the dragon Chosroes having been bound; unless one should receive the ministration of justice so that if he were given over to you, he might escape the worthy punishments in short order. And as my thoughts were often stirred, having collected them by myself, I said these things: If Ptolemy had accurately understood the outcomes among the stars and for the future, how did he not foretell what a light-bringer nature was to see in you in these last days? But if he, as was likely, saw you surpassing the boundaries of the earth, he would rather have praised you with sublime words; and looking upon your many movements of excursion, even more than those of the stars, he would have praised your ever-moving mind, having learned by a strange reason that the mind in you was another, newly-wrought pole for those below. These things, O general of wise counsels, having found the divine roses of your labors interwoven among the thorns of battle, and having gathered the seeds of your thoughts, the many flowers of spiritual fragrances, to you I now bring this woven crown from the pure meadow of truth. Yet, being accustomed to traverse your sea in a small and slow-sailing skiff, I have not erred at all by not sailing through the whole of it; for a limit cannot be set to the infinite. But, O General of things above and things below for by your word every word subsists and everything runs together with your will; you secure the abyss with your power, and you make the earth suspended in the midst; and all the heavens like a vault you enclose, as you wish, with your command; to you all visible nature is a servant and all creation beyond our understanding is a fellow-servant, you yourself, most mighty all-ruler of all things and divider of our affairs for you alone divide to all, as you wish, your active gifts of graces, fulfill our hopes placed in you; for in you there is no deficient grace; you yourself direct your vice-general, as you know how, to do all things as you wish; make him a faithful shield-bearer of your pious commands everywhere. You, show him as a terror to the adversaries, and may every foreigner running to bloodshed bend his neck to him with trembling; make the sweats he has dripped for his past stumblings a purification for him; may he receive twofold victories against his enemies, may he set up trophies over both passions and barbarians; fill him, as you alone know how, with fervor toward you, like Elijah, who, having set his mind and heart on fire toward you, was rightly snatched up to the height by fire; and show him to all as a new Moses in his pious panoply against the enemies, extending the cross more than his hands, that Moses who, seeing a bush and a fire, carefully observed your flame in the bush and the bush remaining unburnt; Moses who alone was seen by you alone in the flesh and looks upon you with a fleshly vision, perhaps foretelling also God being made flesh; and from thence, I think, he also conversed with you then, with whom he was to converse also when you were made flesh. Mold him into such a great trophy-bearer and your general, as you wish. Bless with the sower the seeds and grant that the divine offspring of this seed may possess the farmlands of Rome to the end. Impress upon them the truly fair images of their father's features, so that they may be likenesses of their father, faithful mirrors of their father's characteristics, perfect in mind, free in manners, gentle in spirit, sympathetic in heart, mild to us and wrathful against enemies, enemies who worship new-fangled gods, stretching forth hands piously extended, but steeled against the gain of error, feet in no way moved toward blood, but swift-running everywhere to save. Guard their intelligible entrances and make them hard to traverse for envy, which, opposing our substance, is foreign to form and to genus, and bringing nothing at all to substance, it thinks to bite the substance of all things, dividing friends and partitioning relationships, entangling brothers in the enmities of brothers and nurturing her sister, hypocrisy. Like a savage Scylla and Charybdis it runs about in the sea of life, and with its teeth it savagely attacks not only Odysseus, but all flesh.

