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the great weight of your many gifts. You who made the sparrows speak with voices, grant a word also to me, the all-wretched one, so that in writing and unwritten I may recount to all what you have worked in me through infinite mercy, O my God, and through your philanthropy alone. For indeed, the things you have provided me are beyond mind, dreadful and great, to me the stranger, the unlearned, the poor, the one without boldness, the one cast off by every man. My parents did not attend to me with natural love; my brothers and all my friends mocked me, for saying they loved me, they lied in every way. My relatives, those from outside, the rulers of the world, turned away from me and endured seeing me, only so much as to destroy me with their impieties. Often I desired glory without sin, and I have not yet found it in the present life; for worldly glory, as I have been assured, is a sin even without any other action. How many times I desired that men love me and to have familiar boldness toward them, and no one of those who think good things bore with me; but others rather wished to see and know me, but I fled these as workers of evil. All these things, therefore, Master, and others more than these, which I am not able to speak of, nor to remember, you, providing for me, the prodigal, have worked, so that you might draw me out of the abyss and worldly darkness (142) and from the deceit, the terrible one, of the pleasures of life. The good fled from me because of my outward appearance, but the wicked I fled by my own choice; for I loved, as has been said, the glory and wealth of the world and the show of clothing and the habits of indolence. But I do not know what I shall say, I do not know what I shall say to you; for I fear both to speak and to write such things, lest I fall into error by my words and sin, and what is falsely written will be indelible. Whenever someone summoned me to works of madness and sin, truly, of this deceptive world, my whole heart drew back within

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τό μέγα βάρος τῶν πολλῶν δωρεῶν σου. Ὁ τά στρουθία φωναῖς λαλεῖν ποιήσας δώρησαι κἀμοί λόγον, τῷ παναθλίῳ, ἵνα τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐγγράφως καί ἀγράφως διηγήσωμαι, ἅ εἰς ἐμέ εἰργάσω διά ἔλεος ἄπειρον, ὁ Θεός μου, καί διά μόνην τήν σήν φιλανθρωπίαν. Καί γάρ ὑπέρ νοῦν φρικτά τε καί μεγάλα πέλουσιν, ἅπερ παρέσχες μοι τῷ ξένῳ, τῷ ἀμαθεῖ, τῷ πτωχῷ, τῷ ἀπαρρησιάστῳ, τῷ ἀπό παντός ἀπερριμένῳ ἀνθρώπου. Γονεῖς οὐ προσεῖχόν μοι φυσικῇ τῇ ἀγάπῃ, οἱ ἀδελφοί καί φίλοι μου πάντες ἐνέπαιζόν μοι, ἀγαπᾶν γάρ με λέγοντες ἐψεύδοντο εἰς ἅπαν. Οἱ συγγενεῖς, οἱ ἔξωθεν, οἱ ἄρχοντες τοῦ κόσμου τοσοῦτόν με ἀπεστρέφοντο καί ἠνείχοντο βλέπειν, ὅσον συναπολέσαι με ταῖς αὐτῶν ἀσεβείαις. Πολλάκις ἐπεθύμησα δόξης ἀναμαρτήτως καί οὔπω ταύτην εὕρηκα ἐν τῷ παρόντι βίῳ˙ ἡ δόξα γάρ ἡ κοσμική, καθώς ἐβεβαιώθην, καί δίχα ἄλλης πράξεως ἁμαρτία τυγχάνει. Ποσάκις ἐπεθύμησα ἀνθρώπους ἀγαπᾶν με καί ἔχειν οἰκειότητος πρός αὐτούς παρρησίαν, καί οὐδείς μου ἠνέσχετο τῶν ἀγαθά φρονούντων˙ ἄλλοι δέ μᾶλλον ἤθελον βλέπειν με καί γνωρίζειν, ἐγώ δέ τούτους ἔφευγον ὡς τῶν κακῶν ἐργάτας. Ταῦτα οὖν πάντα, ∆έσποτα, καί ἄλλα τούτων πλείω, ἅ οὐδέ λέγειν εὐπορῶ, οὐδ᾿ ἀπομνημονεύειν, σύ εἰς ἐμέ, τόν ἄσωτον, προνοῶν ἀπειργάσω, ἵνα ἑλκύσῃς ἐκ βυθοῦ καί κοσμικοῦ με σκότους (142) καί τῆς ἀπάτης, τῆς δεινῆς, τῶν τοῦ βίου ἡδέων. Οἰ ἀγαθοί με ἔφευγον διά τό ἔξω σχῆμα, τούς δέ φαύλους ἐξέφευγον οἰκείᾳ προαιρέσει˙ ἠγάπων γάρ, ὡς εἴρηται, δόξαν καί πλοῦτον κόσμου καί φαντασμόν ἐνδύματος καί βλακευμάτων ἤθη. Οὐκ οἶδα δέ τί φθέγξομαι, οὐκ οἶδα τί σοι εἴπω˙ φοβοῦμαι γάρ καί τό λαλεῖν καί γράφειν τά τοιαῦτα, μή περιπέσω τοῖς ἐμοῖς λόγοις καί ἁμαρτήσω, καί ἔσται ἀνεξάλειπτον τό ψευδῶς γεγραμμένον. Ὅταν προσεκαλεῖτό με εἰς ἔργα τις μανίας καί ἁμαρτίας, ἀληθῶς, τοῦ πλάνου κόσμου τούτου, ἔσωθεν ἡ καρδία μου συνελέγετο ὅλη