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The good Master, seeing her brought down, so to speak, into an abyss of evil, naked and unseemly, and taking into account neither her deformity, nor the excess of her poverty, nor the magnitude of her evils, showing his own surpassing love for humanity, received her. And through the prophet he makes known such a disposition, saying: "Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear; and forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty." 1.7 Consider how from the very beginning he displays his own goodness, deigning to call her daughter, she who had so leaped away and given herself over to unclean demons; and not only this, but he neither demands an accounting for what was done amiss nor exacts punishments, but only advises and urges her to lend her ear and to receive the exhortation and the counsel, and he commands her to make a forgetting of the things done. 1.8 Have you seen unspeakable love for humanity? Have you seen an excess of care? For the blessed David uttered these things then as to the whole inhabited world, which was in a bad state; and it is timely for us now, toward those who have longed for the yoke of Christ and have run to this spiritual enlistment, to cry out and say these things to each of those present here, slightly altering the prophetic saying: "Forget, O new soldiers of Christ, all former things, make a forgetting of your evil practices; hear and incline your ear and receive this most excellent counsel. "Hear, he says, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people, and your father's house." 1.9 Do you see that the prophet advised the entire inhabited world the same things which we also advise your love today. For by saying "forget your people," he spoke hinting at idolatry and error and service to demons; "and of your father's house," he says, that is, forget your former way of life, which led you into this unseemliness. Make a forgetting of all those things and cast out all that preconception from your mind; for if you only do this and depart from your people and your father's house, that is, from the old leaven and the wickedness in which you were consumed and wasted the prime of your soul along with that of your body, the king will desire your beauty. 1.10 Do you see, beloved, that the discourse is about the soul? For physical deformity of a body could never change into comeliness, since the Master has commanded the things of nature to be immovable and unchangeable. But in the case of the soul this is easy and very simple. For what reason and why? Because the whole matter is of choice and not of nature; wherefore it is possible for even the deformed and exceedingly ugly soul, having suddenly willed it, to change and to return to the highest comeliness and become comely and well-formed again, just as, having grown negligent again, it can be brought down to the utmost ugliness. "Therefore the king will desire your beauty," if you forget those former things, your people, he says, and your father's house. 1.11 Have you seen the goodness of the Master? Not in vain, then, nor without reason, at the beginning of the discourse, did I call what is happening a spiritual marriage. For indeed in the case of this perceptible marriage, it is not otherwise possible for an unwed maiden to be joined to a man without forgetting those who bore and raised her and transferring her whole mind to the bridegroom who is about to be yoked with her. For this reason also the blessed Paul, coming upon this saying, called the matter a mystery; for having said: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh," and having understood the power of what happens and being amazed, he cried out, saying: "This mystery is great." 1.12 For it is truly great; for what human reasoning will be able to comprehend the nature of what happens, for when one considers that the

