Chapter 19

With such doctrines, then, and saving words Barlaam instructed the king's son, and prepared him for holy baptism, charging him to fast and pray, according to custom, for a number of days; and he did not cease coming often to him, expounding every doctrinal word of the orthodox faith and dictating to him the holy Gospel, and besides this interpreting the apostolic exhortations and the prophetic sayings. For the man, being taught of God, carried by heart the whole of the Old and New Scripture, and, moved by the divine Spirit, enlightened him toward the true knowledge of God. And on the very day when he was about to be baptized, teaching him, he said: Behold, you hasten to receive the seal of Christ and to be marked with the light of the face of the Lord. And you become a son of God, and a temple of the holy and life-giving Spirit. Believe, then, in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the holy and life-originating Trinity, glorified in three persons and one Godhead,

divided in the persons and the personal properties, but united in the essence: knowing one God unbegotten, the Father, and one begotten Lord, the Son, light from light, true God from true God, begotten before all the ages. For of a good Father a good Son was begotten, and from the unbegotten light the eternal light shone forth, and from the life that truly is the life-giving fountain came forth, and from the self-power the power of the Son was made manifest, who is the radiance of the glory and the Word in his own person, being in the beginning with God and God without beginning and eternal; through whom all things came to be, the visible and the invisible. And knowing one Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, perfect God, and life-giving, and the bestower of sanctification, of the same will, of the same power, coeternal, existing in his own person. So, then, worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in three persons—that is, properties—and one Godhead. For common to the three is the Godhead, and one is their nature, one essence, one glory, one kingdom, one power, one authority; and common to the Son and the Holy Spirit is being from the Father,

but proper to the Father is unbegottenness, to the Son begetting, to the Spirit procession. So, then, believe these things; but do not inquire into the manner of the begetting or of the procession, for it is incomprehensible. In uprightness of heart and without prying accept that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in all things one, except for the unbegottenness and the begetting and the procession; and that the only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, for our salvation, came down to earth by the good pleasure of the Father and the working together of the Holy Spirit, conceived without seed in the womb of the holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, through the Holy Spirit, and born of her without corruption, and becoming a perfect man; and that he himself is perfect God and perfect man, made of two natures, Godhead and manhood, and in two natures—rational, willing, and active and self-determining, and perfect in all things according to the limit and principle proper to each, I mean Godhead and manhood—but in one composite person. And accept these things without prying, in no way seeking to learn the manner—how the Son of God emptied himself and became man from the virginal

blood, without seed and without corruption, or what is the conjunction of the two natures in one person. For we have been taught to hold by faith the things spoken to us in a godly manner from the divine Scripture; but the manner we do not know and cannot tell. Believe that the Son of God, who through the tender mercies of his compassion became man, took on all the natural and blameless sufferings of manhood—for he hungered, and thirsted, and slept, and grew weary, and was in agony by the nature of his manhood, and for our transgressions was led to death, was crucified and buried, tasting death, while the Godhead remained without suffering and unchanging; for we attach none at all of the sufferings to the impassible nature, but we know that he suffered and was buried in what he had assumed, and rose from the dead in the divine glory, and ascended into the heavens in incorruption, and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, by such principles of a more godlike body as he himself knows, and will render to each according to his just measures. For the dead will rise and those in the tombs will be raised; and those who have kept the commandments of Christ and departed with the right faith

will inherit eternal life, but those who have been corrupted in sins and have turned aside from the right faith will go away into eternal punishment. Believe that there is no substance or kingdom of evil, nor suppose it to be without beginning, or to have come into being of itself, or from God—away with the absurdity—but that this is the work of ourselves and of the devil, having come upon us through our own inattention, because we were made self-determining and choose this by self-determined will, whether good or evil. Besides this, confess one baptism of water and Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Receive also the partaking of the undefiled mysteries of Christ, believing them in truth to be the body and blood of Christ our God, which he gave to the faithful for the forgiveness of sins. For on the night in which he was betrayed he established a new covenant with his holy disciples and apostles, and through them with all who believe in him, saying: Take, eat; this is my body, broken for you for the forgiveness of sins. And likewise also, taking the cup, he gave it to them, saying: Drink of it, all of you; this is my blood, that of the new covenant, poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins;

do this in remembrance of me. So then the Word of God himself, living and active and doing all things by his power, makes and transforms, through the divine working, the bread and the wine of the offering into his body and blood, by the coming of the Holy Spirit, for the sanctification and illumination of those who partake with longing. Worship, faithfully honoring and saluting, the venerable image of the Master's likeness, the Word of God who for our sake became man, thinking that you behold the Creator himself in the icon. For the honor of the image, says one of the saints, passes over to the prototype; and the prototype is the thing represented, from which the derived likeness is made. For looking at the painting in the image, we pass with the eyes of the mind to the true form of which the image is, piously worshipping the form of him who for our sake was made flesh—not deifying it, but embracing it as an image of the incarnate God, in longing and love for him who emptied himself for our sake even to the form of a servant; likewise embracing in the same sense the images of his undefiled Mother and of all the saints. And in the same way, faithfully worshipping the figure of the life-giving and venerable cross, salute it for the sake of him who was hung upon it in the flesh for the salvation of our

