subjected to the wrath of the populace and to the irrational impulses of the multitude, and to the fear of higher rulers, and to anxieties on behalf of those who are ruled, and the ruler of yesterday becomes a private citizen to-day; for this present life in no wise differs from a stage, but just as there, one man fills the position of a king, a second of a general, and a third of a soldier, but when evening has come on the king is no king, the ruler no ruler, and the general no general, even so also in that day each man will receive his due reward not accord- ing to the outward part which he has played but according to his works. Well! is glory a precious thing which perishes like the power of grass? or wealth, the possessors of which are pronounced unhappy? “For woe” we read, “to the rich;”315 and again, “Woe unto them who trust in their strength and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches!”316 But the Christian never becomes a private person after being a ruler, or a poor man after being rich, or without honour after being held in honour; but he abides rich even when he is poor, and is exalted when he strives to humble himself; and from the rule which he exercises no human being can depose him, but only one of those rulers who are under the power of this world’s potentate of darkness. “Marriage is right,” you say; I also assent to this. For “marriage,” we read, “is honourable and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge;”317 but it is no longer possible for thee to observe the right conditions of marriage. For if he who has been attached to a heavenly bridegroom deserts him, and joins himself to a wife the act is adultery, even if you call it marriage ten thousand times over; or rather it is worse than adultery in propor- tion as God is greater than man. Let no one deceive thee saying: “God hath not forbidden to marry;” I know this as well as you; He has not forbidden to marry, but He has forbidden to commit adultery, may you be preserved from ever engaging thyself in marriage! And why dost thou marvel if marriage is judged as if it were adultery, when God is disregarded? Slaughter has brought about righteousness, and mercy has been a cause of condemnation 114 more than slaughter; because the latter has been according to the mind of God but the former has been forbidden. It was reckoned to Phinees for righteousness that he pierced to death the woman who committed fornication, together with the fornicator;318 but Samuel, that saint of God although he wept and mourned and entreated for whole nights, could not rescue Saul from the condemnation which God issued against him, because he saved, contrary to the design of God, the king of the alien tribes whom he ought to have slain.319 If then mercy has been a cause of condemnation more than slaughter because God was disobeyed, 315 Luke vi. 24. 316 Ps. xlix. 6. 317 Heb. xiii. 4. 318 Num. xxv. 7–11. 319 1 Sam. xv. 162 Letter II