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ἄβυσσον ὡς εἰπεῖν τῆς κακίας κατενεχθεῖσαν ἰδὼν ὁ ἀγαθὸς δεσπότης γυμνὴν καὶ ἀσχημονοῦσαν, καὶ μήτε τὴν ἀμορφίαν λογισάμενος, μήτε τῆς πενίας τὴν ὑπερβολήν, μήτε τῶν κακῶν τὸ μέγεθος, δεικνὺς τὴν ὑπερβάλλουσαν ἑαυτοῦ φιλανθρωπίαν, προσεδέξατο. Καὶ διὰ τοῦ προφήτου τὴν τοιαύτην διάθεσιν δηλοῖ λέγων· «Ἄκουσον, θύγατερ, καὶ ἴδε καὶ κλῖνον τὸ οὖς σου· καὶ ἐπιλάθου τοῦ λαοῦ σου καὶ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου καὶ ἐπιθυμήσει ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ κάλλους σου.» 1.7 Σκόπει πῶς ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν προοιμίων τὴν οἰκείαν ἀγαθότητα ἐμφαίνει, θυγατέρα καλέσαι καταξιώσας τὴν οὕτως ἀποσκιρτήσασαν καὶ τοῖς ἀκαθάρτοις δαίμοσιν ἐκδεδωκυῖαν ἑαυτήν· καὶ οὐ τοῦτο μόνον ἀλλ' ὅτι οὐδὲ εὐθύνας ἀπαιτεῖ τῶν πεπλημμελημένων οὐδὲ δίκας εἰσπράττεται ἀλλὰ μόνον παραινεῖ καὶ προτρέπεται ὑποθεῖναι τὴν ἀκοὴν καὶ τὴν παραίνεσιν δέξασθαι καὶ τὴν νουθεσίαν καὶ παρεγγυᾷ λήθην ποιήσασθαι τῶν ἐργασμένων. 1.8 Εἶδες φιλανθρωπίαν ἄφατον; Εἶδες κηδεμονίας ὑπερβολήν; Ταῦτα γὰρ ὁ μακάριος ∆αβὶδ ὡς πρὸς πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην κακῶς διακειμένην τότε ἐφθέγγετο· καὶ ἡμᾶς δὲ νῦν εὔκαιρον πρὸς τοὺς ἐπιποθήσαντας τὸν τοῦ Χριστοῦ ζυγὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν πνευματικὴν ταύτην στρατολογίαν ἐπιδραμόντας ταῦτα βοᾶν καὶ λέγειν πρὸς ἕκαστον τῶν ἐνταῦθα παρόντων, μικρὸν ὑπαλλάξαντας τὸ προφητικὸν λόγιον· «Ἐπιλάθεσθε, οἱ νέοι τοῦ Χριστοῦ στρατιῶται, τῶν προτέρων ἁπάντων, λήθην ποιήσασθε τῶν πονηρῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων· ἀκούσατε καὶ κλίνατε τὸ οὖς ὑμῶν καὶ δέξασθε τὴν ἀρίστην ταύτην νουθεσίαν. «Ἄκουσον, φησίν, θύγατερ, καὶ ἴδε καὶ κλῖνον τὸ οὖς σου καὶ ἐπιλάθου τοῦ λαοῦ σου, καὶ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου.» 1.9 Ὁρᾷς ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὁ προφήτης τῇ οἰκουμένῃ πάσῃ ἐπαρῄνεσεν ἃ καὶ ἡμεῖς τήμερον παραινοῦμεν τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ ἀγάπῃ. Τῷ γὰρ λέγειν «ἐπιλάθου τοῦ λαοῦ σου», τὴν εἰδωλολατρείαν καὶ τὴν πλάνην εἶπεν αἰνιττόμενος καὶ τὴν πρὸς τοὺς δαίμονας θεραπείαν· «καὶ τοῦ οἴκου, φησί, τοῦ πατρός σου» τουτέστι τῆς προτέρας ἀναστροφῆς ἐπιλάθου, τῆς εἰς ταύτην σε τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην ἀγαγούσης. Ἐκείνων ἁπάντων λήθην ποίησαι καὶ πᾶσαν ἐκείνην τὴν πρόληψιν ἔκβαλε τῆς διανοίας τῆς σῆς· ἐὰν γὰρ τοῦτο ποιήσῃς μόνον καὶ ἀποστῇς τοῦ λαοῦ σου καὶ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου, τουτέστι τῆς παλαιᾶς ζύμης καὶ τῆς κακίας ἐν ᾖ κατεδαπανήθης καὶ κατηνάλωσάς σου τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ὥραν μετὰ τῆς τοῦ σώματος, ἐπιθυμήσει ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ κάλλους σου. 1.10 Ὁρᾷς, ἀγαπητέ, ὅτι περὶ ψυχῆς ἐστιν ὁ λόγος; Σώματος γὰρ ἀμορφία φυσικὴ οὐκ ἂν εἰς εὐμορφίαν μετασταίη ποτέ, ἐπειδὴ τὰ τῆς φύσεως ἀκίνητα καὶ ἀμετάθετα εἶναι προσέταξεν ὁ δεσπότης. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς τοῦτο εὔκολον καὶ σφόδρα ῥᾴδιον. Τίνος ἕνεκεν καὶ διὰ τί; Ἐπειδὴ προαιρέσεώς ἐστι τὸ πᾶν καὶ οὐ φύσεως· διὸ καὶ δυνατὸν καὶ τὴν ἄμορφον καὶ σφόδρα δυσειδῆ ἀθρόον βουληθεῖσαν μεταβαλέσθαι καὶ εἰς τὴν ἄκραν εὐμορφίαν ἐπανελθεῖν καὶ εὔμορφον πάλιν γενέσθαι καὶ εὐειδῆ, ὥσπερ πάλιν ῥᾳθυμήσασαν εἰς τὴν ἐσχάτην δυσείδειαν κατενεχθῆναι. «Ἐπιθυμήσει οὖν ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ κάλλους σου», ἐὰν ἐκείνων τῶν προτέρων ἐπιλάθῃ τοῦ λαοῦ σου, λέγει, καὶ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου. 1.11 Εἶδες ἀγαθότητα δεσπότου; Οὐ μάτην ἄρα οὐδὲ εἰκῇ ἀρχόμενος τοῦ λόγου γάμον ἐκάλεσα πνευματικὸν τὰ γινόμενα. Καὶ γὰρ ἐπὶ τοῦ γάμου τούτου τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ οὐκ ἄλλως δυνατὸν τὴν ἀπειρόγαμον ἀνδρὶ συναφθῆναι μὴ τῶν τεκόντων καὶ θρεψαμένων ἐπιλαθομένην καὶ μεταστήσασαν ὁλόκληρον αὐτῆς τὴν γνώμην πρὸς τὸν μέλλοντα αὐτῇ συζεύγνυσθαι νυμφίον. ∆ιὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὁ μακάριος Παῦλος εἰς τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ἐμπεσὼν μυστήριον τὸ πρᾶγμα ἐκάλεσεν· εἰπὼν γάρ· «Ἀντὶ τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν» καὶ τὴν δύναμιν ἐννοήσας τοῦ γινομένου καὶ ἐκπλαγεὶς ἀνεβόησε λέγων· «Τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστί.» 1.12 Καὶ γάρ ἐστι μέγα ὡς ἀληθῶς· ποῖος γὰρ λογισμὸς ἀνθρώπινος καταλαβεῖν δυνήσεται τοῦ γινομένου τὴν φύσιν, ὅταν γάρ τις ἐννοήσῃ ὅτι ἡ