The Combat of Virtue

Those who claim the heavenly place by labors do so not by the belly, nor by anxiety for perishable things; rather, like those who pray for profit, thinking piety is a means, but instead, through a spiritual vision, pure souls partake of the nourishing nature of the highest things, wrapped in the light of glory.

And you yourself (O initiate of virtues, Eulogius) while being nourished by the sacred substance of the highest ones, shedding the bulk of the flesh through the gatherings of thoughts, knowing that the matter of the flesh becomes the food of thoughts, just as having seized the methods by the center of labors, you prepare me to become a mouth for my works against them; and if it were not for the bold command of love, I would have refrained from such a seafaring of the vessel; but since it is necessary to obey rather than to oppose those of the same soul: let you be for me in matters of God, so that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, and I shall be for you regarding the things of obedience, so that you may be given to not miss the fruits of the seed.

Exile is the first of the splendid contests, especially when, in addition to this, one is alone, athletically renouncing homeland, race, and existence, having stood before the splendid contests; if he thus begins according to God, walking the path of beginnings with fiery faith and divine Spirit, and saving this by the perfection of endurance, it shall be a wing of virtue, gilded, departing from the soul of familiar places and rushing to fly toward it, the heaven. But the generator of evil devises ways to cut off these wings of the lifestyle, namely the earth, from which the race has come forth, turning it away, especially in the incursions that occur through instability; and in the dwelling while in the hottest exile, one retreats for a little while until the soul, concerning the tribulations...

Like a storm-tossed ship, the night-owl, bringing on the night of thoughts, watches over the soul of the ray of the superiors. If he were stationed alone in the wrestling-ground of the desert, and by chance the body were struck by infirmity, it shows the soul's exile even more harshly.

It is not in a place, but in a manner that the one subjecting the soul to the virtues is established; and that having consolation at home from his kin, there he could have saved the contests of renunciation without pain; where there is also a ready service for weakness, and not as now, hardship and painful fainting; and especially where the zeal for hospitality is not lacking from brotherhood. Therefore, Apith, he says, you bring joy to your own kin and win glory for yourself, while you leave behind them an unendurable grief without sympathy; for many, not having fled their fatherland, have chosen virtue from the midst of their kin.

But he, having clothed himself in the purple of afflictions in the station of exile, and having the hopes of labors hemmed in by faith and the endurance of thanksgiving for these thoughts, shakes off the flakes from the outside; and however much they strive to turn the heart back, the more we should strike them down; 'Behold, I have become a long-distance fugitive, and I was desolate in the desert' (Psalm 101:7). For they reproach and they flatter in order that, having emptied the intention, they might cut off the thanksgiving in endurance, and thus thereafter widen the nets with much despair, and from the proper things.

Chapter 4. For this reason, he who begins to touch virtue, let him count also the war against it, so that, not being seen untrained as if unready, he might be seized. For courage is praiseworthy when virtue is in peace, but this manliness is more praiseworthy when war is standing by; for this is virtue, not only through which it works, but also through which it fights against evils, the one impassive through more wars...