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is separated from love. It is necessary for the one who has come to be outside of God to be outside of the light, because God is light, and outside of life and incorruptibility and of every thought and thing considered for the better; all of which God is. For he who is not in these things is entirely in their opposites. Therefore darkness and corruption and utter destruction and death await such a person. These things the word of Ecclesiastes, distinguishing them, demonstrates in a brief utterance, having revealed by timely love and by hatred activated at the right time the nature of each of the things understood as opposites. A time, he says, to love, you add “the good”; again, A time to hate, he says, you suppose that the word looks to evil. For the altered and erring disposition of our soul toward each of these is the root and beginning of sin. No one can, he says, serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other. The contrast has shown who the one is that rules evilly, from whom one must be alienated through hatred, and who the one is that holds power for the good of the one who is ruled, to whom it is fitting to be joined through love. But if someone should hold to the hateful, but despise the lovable, this is the one who exchanges the timeliness of love 5.427 and of hatred for his own evil. For he who despises a thing will be despised by it, but he who holds on to destruction will obtain for himself this thing to which he held. Having therefore distinguished in the word the things understood according to virtue and vice, you will recognize the timeliness of how one must be disposed toward each of these. Self-control and pleasure, moderation and intemperance, humility and pride, goodwill and malice, and all things understood as opposites are clearly shown to you by Ecclesiastes, so that, being disposed in soul concerning these things, you may deliberate profitably. Therefore, it is a time to love self-control and to hate pleasure, so that you may not become a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God, and all the other things likewise: contentiousness, avarice, vainglory, and all things which, by the use of love for things that are not fitting, separate from the relationship to the good. As a doctrine in passing we have learned that every movement of the soul was established for good by the one who created our nature, but the mistaken use of such movements has generated 5.428 the occasions for vice; for our free-willed power, being something good, becomes the worst of evils when it works toward evil. And conversely, the power that repels unpleasant things, whose name is hatred, is an instrument of virtue when it is armed against the adversary, but it becomes a weapon of sin when it is disposed in opposition to the good. Therefore every creation of God that has been established in us is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, but the ungrateful use of these things has made the creation a passion, through which intimacy with God departs, and the opposites, entering in its place, are substituted in the place of God, so that for such people the passions are deified. Thus for the gluttonous the belly becomes a god. Thus the greedy make an idol for themselves of their disease. Thus those whose eyes of the soul have been darkened by deceit in this age have made vainglory a god for themselves. And to speak concisely, whatever anyone yokes his own reasoning to, making it a slave and subject, this he has deified in his own passion, something he would not have suffered, if he had not made evil his own through love. If then we have understood the timeliness of both love and hatred, let us love the one and make war on the other. 5.429 For a time, he says, for war and a time for peace. You see the battle-array of the opposing passions, the law of the flesh warring against the law of your mind and taking you captive to the law of sin. Pay attention to the varied preparation for the battle, how manifold is the strategy of the adversary against your city. He sends spies, he suborns traitors, he lies in wait on the roads, he sets up ambushes and snares, he wins over allies, he prepares war-machines, slingers and archers and those who fight hand-to-hand and

