Chapter 24

When these had been piously perfected, the king told Arachis, his chief counsellor, to look to the second plan, since the first had failed, and to summon that Nachor. So Arachis, reaching his cave in the dead of night — for Nachor lived in the deserts, busying himself with the arts of divination — and explaining to him all that had been resolved, returned to the king at early dawn. And again, seeking horsemen, he pretended to go out in search of Barlaam.

When he had gone out and was walking about the deserts, a certain man was seen by him coming out of a ravine. And when he ordered him to be pursued, they swiftly overtook him, and seizing him brought him before Arachis. When Arachis asked who he was, of what religion, and by what name he was called, the man called himself a Christian and named himself Barlaam, as he had been instructed. Filled with joy, as he made it appear, Arachis quickly took him and returned to the king; and announcing it, he set him before him. And the king said, in the hearing of all who stood by: "Are you Barlaam, the worker of the demon?" But he answered: "I am a worker of God, and not of the demons. Do not revile me, then. For you owe me many thanks, in that I taught your son to be devout, freeing him from all deceit and reconciling him to the true God,

and instructing him in every kind of virtue." Again the king, as though in anger, said: "I ought not to have granted you a word at all, nor given you room for defence, but to have put you to death without inquiry. Yet I bear with your insolence, for the sake of the clemency that befits me, until I examine your case on an appointed day. And if you obey me, you will be granted pardon; but if not, you will perish miserably." Saying this, he handed him over to Arachis, charging him to guard him most carefully. The next day he broke camp from there and returned to his own palace. And it was noised abroad that Barlaam had been seized, so that the king's son, hearing it, was grievously pained in his soul, and could in no way restrain his tears. With groans and laments he entreated God, and called upon him for the old man's help. The Good One, then, did not overlook him in his mourning; for he is gracious to those who wait upon him in the day of affliction, and knows those who fear him. He made all things known to the young man through a vision in the night, and put strength into him, and emboldened him for the contest of piety. And waking, he found his heart, which a little before had been grieved and pained, full of joy and courage and the sweetest light. But the king, having so acted and so reasoned, rejoiced, thinking that he had taken good counsel, and rendered the greatest thanks to Arachis.

But iniquity lied to itself, to use the words of divine David, and righteousness conquers lawlessness, casting it down utterly and destroying its memory with a great sound, as the story will show in what follows. Two days later, then, the king came to his son's palace. And when the son came out to meet him, the father did not greet him as was his custom; but, like one grieved and angered, he went into the royal bedchamber and sat down with a gloomy face. Then, calling his son, he said: "What is this report, my child, that rings in my ears and wastes my soul with despondency? For I think no man was ever filled with such joy at the birth of a child as the gladness I have had in you; nor, on the other hand, do I think any man was ever so grieved and so ill-treated by a child as you have now treated me, dishonouring my grey hairs,

taking away the light of my eyes and cutting off the strength of my sinews; for the fear that I feared concerning you has come upon me, and what I dreaded has met me. And you have become a delight to my enemies and a laughingstock to my adversaries. With an untaught mind and a childish judgement you have followed the words of deceivers, and preferred the counsel of the wicked-minded to my counsel, and forsaking the worship of our gods, you have served a strange God. Why, my child, have you done this? You whom I hoped to rear in all security, and to have as the staff and strength of my old age, and to leave behind as the best successor to my kingdom — were you not ashamed to show toward me the conduct of enemies and foes? Should you not rather obey me and follow my doctrines, than yield to the idle drivel of that crafty and rotten old man, who proposed to you a bitter life instead of a sweet one, and to travel the hard and rough road, instead of the most desirable luxury —

the road which the Son of Mary urges men to walk? And do you not fear the wrath of the greatest gods, lest they strike you with a thunderbolt, or kill you with a lightning-bolt, or sink you in a chasm of the earth — because, those who did us so many benefits, and crowned us with the diadem of kingship, and subjected populous nations, and prepared that you should be born beyond hope through my prayer and supplication and should share in this sweetest light — you have thrust aside and despised, and cleaved to the Crucified, deceived by the empty hopes of his servants, who fable certain new ages, and prate of a resurrection of dead bodies, and bring in countless other things to deceive the foolish? But now at least, dearest son, if you will obey me your father, bid a long farewell to these long-winded follies,

