Isaias 43:2

Feed us, the children, as sheep. Yea, Master, fill us with righteousness, Thine own pasture; yea, O Instructor, feed us on Thy holy mountain the Church, which towers aloft, which is above the clouds, which touches heaven. “And I will be,” He says, “their Shepherd,” and will be near them, as the garment to their skin. He wishes to save my flesh by enveloping it in the robe of immortality, and He hath anointed my body. “They shall call Me,” He says, “and I will say, Here am I.” Thou didst hear sooner than I expected, Master. “And if they pass over, they shall not slip,” saith the Lord. For we who are passing over to immortality shall not fall into corruption, for He shall sustain us. For so He has said, and so He has willed. Such is our Instructor, righteously good. …

This, he says, the Thracians who dwell around Hæmus, and the Phrygians similarly with the Thracians, denominate Corybas, because, (though) deriving the beginning of his descent from the head above and from the unportrayed brain, and (though) permeating all the principles of the existing state of things, (yet) we do not perceive how and in what manner he comes down. This, says he, is what is spoken: “We have heard his voice, no doubt, but we have not seen his shape.” For the voice of him that is set apart and portrayed is heard; but (his) shape, which descends from above from the unportrayed one, what sort it is, nobody knows. It resides, however, in an earthly mould, yet no one recognises it. …

John, in his epistle, proves this, saying: “Greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world.” Also in the cxviith Psalm: “I will not fear what man can do unto me; the Lord is my helper.” And again: “These in chariots, and those in horses; but we will glory in the name of the Lord our God. They themselves are bound, and they have fallen; but we have risen up, and stand upright.” And even more strongly the Holy Spirit, teaching and showing that the army of the devil is not to be feared, and that, if the foe should declare war against us, our hope consists rather in that war itself; and that by that conflict the righteous attain to the reward of the divine abode and eternal salvation, lays down in the twenty-sixth Psalm, and says: “Though an host should be arrayed against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise up against me, in that will I put my hope. …

68. The serpent eats this dust, if the Lord Jesus is favourable to us, that our spirit may not sympathize with the weakness of the flesh, nor be set on fire by the vapours of the flesh and the heat of our members. “It is better to marry than to burn,” for there is a flame which burns within. Let us not then suffer this fire to approach the bosom of our minds and the depths of our hearts, lest we burn up the covering of our inmost hearts, and lest the devouring fire of lust consume this outward garment of the soul and its fleshy veil, but let us pass through the fire. …

74. Let us then pass through the fires of youth and the glow of early years; let us pass through the waters, let us not remain therein, lest the deep floods shut us in. Let us rather pass over, that we too may say: “Our soul has passed over the stream,” for he who has passed over is safe. And lastly, the Lord speaks thus: “If thou pass through the water, I am with thee, the rivers shall not overflow thee.” And the prophet says: “I have seen the wicked exalted above the cedars of Libanus, and I passed by, and lo, he was not.” Pass by things of this world, and you will see that the high places of the wicked have fallen. Moses, too, passing by things of this world, saw a great sight and said: “I will turn aside and see this great sight,” for had he been held by the fleeting pleasures of this world he would not have seen so great a mystery.

Moreover I find you in your epistles seeking with great longing after serenity of mind, and panting for tranquillity of thought apart from perturbation. But I know not in what manner your Fraternity can attain to this. For one who has undertaken the pilotage of a ship must needs watch all the more as he further recedes from shore, so as sometimes to foresee from signs the coming storms; sometimes, when they come, either, if they are small, to ride over them in a straight course, or, if they swell violently, to avoid them as they rush on by steering sideways; and often to watch alone when all who are without charge of the ship are at rest. How, moreover, having undertaken the burden of pastoral charge, can you have serenity of thought, seeing that it is written, Behold giants groan under the waters ( Job xxvi. 5 )? For, according to the words of John, The waters are peoples ( Rev. xvii. …

2. And when I saw that he was blaspheming and speaking much against the Way (the Christian religion), my mind was disturbed, and I understood that he would not admit the interpretation of the words that he quoted to me. Then I also questioned him on sayings from the Law and from the Prophets, and said to him: Do ye trust that even when ye are dispersed God is with you? And he professed to me, “God is with us, because that God said unto Israel: Even in the lands of their enemies, I yet did not forsake them, nor did I make void My covenant with them. ” In answer I said to him: “Right good is this that I have heard from thee, that God is with you. Against thy words will I also speak unto thee. …