13. Therefore also he met with a worthy reward of his malice. For finding while in his trance that he could not curse, he gives his advice to the king, saying, ' Such is the utterance of what God has commanded, hear now my counsel against the oracles of God. This people is just, it has the protection of God: since it has not given itself to divinations and auguries, but to the eternal God above; and therefore its faith excels that of others. But sometimes even faithful minds fall through corporeal charms and the blandishments of beauty. Numerous are your women, and many of them not uncomely; now the male sex is in no respect more prone to fall than through the frailty with which it is captivated by female beauty, particularly if their |323 minds are excited by frequent converse, and thus become inflamed as by a torch; if, while they drink in the hope of enjoying, their passions are kept in suspense. Let your women therefore cast their hooks by their converse, let them offer no obstacles to a first access, but roam abroad and spread themselves through the camp, exposed to view and affable of speech. Let them so artfully deal with these men as not to admit them to carnal intercourse until they shall have proved the strength of their love by becoming participators in sacrilege. For they may thus be deprived of the protection of heaven, if they shall themselves depart by sacrilege from the Lord their God.'
14. Unrighteous therefore, as the counsellor of fornication and sacrilege, was Balaam; for thus it is plainly written in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, when the Lord Jesus says to the Angel of the Church of Pergamos; Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication; so hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Wherefore it appears that from hence has flowed the impiety of the Manichees, like that of Manasseh, who mingle and unite sacrilege with impurity.
15. Neither, then, was God unjust, nor His purpose mutable; for He detected Balaam's mind and the secrets of his heart, and He therefore tried him as a diviner, He did not choose him as a prophet. Surely he ought to have been converted if it were only by the grace of such great oracles and the sublimity of his revelations, but his mind, full of iniquity, brought forth words but did not yield belief, seeking to frustrate by its counsels that event which it had predicted. And since he could not defeat the prophecy, he suggested deceitful counsels whereby the fickle people of the Jews were tempted but not overcome; for by the righteousness of one priest all the counsel of this wicked man was overthrown, and that the host of our fathers could be delivered by one man was much more wonderful than that it could be deceived by one man.
10. This little gift I have sent to your Holiness, because |324 you wish me to compile somewhat from the interpretations of the ancient authors. But I had undertaken to write letters in a familiar style, savouring of the tone of thought of our fathers; and should you relish their flavour I shall be emboldened to send you of the same kind hereafter. For I prefer conversing garrulously with you like an old man concerning heavenly things, which is called in Greek adolesxh~sai : Isaac went forth into the field, adolesxh~sai , seeing in his mind, on the approach of Rebecca, the mysteries of the Church which was to come: this conversing with you with the words of an old man, that I may not seem to have abandoned my art, I prefer, I say, to uttering in a more vehement style things no longer adapted to our studies or strength.
Farewell: love me, for I also love you.
[Footnotes moved to the end and numbered. Marginal biblical references and running headers mostly omitted]
1. spiritum. Rom. x. 10.
2. sacramentum.
3. refrigerat.
4. The Latin title is 'Magister equitum et peditum 'When the Praefecti Praetorio became civil rather than military officers, the chief command of the armies was transferred to two high officers, called, one 'Magister equitum,'and the other 'Magister peditum. When the empire was divided these became four, and eventually the number was increased to eight, who were all called 'Magistri equitum et peditum.' See Gibbon ch. xvii. 3.
5. i. e. the 'Comes Orientis,' under whose jurisdiction the matter was, and who had sent the report to the Emperor, see Lett. xl. 6.
6. sospitatis indicio.
7. This sentence as it stands in the text is incomplete, the 'quia' having no correlative. The 'at vero quia seems like 'at enim' in Classical Latin, or perhaps the 'quia' should be omitted.
8. See Letter xix, 7. S. Ambrose in De Abraham B 1. c 9, 93 alludes to the use of the veil in Christian marriages.
9. This name appears in the reply of the Milan Synod as Plotinus, which is probably the true form.
10. There are three laws in the code of Theodosius directed against the Manichees, one of the year 372, A.D. which forbade them to hold assemblies, one of 389, A.D. and one of 391. A.D. ordering their banishment. It is probably the second of these that is referred to, though Gothofred refers it to the third, in which case the date of the Letter must be altered.
11. All these names except Geminianus occur in the list of Bishops present at the Council of Aquileia. See p. 60.
12. nou~j .
13. This whole passage is full of expressions borrowed from Virgil.
14. Exod. xiv. 29. S. John xxi. 7. Bel and the Dragon 36.
15. This title seems here to be applied especially to the constellations of the Pleiades and Hyades, each of which consisted of seven stars.
16. See note on Letter xxvi. 9.
17. morsus hominum. E.V. 'principal men.'
18. Devoravit mors praevalens. The E. V. is, 'He will swallow up death in victory.' The Vulg. has, 'Praecipitabit mortem in sempiternum.'
19. The word 'vitae' is here inserted as necessary to the sense, and to the accuracy of the quotation.