ feet by living well. Follow the Lord’s footsteps. Wipe with your hair. If you have more than enough, give to the poor, and you have wiped the Lord’s feet. For hairs seem to be the body’s superfluity. For you they are superfluous, but for the Lord’s feet they are necessary. Perhaps on earth the Lord’s feet are in need. For about whom except about his members will he say in the end, When you did it for one of the least of mine, you did it for me?^[5] You spent your superfluity, but you gave service to my feet.

For it is not simply the enduring of such things that is advantageous, but the bearing of such things for the name of Christ not only with a tranquil mind, even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, endure many such things; but they are excluded from that reward on this account, that it is not said merely, Blessed are they which endure persecution, but it is added, for righteousness’ sake.^[1] Now, where there is not sound faith, there can be no righteousness, for the just man lives by faith.^[2] Neither let schismatics promise themselves anything of that reward; for similarly, where there is no love there cannot be righteousness, for love works no ill to his neighbor.^[3] And if they had it, they would not tear in pieces Christ’s body, which is the church.^[4]

And if you will not believe, neither will you understand.^[1] Also the Lord in the Gospel: For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins.^[2] Moreover, righteousness should subsist by faith. In it was life, as predicted in Habakkuk: Now the just shall live by faith in me. Hence Abraham, the father of the nations, believed. In Genesis Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.^[3] In like manner Paul wrote to the Galatians: Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ So you see, those of faith are the descendants of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are people of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.^[4]

And hence Tobias also, while instructing his son in the precepts of godliness, says, Give alms of your substance, and turn not your face from any poor man. So shall it come to pass that the face of God shall not be turned from you.^[1] This virtue makes all virtues profitable, for by its precepts it gives life to that very faith by which the just lives and which is said to be dead without works.^[2] As the reason for works consists in faith, so the strength of faith consists in works.

But the righteous one will live from my faith. So even if someone should be uncertain in their trust in the future and doubt if it will really happen, such a one is very much the object of dislike to me, because I define a righteous person as one who trusts in the promises and gets benefit from them.

Since, therefore, the Lord thus threatens such shepherds through whom the sheep of the Lord are neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, dearly beloved brother, but to show full diligence in collecting and restoring the sheep of Christ and to apply the medicine of paternal piety to care for the wounds of the lapsed? The Lord also in the Gospel warns and says, It is not the healthy who need a physician, but they who are sick.^[1] For although we shepherds are many, yet we feed one flock. All of the sheep whom Christ sought by his blood and passion we ought to embrace and to cherish, and not to allow our suppliant and grieving brothers to be cruelly despised and to be trodden under foot by the proud presumption of certain ones, since it is written, The man, however, who is stiff-necked, boastful of himself, will accomplish nothing at all. His greed is as wide as Sheol.

Let your people not desire many things, for the reason that few things are many to them. Poverty and riches are names that imply want and satiety. He is not rich who wants anything, nor poor who does not want. Let no one spurn a widow or cheat an orphan or defraud his neighbor. Woe to him who has a fortune amassed by deceit and builds in blood a city, in other words, his soul. For it is this that is built like a city.^[1] Greed does not build it but sets it on fire and burns it. Do you wish to build your city well? Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasures without fear.^[2] The riches of a person ought to work for the redemption of his soul, not to its destruction. Wealth is redemption if one uses it well; so too it is a snare if one does not know how to use it.^[3] For what is a person’s money if not provision for the journey?

As for the inventors of impure heresies, those profaners and apostates who have opened their mouths wide against the divine glory, those who have uttered perverted things,^[1] we could accuse them of having slipped in their madness as low as the foolish pagans. [They have slipped] perhaps even lower, for it would have been better never to have known it than to have turned away from the sacred commandment which was handed on to them. What the book of Proverbs so rightly speaks of has indeed come about: that the dog has returned to its vomit, and no sooner has it washed than the pig returns to wallow in the slime.^[2] They have circulated among themselves blasphemous accusations against Christ and like wild, ferocious wolves ravage the flock for which Christ died. They pillage what is his very own, bloating themselves on what is not theirs, as it is written, and stuffing their gorge to the full. How aptly does that saying apply to them, that they came out from us but were not part of us.^[3]

You shall not speak evil; for he says, Love not to speak evil, lest you be taken away. You shall not be mindful of injuries, for the ways of those that remember injuries are unto death.^[1] You shall not be double-minded or double-tongued, for a man’s own lips are a strong snare to him,^[2] and a talkative person shall not be prospered upon the earth.^[3] Your words shall not be vain, for you shall give an account of every idle word.^[4] You shall not tell lies, for he says, You shall destroy all those that speak lies.^[5] You shall not be covetous or rapacious, for he says, Woe to him that is covetous toward his neighbor with an evil covetousness.

Helena^[1] adored the king, not the wood [of the cross], indeed, because this is an error of the Gentiles and a vanity of the wicked. But she adored him who hung on the tree, whose name was inscribed in the title; him, I say, as a scarab,^[2] cried out to his Father to forgive the sins of his persecutors.^[3] The woman eagerly hastened to touch the remedy of immortality, but she feared to trample under the foot the mystery of salvation. Joyful at heart, yet with anxious step, she knew not what she should do. She proceeded, however, to the resting place of truth. The wood shone, and grace flashed forth. And, as before, Christ had visited as woman Mary, so the spirit visited a woman in Helena. He taught her what as a woman she did not know and led her upon a way that no mortal could know.

What then are we to do who received such instructions about interpretation from Paul, a teacher of the church? Does it not seem right that we apply this kind of rule that was delivered to us in a similar way in other passages? Or as some wish, forsaking these things that such a great apostle taught, should we turn again to Jewish fables?^[1] It seems to me that if I differ from Paul in these matters I aid the enemies of Christ, and this is what the prophet says, Woe to him who causes his neighbor to drink for foul subversion! Let us cultivate, therefore, the seeds of spiritual understanding received from the blessed apostle Paul, insofar as the Lord shall see fit to illuminate us by your prayers.

When the time is come, you shall be shown forth.^[1] What exposition does this require, if a person diligently direct the eye of the mind to the festival which we are now celebrating? For then shall you be shown forth, he says, as upon a kingly charger, by your pure and chaste mother, in the temple, and that in the grace and beauty of the flesh assumed by you. All these things the prophet, summing up for the sake of greater clearness, exclaims in brief: The Lord is in his holy temple. Fear before him all the earth.^[2]