91 an exhortation to theodore after his fall. ———————————— Letter I. “Oh! that my head were water, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!”221 it is seasonable for me to utter these words now, yea much more than for the prophet in his time. For al- though I am not about to mourn over many cities, or whole nations, yet shall I mourn over a soul which is of equal value with many such nations, yea even more precious. For if one man who does the will of God is better than ten thousand transgressors, then thou wast formerly better than ten thousand Jews. Wherefore no one would now blame me if I were to compose more lamentations than those which are contained in the prophet, and to utter complaints yet more vehement. For it is not the overthrow of a city which I mourn, nor the captivity of wicked men, but the desolation of a sacred soul, the destruction and effacement of a Christ-bearing temple.222 For would not any one who knew in the days of its glory that well-ordered mind of thine which the devil has now set on fire, groan, imitating the lament- ation of the prophet; when he hears that barbarian hands have defiled the holy of holies, and have set fire to all things and burned them up, the cherubim, the ark, the mercy seat, the tables of stone, the golden pot? For this calamity is bitterer, yea bitterer than that, in proportion as the pledges deposited in thy soul were far more precious than those. This temple is holier than that; for it glistened not with gold and silver, but with the grace of the Spirit, and in place of the ark and the cherubim, it had Christ, and His Father, and the Paraclete seated within. But now all is changed, and the temple is desolate, and bare of its former beauty and comeliness, unadorned with its divine and unspeakable adornments, destitute of all security and protection; it has neither door nor bolt, and is laid open to all manner of soul-destroying and shameful thoughts; and if the thought of arrogance or for- nication, or avarice, or any more accursed than these, wish to enter in there is no one to hinder them; whereas formerly, even as the Heaven is inaccessible to all these, so also was the purity of thy soul. Now perhaps I shall seem to say what is incredible to some who now witness thy desolation and overthrow; for on this account I wail and mourn, and shall not cease doing so, until I see thee again established in thy former lustre. For although this seems to be impossible to men, yet to God all things are possible. For it is He “who raiseth the poor from the earth, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set him with the princes, even with the princes of his people.” It is He “who makes the barren woman to dwell at home, a mother rejoicing over her children.”223 Do not then despair of the most perfect change. For 221 Jer. ix. i. 222 See 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; and vi. 19. Ignatius the martyr had the name Θεοφόρος, “the God-bearer,” which was probably given at the time of his conversion, or of baptism, to remind him continually of his Christian privileges and duties. See note, p. 73. 223 Ps. cxiii. 7–9. Letter I 124 Letter I