and approach and sacrifice to the kindly gods, and let us appease them with hecatombs and libations, that they may grant you pardon for your fault. For they are powerful and able both to do good and to punish; and we ourselves, who came through them to this rule, are a proof of what is said, rendering them thanks for their benefaction, and granting honours to those who worship them and punishments to those who do not obey them and sacrifice." When the king had gone through many such empty repetitions, mocking and slandering our faith and praising and extolling the worship of idols, the most godly young man, seeing that the matter no longer needed a corner and concealment, but a lampstand and a watchtower, so that it might be made plain to all, was filled with frankness and courage, and said: "What I have done, master, I will not deny. I have fled the darkness and run to the light; I have left error behind and made the truth my own;

and, having renounced the demons, I have joined myself to Christ, the Son and Word of God the Father, by whose word all things were brought forth out of nothing — who also, having fashioned man out of dust, breathed into him the breath of life, and set him to dwell in the paradise of delight; and when man transgressed his commandment and became liable to death, and was brought under the power of the terrible ruler of this world, he did not cease doing all things, wishing to bring him back to his former honour. Therefore the Maker himself of all creation and the Creator of our race became man for our sake, and coming to earth from a holy Virgin dwelt among men; and on behalf of us, his thankless servants, the Master accepted death, and death by the cross, that the tyranny of sin might be loosed, that the former condemnation might be removed, that the gates of heaven might be opened to us again. For there he raised up our nature and seated it on the throne of glory, and granted the unending kingdom to those who love him,

and good things better than word or hearing. For he is the mighty and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, whose power is unconquerable and whose dominion beyond all likeness, the only Holy One who rests among the holy, who is glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, into whom I have been baptized. And I confess, glorify, and worship one God in three persons, of one essence and unconfused, uncreated and immortal, eternal, infinite, unbounded, bodiless, impassible, unchangeable, unalterable, indeterminable, the fountain of goodness and righteousness and everlasting light, the Maker of all creatures visible and invisible, who holds together and preserves all things, provides for all, masters all, and reigns over all. For nothing among existing things came to be apart from him, nor can anything subsist without his providence; for he himself is the life of all, the subsistence of all, the enlightenment of all, all sweetness and insatiable longing, and the highest of all things desirable. To forsake, then, a God so good, so wise, so powerful, and to serve unclean demons, the makers of all the passions, and to render worship to deaf and speechless images, which neither are anything nor ever shall be — to what depth of folly

and madness would this not be beyond? For when was any speech or word ever heard from them? When have they given even a small answer to those who pray to them? When have they walked, or received any perception? For neither did those that stand ever bethink themselves of a seat, nor were those that sit ever seen to rise. Having learned from a holy man the loathsomeness and foulness and senselessness of these things, and besides the rottenness and weakness of the demons that work in them and through them deceive you, and having spat upon their wickedness, and hated them with a perfect hatred, I have joined myself to the living and true God; and I will serve him until my last breath, that my spirit too may come into his hands. Since, then, such unspeakable good things have met me, I rejoiced to be freed from the slavery of the wicked demons and recalled from a terrible captivity, and to be illumined with the light of the Lord's face; yet I was grieved and my soul was divided, because you also, my master and father, did not share in such benefactions. But fearing the obstinacy of your mind, I held my grief within myself, not wishing to anger you, while I unceasingly entreated God to draw you to himself and to recall you from the long exile which you have procured for yourself,

having become, alas, a fugitive from piety and a servant of every wickedness and impiety. But since you yourself, father, have brought my case into the open, hear the whole of my purpose: I will not be false to my covenant with Christ — no, by him who redeemed me from slavery with his precious blood, even if I must die for him ten thousand times, I will die. Knowing my case thus, then, no longer trouble yourself by attempting to turn me from the good confession. For as it would be an idle and unaccomplished undertaking if you thought to seize heaven with your hand, or to dry up the seas of the deep, so know this to be also. Either, then, hearing my counsel, attach yourself to Christ, and you will receive good things beyond conception, and we shall be sharers with each other in faith, as we are in nature; or I will withdraw from your sonship —

know it well — and serve my God with a pure conscience." When the king heard all this, he was most sharply stirred, and overcome with uncontrollable anger, he spoke to him wrathfully, and bitterly gnashed his teeth, like one gone mad: "And who," he said, "is the cause of these evils to me, but I myself, who treated you so and did for you such things as no father ever did? Therefore the crookedness and contentiousness of your mind, gaining power from your freedom, has made you rage against my head. Justly, then, the astrologers at your birth said that you would turn out