δεθέντα τὸν δράκοντα Χοσρόην· εἰ μὴ λάβοι τις τῆς δίκης ὑπουργίαν ὡς εἴπερ ὑμῖν ἐκδοθῇ, τὰς ἀξίας λάθοι παρελθὼν ἐν βραχεῖ τιμωρίας. καί μοι λογισμῶν πολλάκις κινουμένων αὐτὸς κατ' ἐμαυτὸν συλλαβὼν ἔφην τάδε· εἰ τὰς ἐν ἄστροις ὁ Πτολεμαῖος ἐκβάσεις καὶ πρὸς τὸ μέλλον εἶχεν ἠκριβωμένας, πῶς οὐ προεξήγγειλεν οἷον ἡ φύσις ἐπ' ἐσχάτων μέλλει σε φωσφόρον βλέπειν; ἀλλ' εἴπερ ἦν ἐκεῖνος εἰκότως ἄρα τῆς γῆς ὑπερβαίνοντα τοὺς ὅρους βλέπων, ὕμνει σὲ μᾶλλον τοῖς μεταρσίοις λόγοις· τῆς ἐκδρομῆς δέ, καὶ πλέον τῶν ἀστέρων, ἐν σοὶ τὰ πολλὰ προσβλέπων κινήματα, τὴν σὴν ἀεικίνητον ὕμνησε φρένα, ἄλλον νεουργηθέντα τοῖς κάτω πόλον τὸν νοῦν τὸν ἐν σοὶ τῷ ξένῳ μαθὼν λόγῳ. ταῦτα, στρατηγὲ τῶν σοφῶν βουλευμάτων, ἐν ταῖς ἀκάνθαις τῆς μάχης πεπλεγμένα εὑρὼν τὰ θεῖα τῶν πόνων τῶν σῶν ῥόδα, ἄνθη τε πολλὰ ψυχικῶν ἀρωμάτων τῶν σῶν λογισμῶν συναγαγὼν τὰ σπέρματα, σοὶ τόνδε πλεκτὸν στέφανον ἐξ ἀκηράτου λειμῶνος ἄρτι τῆς ἀληθείας φέρω. ὅμως δὲ μικρῷ καὶ βραδυδρόμῳ σκάφει τὴν σὴν θάλατταν ἐκπερᾶν εἰθισμένος ἥμαρτον οὐδὲν μὴ διαπλεύσας ὅλην· ὅρος γὰρ εἰς ἄπειρον οὐχ ὁρίζεται. ἀλλ', ὦ Στρατηγὲ τῶν ἄνω καὶ τῶν κάτω τῷ γὰρ λόγῳ σου πᾶς ὑφίσταται λόγος καὶ πάντα τῷ σῷ συντρέχει θελήματι· σὺ τὴν ἄβυσσον ἀσφαλίζῃ τῷ κράτει, ποιεῖς δὲ τὴν γῆν ἐν μέσῳ μετάρσιον· τοὺς οὐρανοὺς δὲ πάντας ἁψῖδος δίκην τῷ σῷ κατειλεῖς, ὡς θέλεις, προστάγματι· σοὶ πᾶσα δούλη τῶν ὁρωμένων φύσις καὶ τῶν ὑπὲρ νοῦν πᾶσα σύνδουλος κτίσις, αὐτός, κράτιστε τῶν ὅλων παντοκράτορ καὶ τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς πραγμάτων διαιρέτα καὶ γὰρ διαιρεῖς πᾶσιν, ὡς θέλεις, μόνος τὰς σὰς ἐνεργεῖς τῶν χαρισμάτων δόσεις, τὰς εἰς σὲ συμπλήρωσον ἡμῶν ἐλπίδας· ἐν σοὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἔνεστιν ἐλλιπὴς χάρις· ἴθυνον αὐτὸς τὸν σόν, ὡς ἐπίστασαι, ὑποστράτηγον πάντα πράττειν, ὡς θέλεις· ποίησον αὐτὸν πιστὸν ἀσπιδηφόρον τῶν εὐσεβῶν σου πανταχοῦ προσταγμάτων. σὺ δεῖξον αὐτὸν τοῖς ἐναντίοις φόβον, καὶ πᾶς τις ἀλλόφυλος εἰς αἷμα τρέχων τούτῳ προκάμψει σὺν τρόμῳ τὸν αὐχένα· ποίησον