race, Christ our God and the Savior of the world, who gave us this as a symbol of the victory over the devil; for he shudders and trembles, unable to look upon its power. In such doctrines and with such faith you will be baptized, keeping this unchanged and unmixed with any heresy until your last breath. And every teaching and every doctrinal word that opposes this blameless faith, abhor, and reckon it to be an estrangement from God. For the Apostle says: Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than what we preached to you, let him be accursed. For there is no other gospel and no other faith except that proclaimed through the apostles, and confirmed by the God-bearing Fathers in various councils, and established in the catholic Church. Having said these things, and having taught the king's son the symbol of the faith set forth in the council at Nicaea, Barlaam baptized him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in the font of water that was in his garden. And the grace of the Holy Spirit came upon him. And returning to his bedchamber, and performing the sacred celebration of the bloodless sacrifice, he imparted to him the undefiled

mysteries of Christ, and rejoiced in the Spirit, sending up glory to Christ our God. And Barlaam said to him: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has begotten you again to a living hope, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, kept in the heavens, in Christ Jesus our Lord through the Holy Spirit. For today, having been freed from sin, you have been enslaved to God, receiving the pledge of eternal life; and, leaving the darkness behind, you have put on light, ranked into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For as many, it says, as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in his name; so that you are no longer a slave, but a son and heir of God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, beloved, be eager to be found before him spotless and blameless, working the good upon the foundation of the faith; for faith without works is dead, just as works are dead without faith, as I remember telling you before.

Laying aside, then, henceforth all wickedness, and hating all the works of the old man, which are corrupted according to the desires of deceit, like a newborn infant long for the reasonable and guileless milk of the virtues to drink, that in it you may grow and come to the knowledge of the commandments of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—no longer being an infant in your mind, tossed and carried about by the storm and surging of the passions, but being an infant in regard to wickedness, while keeping your mind firm and settled toward the good, and walking worthily of the calling with which you have been called in the keeping of the Lord's commandments; having shaken off from yourself and estranged the emptiness of your former conduct, just as the nations walk in the emptiness of their mind, darkened in their understanding and estranged from the glory of God, subjected to their desires and irrational impulses. But you, just as you have drawn near to the

living and true God, so also walk as a son of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth; and do not corrupt the new man you have put on today with the former oldness, but be renewed each day in righteousness and holiness and truth. For this is possible for everyone who wills it, just as you hear that he gave authority to become children of God to those who believe in his name; so that we can no longer say that the acquisition of the virtues is impossible for us. For the way is easy and ready. For even if it has been called somewhat narrow and hard because of the chastening of the body, yet it is nonetheless desirable and divine, because of the hope of the good things to come, to those who walk not unwisely, but understand exactly what is the will of God, and put on his whole armor for the battle against the methods of the adversary, and watch for this very thing in prayer and supplication, with all endurance and hope. You, then, just as you have heard from me and been taught, and have laid down a firm foundation, abound in it, growing and advancing, and waging the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience witnessed by good works,

and pursuing righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, gentleness, laying hold of the eternal life to which you have been called. And every pleasure and desire of the passions remove far from yourself, not only in the working of action, but also in the imaginings of thought, that you may show your soul undefiled to God. For not only our actions, but also our imaginings, being written down, become the cause of crowns or of punishments; and we know that Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, dwells in pure hearts. And again, as smoke drives away bees, so we have learned that the grace of the divine Spirit drives away wicked thoughts. Therefore, attending carefully to this, wipe away from your soul every reasoning of passion, and plant in it the noblest thoughts, making yourself a temple of the Holy Spirit. For from our reasonings we come also to the actions of working; and every deed, advancing from a thought and an imagining, lays hold of a small beginning, then by little increases ends in great things. For this reason do not let an evil habit master you at all, but while it is still fresh, pluck out from your heart the wicked root, lest, taking root and fixing its roots in the depth, it require time and toil to be uprooted. For it is for this reason that the greater sins always come upon us and tyrannize over our souls: because the things that seem to be lesser,

such as wicked imaginings, unseemly words, evil conversations, do not meet with the proper correction. For just as in bodies those who have despised small wounds have often procured for themselves festering and death, so too in souls those who disregard small passions and sins bring in the greater; and in proportion as the greater come upon them, the soul, settling into the habit, despises them. For the impious man, it says, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises; and thereafter, just as a sow that wallows in mire takes pleasure in it, so too that soul, buried under evil habits, no longer takes any perception of the foul stench of its sins, but rather delights in them and is sweetened by them, clinging to wickedness as to some good; and even if late at last, rousing itself, it comes to perception, it is freed only with much toil and sweat from those things to which it willingly enslaved itself through the wicked habit. For this reason, with all your power, remove yourself from every evil thought and imagining and every passionate habit; rather accustom yourself to the virtues and come to be in the habit of practicing them. For if you labor a little in them and have the strength to come to be in the habit, you will thereafter advance without toil, by the working together of God. For the habit of virtue, having become a quality of the soul, as having a natural kinship with it and possessing God as fellow-worker,

becomes hard to change and very secure, just as you see that courage and prudence, self-control and righteousness are hard to change, being habits and qualities and workings of the soul that have penetrated to the depth. For if the passions of wickedness, which are not natural to us but have come upon us from without, are hard to change once they have become a habit, how much more will virtue—which has been naturally implanted in us by the Creator and has him as its helper—if, when we have struggled a little, it takes root in the soul as a habit, be hard to change?