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ἀγάπης κεχώρισται. τὸν δὲ ἔξω τοῦ θεοῦ γενόμενον ἔξω εἶναι τοῦ φωτὸς ἀνάγκη, διότι φῶς ὁ θεός, ἔξω δὲ καὶ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ τῆς ἀφθαρσίας καὶ παντὸς τοῦ πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον θεωρουμένου νοήματός τε καὶ πράγματος· ἅπερ πάντα ὁ θεός ἐστιν. ὁ γὰρ ἐν τούτοις μὴ ὢν ἐν τοῖς ἐναντίοις πάντως ἐστίν. οὐκοῦν ἐκδέχεται τὸν τοιοῦτον σκότος καὶ διαφθορὰ καὶ πανωλεθρία καὶ θάνατος. Ταῦτα ἐν βραχείᾳ φωνῇ ὁ τοῦ ἐκκλησιαστοῦ λόγος διελὼν ἐπιδείκνυσι, τῇ εὐκαίρῳ φιλίᾳ καὶ τῷ κατὰ καιρὸν ἐνεργουμένῳ μίσει τὴν ἑκατέρου τῶν κατὰ τὸ ἐναντίον νοου μένων φύσιν ἀποκαλύψας. Καιρός, φησίν, τοῦ φιλῆσαι, σὺ τὸ ἀγαθὸν πρόσθες, πάλιν Καιρὸς τοῦ μισῆσαι λέγει, σὺ πρὸς τὸ κακὸν οἴου βλέπειν τὸν λόγον. ἡ γὰρ ὑπηλλαγμένη τε καὶ πεπλανημένη πρὸς ἑκάτερον τούτων τῆς ψυχῆς ἡμῶν διάθεσις ῥίζα καὶ ἀρχὴ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἐστίν. Οὐδεὶς δύναται, φησίν, δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει. ἔδειξεν ἡ ἀντιδιαστολή, τίς ὁ κακῶς κυριεύων, οὗ χρὴ διὰ τοῦ μίσους ἀλλοτριοῦσθαι, καὶ τίς ὁ ἐπ' ἀγαθῷ τοῦ ἀρχομένου κρατῶν, ᾧ προσήκει δι' ἀγάπης συνάπτεσθαι. εἰ δέ τις τοῦ μισητοῦ μὲν ἀντέχοιτο, τοῦ δὲ ἀγαπητοῦ καταφρονοίη, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ὑπαλλάσσων τῆς φιλίας 5.427 καὶ τοῦ μίσους τὴν εὐκαιρίαν τῷ ἰδίῳ κακῷ. ὁ γὰρ κατα φρονῶν πράγματος καταφρονηθήσεται ὑπ' αὐτοῦ, ὁ δὲ ἀντεχό μενος τῆς ἀπωλείας περιποιήσεται τοῦτο ἑαυτῷ, οὗ ἀντέσχετο. διαστείλας τοίνυν τῷ λόγῳ τὰ κατ' ἀρετήν τε καὶ κακίαν νοούμενα ἐπιγνώσῃ τὴν εὐκαιρίαν τοῦ πῶς χρὴ πρὸς ἑκάτερον τούτων ἔχειν. ἐγκράτεια καὶ ἡδονή, σωφροσύνη καὶ ἀκολα σία, μετριότης καὶ τῦφος, εὔνοια καὶ κακόνοια καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐξ ἐναντίου νοούμενα φανερῶς ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐκκλησιαστοῦ σοι ὑποδείκνυται, ὅπως τῇ ψυχῇ περὶ ταῦτα διατεθειμένος λυσιτελῶς βουλεύσῃ. καιρὸς οὖν τοῦ φιλῆσαι τὴν ἐγκράτειαν καὶ τοῦ μισῆσαι τὴν ἡδονήν, ἵνα μὴ γένῃ φιλήδονος μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεος, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ὡσαύτως, τὸ φιλόνεικον, τὸ φιλοκερδές, τὸ φιλόδοξον καὶ πάντα, ἃ τῇ ἐπὶ τὰ μὴ δέοντα τῆς φιλίας χρήσει τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν σχέσεως ἀφορίζει. οἷον ἐκ παρόδου δόγμα ἐμάθομεν, ὅτι πᾶσα τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησις ἐπ' ἀγαθῷ παρὰ τοῦ δημιουργήσαντος τὴν φύσιν ἡμῶν κατεσκευάσθη, ἀλλ' ἡ διημαρτημένη τῶν τοιούτων κινημάτων χρῆσις τὰς εἰς κακίαν ἐγέννησεν 5.428 ἀφορμάς· καλὸν γάρ τι οὖσα ἡ αὐτεξούσιος δύναμις ἡμῶν, ὅταν πρὸς τὸ κακὸν ἐνεργῇ, κακῶν ἔσχατον γίνεται. καὶ τὸ ἔμπαλιν ὄργανον ἀρετῆς ἐστιν ἡ ἀπωστικὴ τῶν ἀηδῶν δύναμις, ᾗ ὄνομα τὸ μῖσός ἐστιν, ὅταν κατὰ τοῦ ἐναντίου ὁπλίζηται, ἀλλὰ ἁμαρτίας γίνεται ὅπλον, ὅταν πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀντιστατικῶς ἔχῃ. οὐκοῦν πᾶν κτίσμα θεοῦ τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν κατεσκευασμένων καλὸν καὶ οὐδὲν ἀπόβλητον μετὰ εὐχαριστίας λαμβανόμενον, ἡ δὲ ἀχάριστος τούτων χρῆσις πάθος τὸ κτίσμα ἐποίησε, δι' οὗ ἐκβαίνει μὲν ἡ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν οἰκειότης, ἀντεισελθόντα δὲ τὰ ἐναντία εἰς τὸν τοῦ θεοῦ τόπον ἀντικαθίσταται, ὥστε τοῖς τοιούτοις θεοποιεῖσθαι τὰ πάθη. οὕτω τοῖς λαιμαργοῦσι γίνεται θεὸς ἡ κοιλία. οὕτως εἰδωλοποιοῦσιν ἑαυτοῖς οἱ πλεονέκται τὴν νόσον. οὕτως οἱ δι' ἀπάτης σκοτισθέντες ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς θεὸν ἑαυτοῖς τὴν κενοδοξίαν ἐποίησαν. καὶ συνελόντι φράσαι ᾧπερ ἄν τις τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λογισμὸν ὑποζεύξας δοῦλον ποιήσῃ καὶ ὑποχείριον, τοῦτο ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ πάθει ἐθεοποίησεν, οὐκ ἂν τοῦτο παθών, εἰ μὴ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης τὸ κακὸν ᾠκειώσατο. εἰ οὖν ἐνοήσαμεν τῆς τε φιλίας καὶ τοῦ μίσους τὴν εὐκαιρίαν, τὸ μὲν ἀγαπήσωμεν τὸ δὲ πολεμήσωμεν. 5.429 Καιρὸς γάρ, φησί, πολέμου καὶ καιρὸς εἰρήνης. ὁρᾷς τῶν ἀντικειμένων παθῶν τὴν παράταξιν, τὸν νόμον τῆς σαρκὸς τὸν ἀντιστρατευόμενον τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ νοός σου καὶ αἰχμαλωτί ζοντα τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας. πρόσχες τῇ ποικίλῃ τῆς μάχης διασκευῇ, πῶς μυριότροπός ἐστι κατὰ τῆς σῆς πόλεως τοῦ ἀντικειμένου ἡ στρατηγία. κατασκόπους πέμπει, προδό τας ὑποποιεῖται, ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐφεδρεύει, λόχους καὶ ἐνέδρας συνίστησι, συμμάχους προσεταιρίζεται, μηχανήματα κατα σκευάζει, σφενδονήτας καὶ τοξότας καὶ τοὺς συστάδην συμπλεκομένους καὶ