αὐτῷ τῶν φθασάντων πταισμάτων ἱδρῶτας, οὓς ἔσταξεν, εἰς καθάρσιον· λάβοι κατ' ἐχθρῶν διττὰ νικητήρια, στήσοι τρόπαια καὶ παθῶν καὶ βαρβάρων· πλήρωσον αὐτόν, ὡς ἐπίστασαι μόνος, τῆς εἰς σὲ θερμότητος, ὡς τὸν Ἠλίαν, ὃς ἐκπυρώσας πρὸς σὲ νοῦν καὶ καρδίαν πυρὶ πρὸς ὕψος εἰκότως ἡρπάζετο· καὶ δεῖξον αὐτὸν πᾶσι Μωσέα νέον ἐν τῇ κατ' ἐχθρῶν εὐσεβεῖ πανοπλίᾳ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐκτείνοντα τῶν χειρῶν πλέον, Μωσῆν ἐκεῖνον ὃς βάτον καὶ πῦρ βλέπων τὴν σὴν ἀπηκρίβωσεν ἐν βάτῳ φλόγα καὶ τὴν βάτον μένουσαν οὐ πεφλεγμένην· Μωσῆν ὃς ὤφθη σαρκὶ σοὶ μόνῳ μόνος καὶ σαρκικῇ σε προ<σ>βλέπει θεωρίᾳ τάχα προδεικνὺς καὶ Θεὸν σαρκούμενον· κἀντεῦθεν, οἶμαι, συλλαλεῖ σοι καὶ τότε, ᾧ συλλαλεῖν ἔμελλε καὶ σαρκουμένῳ. τοιοῦτον αὐτὸν καὶ τροπαιοῦχον μέγαν καὶ σὸν στρατηγόν, ὡς θέλεις, διάπλασον. συνευλόγησον τῷ σπορεῖ τὰ σπέρματα καὶ δὸς τὸ θεῖον τοῦδε τοῦ σπόρου γένος κρατεῖν τὰ Ῥώμης εἰς τέλος γεώργια. τύπωσον αὐτοῖς πατρικῶν μορφωμάτων τὰς εὐπροσώπους ὡς ἀληθῶς εἰκόνας, ὅπως ἔσοιντο πατρὸς εἰκονίσματα, κάτοπτρα πιστὰ πατρικῶν γνωρισμάτων, τὸν νοῦν τέλειοι, τοὺς τρόπους ἐλεύθεροι, πραεῖς τὸ πνεῦμα, συμπαθεῖς τὴν καρδίαν, ἡμῖν προσηνεῖς καὶ κατ' ἐχθρῶν ὀργίλοι, ἐχθρῶν σεβόντων τοὺς θεοὺς τοὺς προσφάτους, χεῖρας νέμοντες εὐσεβῶς ἡπλωμένας, ἐσταλμένας δὲ πρὸς τὸ λῆμμα τῆς πλάνης, πόδας πρὸς αἷμα μηδαμῶς κινουμένους, εἰς δ' αὖ τὸ σῴζειν πανταχοῦ ταχυδρόμους. φύλαξον αὐτῶν τὰς νοητὰς εἰσόδους καὶ δυσβάτους ποίησον αὐτὰς τῷ φθόνῳ, ὃς τῇ καθ' ἡμᾶς ἀντιπίπτων οὐσίᾳ εἴδους μέν ἐστι καὶ γένους ἀλλότριος, ὅλως δὲ μηδὲν εἰς ὑπόστασιν φέρων δάκνειν νομίζει τὴν ὅλων ὑπόστασιν, φίλους διαιρῶν καὶ μερίζων τὴν σχέσιν, ἔχθραις ἀδελφῶν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς συμπλέκων καὶ τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἐκτρέφων ὑπόκρισιν. ὡς Σκύλλα καὶ Χάρυβδις ἠγριωμένη ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ τοῦ βίου περιτρέχει, καὶ τοῖς ὀδοῦσιν οὐκ Ὀδυσσέως μόνον, πάσης δὲ σαρκὸς ἀγρίως καθάπτεται.