Prologue.

English (from Latin)

...of His glory: and the earth is full of His praise. His splendor will be like the light: horns are in His hands. There His strength is hidden. s Zephaniah Latin: Sophonias, the watchman and knower of God's secrets, hears a cry from the Fish Gate and a wailing from the Second Gate, and a crashing from the hills. He also announces a howling to the inhabitants of the Mortar Latin: pilae; a district in Jerusalem, because all the people of Canaan have fallen silent; all those who were wrapped in silver have perished. t Haggai Latin: Aggæus, festive and joyful, who sowed in tears so that he might reap in joy, builds the destroyed temple and introduces God the Father speaking: "Yet one little while, and I will shake the heaven and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the Desired One shall come to all nations." u Zechariah Latin: Zacharias, mindful of the Lord, manifold in prophecy, sees Jesus Joshua the High Priest in the book of Zechariah clothed in filthy garments, and a lamp with seven eyes, and a golden lampstand with as many lamps as eyes; he also sees two olive trees on the left of the lamp and on the right, so that after the red, black, dappled, and white horses, and the scattered chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, he might prophesy of a poor king and preach of Him sitting upon the foal, the son of a beast of burden. v Malachi Latin: Malachias, openly and at the end of all the prophets, speaks of the rejection of Israel and the calling of the nations: "I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift from your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and in every place sacrifice and a pure offering is offered to my name." x Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel: who can either understand or explain them? The first of these seems to me not to weave a prophecy, but a Gospel. The second sees a rod of almond and a boiling pot facing away from the north, and a leopard stripped of its colors, and he binds a fourfold alphabet in various meters. A reference to the acrostic structure of the Book of Lamentations. The third has both beginnings and ends involved in such great obscurities that among the Hebrews these parts, along with the beginning of Genesis, are not read before the age of thirty. The fourth, however, who is the last among the four prophets, knows the times and, as a lover of history for the whole world, proclaims in clear speech the stone cut from the mountain without hands which subverts all kingdoms. David, our Simonides, Pindar, and Alcaeus, our Horace Latin: Flaccus and Catullus and Serenus, sounds out Christ with his lyre, and on the ten-stringed psaltery he wakes Him rising from the dead. Solomon, the peaceful and beloved of the Lord, corrects morals, teaches nature, joins the Church and Christ, and sings a sweet wedding song Latin: epithalamium for their holy nuptials. y Esther, in a type A "type" is a person or event in the Old Testament seen as a symbolic foreshadowing of the New Testament. of the Church, delivers her people from danger and, having slain Haman—which means "iniquity"—she sends portions of the feast and a celebrated day to posterity. z The book of Chronicles Latin: Paralipomenon; literally "things omitted."—that is, the epitome of the Old Testament—is of such a kind and so great that if anyone wishes to claim knowledge of the Scriptures for himself without it, he mocks himself. For through every single name and joining of words, histories passed over in the books of Kings are touched upon, and innumerable questions of the Gospel are explained. aa Ezra and Nehemiah—that is, the "helper" and the "consoler" from the Lord—are compressed into one volume; they restore the temple, build the walls of the city, and all that multitude of people returning to their homeland, and the description of the priests, Levites, Israelites, and proselytes, and the works of the walls and towers divided by individual families: they offer one thing on the surface Latin: in cortice; literally "in the bark." and hold another in the marrow. You see that I, snatched away by love for the Scriptures, have exceeded the limit of a letter, and yet have not fulfilled what I wished. We have only heard what we ought to know and what we ought to desire, so that we too may be able to say: "My soul has longed to desire

English (from Latin)

your justifications at all times." Otherwise, that Socratic saying is fulfilled in us: "This only I know, that I know nothing." I shall also briefly touch upon the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the chariot of the Lord and the true Cherubim—which means "fullness of knowledge"—they are full of eyes throughout their whole body; sparks flash forth, lightning runs to and fro, they have straight feet and reach upward, their backs are winged and flying everywhere; they hold to one another and are entwined with each other, and like a wheel within a wheel they roll on, and they proceed wherever the breath of the Holy Spirit leads them. bb Paul the Apostle writes to seven churches; for the eighth, to the Hebrews, is placed outside the number by many. He instructs Timothy and Titus, and intercedes with Philemon for a runaway slave; concerning which I think it better to be silent than to write a few things. The Acts of the Apostles indeed seem to sound like a naked history and to weave the infancy of the nascent Church; but if we know that their writer is Luke the physician—whose praise is in the Gospel—we notice equally that all his words are medicine for a languishing soul. James, Peter, John, and Jude published seven epistles, as mystical as they are succinct, and equally brief and long: brief in words, long in meanings, so that there is hardly anyone who does not grope blindly in the reading of them. The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as it has words. I have said too little; all praise is inferior to the merit of the volume. In every single word multiple meanings lie hidden. I pray you, dearest brother, to live among these things, to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else. Does it not seem to you already a dwelling-place of the heavenly kingdom here on earth? I do not want you to be offended by the simplicity and, as it were, the lowliness of the language in the Holy Scriptures, which were brought forth either by the fault of translators or by design, so that they might more easily instruct a rustic assembly, and that in one and the same sentence the learned man might feel one way and the unlearned another. I am not so bold and dull as to promise that I know these things and can gather their fruit on earth, whose roots are fixed in heaven; but I confess I wish to; I prefer myself to the one who sits still; refusing to be a master, I promise to be a companion. To him who asks, it is given; to him who knocks, it is opened; he who seeks, finds. Let us learn on earth those things whose knowledge may remain with us in heaven. I will receive you with open arms; and—lest I pour out something foolishly with the swelling pride of Hermagoras A famous Greek rhetorician known for his technical complexity.—whatever you seek, I will endeavor to know with you.

Chapter VIII.

You have here your most beloved brother Eusebius, who has doubled the grace of your letters to me, reporting the integrity of your character, your contempt for the world, the faithfulness of your friendship, and your love for Christ. For as for your wisdom and the charm of your eloquence, even without him, the letter itself displayed them. Hasten, I pray you, and rather cut the rope of your little boat stuck in the surge than untie it. No one about to renounce the world can well sell what he has despised in order to sell it. Whatever you take from your own for expenses, count as profit. It is an ancient saying: "The miser lacks what he has as much as what he has not." To the believer, the whole world is a wealth of riches; the unfaithful man is in need even of a penny. Let us live as having nothing and possessing all things. Food and clothing are the riches of Christians. If you have your property in your power, sell it; if you do not have it, cast it away. To him who takes away your tunic, your cloak also must be left. Surely, unless you, always procrastinating and dragging out day after day, sell your little possessions cautiously and step by step, Christ has no way to feed His poor. He has given everything to God who has offered himself. The Apostles left only a ship and nets. The widow put two copper coins into the treasury, and she is preferred to the riches of Croesus. He easily despises all things who always thinks that he is about to die.