a terrible and most wicked man, a braggart and disobedient to your parents. But now, if you nullify my counsel and withdraw from my sonship, I, disposed toward you as an enemy, will do to you those things that none has shown even to foes." Then he replied: "Why, O king, are you kindled to anger? Because I have been counted worthy of such good things, are you grieved? And who was ever seen to be vexed at his son's good fortune? Or how could such a man be reckoned a father, and not an enemy? Then neither will I henceforth call you father; rather, I will withdraw from you as one flees from a serpent, if I learn that you begrudge me my salvation and seek to drive me with a violent hand to ruin. For if you should wish to force and tyrannize me, as indeed you said, you will gain nothing else, know it well, than to be called, instead of a father, a tyrant and a murderer only; since it is easier for you to reach the tracks of an eagle and fly through the very air after it, than to turn my faith in Christ, and the good confession which I have confessed to him. But come to your senses, father, and, shaking off the rheum and mist from the eyes of your mind,

look up to behold the light of my God that shines round about all, and be illumined yourself at last with his sweetest light. For why have you given yourself wholly to the passions and desires of the flesh, and there is no lifting up of your head? Know that all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass: the grass has withered and its flower has fallen, but the word of my Lord, proclaimed to all, abides forever. Why, then, do you so madly cling to and embrace the glory that withers and vanishes like the flowers of spring, and the loathsome and foul-smelling luxury, and the most defiling passions of the belly and below the belly, which for a time gratify the senses of the foolish,

but afterward yield up returns more bitter than gall, when these shadows and dreams of this empty life pass away, and the lovers of them, the workers of lawlessness, are shut up in the continual anguish of the unquenchable and dark fire, where the sleepless worm devours them without end, and the fire burns them ceaselessly and unquenchably unto endless ages? Among whom, alas, you too, shut up and grievously tormented, will repent much of your terrible resolves, and long much for these present days and remember my words; but there will be no profit in your repentance. For in Hades there is no confession or repentance; rather, the present time has been appointed for labour, and the time to come for recompense. For if the present delights were not subject to vanishing and to flux, but were to abide forever with their possessors, not even so ought one to prefer these to the gifts of Christ and to good things beyond conception; for as much as the sun is brighter and clearer than the deep night, so much, and far more, are the good things promised to those who love God more glorious and magnificent than every earthly kingdom and glory, and one must by all means prefer the greater things to the meaner. But since all things here are fleeting and subject to corruption, and

pass away and vanish like a dream, a shadow, and a sleeping vision, and one may sooner trust the unstable breezes and the tracks of a ship crossing the sea than the prosperity of men, of how great simplicity — or rather, of how great folly and madness — is it to prefer the corruptible and perishable, the weak and worthless, to the incorruptible and eternal, the undefiled and unending, and by the brief enjoyment of these to be deprived of the unbroken enjoyment of those good things? Will you not understand this, father? Will you not pass by the things that pass by, and attach yourself to those that abide? Will you not prefer the dwelling-place to the sojourn, the light to the darkness, the spirit to the flesh, eternal life to the shadow of death, the things that are not dissolved to the things that flow away? Will you not escape from the grievous slavery of the terrible ruler of this world — the wicked devil, I mean — and attach yourself to the good and compassionate and all-merciful Master? Will you not, departing from the worship of the many false-named gods, serve the one true and living God? For even if you have sinned against him, blaspheming much and destroying his servants with terrible torments,

yet he will receive you, I am well assured, when you turn to him, the Good One, and will remember none of your offences; for he does not desire the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn and live — he who came down from the unspeakable heights in search of us who had gone astray, and endured cross and scourges and death for us, and with his precious blood redeemed us who had been sold under sin. To him be glory and praise unto the ages. Amen." But the king was seized at once with amazement and with anger — the one at the young man's understanding and his irrefutable words, the other because he did not cease slandering the gods and altogether mocking and deriding his way of life. The brightness of the discourse he did not receive, because of the thickness of the darkness within; and being unable, by natural affection, to punish him or treat him ill, and wholly despairing of turning him by threats, and fearing that, if he stirred up more words against him while the young man spoke boldly and mocked and derided the gods, he might be kindled to greater anger and do something hostile against him, he rose in anger and withdrew, saying: "Would that you had never been born at all, nor come into the light, since you were to be such a one — a blasphemer of the gods and an apostate from your father's love and admonition. But you shall not mock the unconquered gods to the end, nor shall my adversaries rejoice for long, nor shall their sorceries prevail.

For unless you become obedient to me and well-disposed toward the gods, I will first give you over to many and various torments, and then put you to a most evil death, treating you not as a son, but as some enemy and apostate.