Then, since the Apostle commands us to pray always, and with the saints even sleep itself is prayer, we must distribute the hours for prayer in such a way that, if we happen to be busy with some work, the very time will call us to worship. Everyone knows the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, the dawn and the evening. Let them not partake of food without first praying; do not leave the table without offering thanks to the Creator. We must get up twice and three times at night and repeat what we firmly remember from the Scriptures. Let prayer protect us when we leave the guests. When we return from the square, let prayer greet us before we sit down: let not the body rest until the soul is nourished. In every deed, at every step, let the cross of the Lord be depicted with the hand. Do not condemn anyone, do not put a stumbling block against your mother's son. Who art thou, who condemn another man's servant? He stands before his Lord, or falls. And he will be raised, for God is able to raise him up (Romans 14:4). If you fast for two or three days, do not think that you are better than those who do not fast. You do not eat and are angry, but he eats and shines with his forehead. When you are angry, you express anxiety of the soul and hunger of the body; he eats with moderation and thanks God. That is why Isaiah cries out every day: Can you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord? (Isaiah 58:5). And again: On the day of your fasting you do your will, and demand hard labor from others. Behold, ye fast for strife and strife, and to strike others with a bold hand (Isaiah 58:3-4). Why then do you fast for me? What kind of fast can one have whose anger lasts not only beyond the limits of one day, but even for a whole month? Reflecting on yourself, build up your praise not on the weakness of another, but on your own podvig.

Do not imitate those who, taking care of the flesh, count all the income from their possessions and daily household expenses. The eleven apostles were not put to shame by the betrayal of Judas, and through the apostasy of Phigellus and Alexander, others were not stopped from the flow of faith. Do not say: "So-and-so uses her riches; it is respected by people; Brothers and sisters gather at her place. Is it through this very thing that she ceases to be a virgin?" Yes, it is doubtful whether she is a virgin in the first place: I [do not look] as a man looks; for a man looks on the face, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Therefore, even if she is a virgin in the flesh, I do not know whether she is a virgin in spirit. The Apostle defines the virgin in this way: let her be holy in body and spirit (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:34). Finally, let her get her glory. Let him reject the thought of the Apostle, live and enjoy pleasures. We will follow the best examples. Imagine the blessed Mary, who was so blameless that she was vouchsafed to be the Mother of the Lord. When the Angel Gabriel descended to Her in the form of a man, saying: Rejoice, O Blessed One, the Lord is with Thee, in fear and horror She could not answer, because She had never accepted greetings from her husband. Then She recognizes the messenger and speaks. And She Who feared man fearlessly converses with the Angel. You can also be the mother of the Lord. Take thee a large scroll, and inscribe on it in human writing, and when thou wilt come to the prophetess, and conceive in thy womb, and bear a son (Isaiah 8:1), then say: For Thy fear's sake, O Lord, thou hast conceived in thy womb, and has been afflicted, and hast brought forth the spirit of thy salvation, which thou hast created on earth (Isaiah 26:18). Then thy Son shall answer thee, and say, Behold my mother and my brethren (Mark 3:34). And He Whom you will write on the leaf of your breast a short time before, Whom you will write in a new book of the heart, He, having taken away the profit of your enemies, having put to shame principalities and powers, and nailed them to the cross, will grow up and, becoming old, will miraculously make you His bride from your mother. Great is the podvig, but great is the reward – to be what the martyrs are; than the apostles; to be what Christ is. However, all this is useful when it happens in the Church; when we celebrate Pascha in a common house; if we enter the ark with Noah; if at the destruction of Jericho we are kept by the justified harlot Rahab. But those who are revered as virgins by various heretics, such as the impious Manichaeans, are to be revered as harlots, and not virgins. For if the devil is the creator of their body, how can they honor the maiden name — honorably, they hide the wolf under sheep's clothing. The Antichrist pretends to be Christ; and they falsely cover up a shameful life with an honorable name. Rejoice, sister, rejoice, daughter, rejoice, dear virgin, for you have in fact become what others only pretend to be.

All our reasoning will seem burdensome to one who does not love Christ. But whoever considers all the pomp of the world to be dust, and all that is under the sun vanity, who has died with his Lord and is resurrected, who has crucified his flesh with passions and lusts, will gladly exclaim: Who shall separate us from the love of God, tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? And then: "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:35; 38–39). For the sake of our salvation, the Son of God becomes the son of man. For nine months in the womb he waits for birth, endures such humiliation, comes out bloodied, wraps himself in swaddling clothes, accepts playful caresses, and He who embraces the world lies in a cramped manger. I do not say that until the age of thirty in obscurity He shares the misery of His parents; struck by blows, he is silent, and when crucified, he prays for the tormentors. What shall I repay the Lord for all that I have repaid? I will receive the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord... Honorable in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Psalm 115:3-4, 6). There is only one worthy recompense: when blood is paid for with blood, and when, redeemed by the blood of Christ, we willingly die for the Redeemer. Which of the righteous received the crown without torment? Righteous Abel was killed; Abraham is put to the test of losing his wife. But in order not to stretch my letters beyond measure, search and you will find that they have all suffered misfortunes. Solomon alone lived in the midst of pleasures, which is perhaps why he fell. The Lord chastens whom He loves; but he smites every son whom he receives" (Heb. 12:6). Is it not better to fight for a short time, to entrench oneself, to arm oneself, to languish under armor and then rejoice with the victor, than to fall into slavery forever for the impatience of one hour?

Nothing is hard for lovers. No labor is difficult for the well-disposed. See what conditions Jacob accepted because of Rachel's wife: and Jacob worked, says the Scripture, for Rachel seven years; and they appeared to him in a few days, because he loved her (Gen. 29:20). Then he himself later mentions: "I languished by day from the heat, and by night from the cold" (Gen. 31:40). Let us also begin to love Christ, let us constantly seek His embrace, and to us all that is difficult will seem easy, and all that is long will be considered short; and, wounded by His spear, let us say every minute: Alas for me, for my sojourn shall continue" (Psalm 119:5). The present temporal sufferings are worth nothing in comparison with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18); for out of tribulation proceedeth patience, out of patience experience, out of experience hope, but hope does not put to shame (Rom. 5:3-5). When the podvig you have undertaken seems difficult to you, read the 2nd Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: I have been much more in labor, immeasurably in wounds, more in prisons, and many times in death. From the Jews five times I was given forty [stripes] without one; three times I was beaten with sticks, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent night and day in the depths [of the sea]; many times [was] on journeys, in dangers on the rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from fellow tribesmen, in dangers from pagans, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brethren, in labor and in weariness, often in vigil, in hunger and thirst, often in fasting, in cold and nakedness (2 Corinthians 11:11).  23–27). Who among us can appropriate even a small part of these feats? For this reason he rightly said afterwards: "I have fought the good fight, I have completed the course, I have kept the faith; but now a crown of righteousness is prepared for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me (2 Tim. 4:7-8). We are angry if food is undersalted; and we think that we do some good to God when we drink wine mixed with water. The cup is broken, the table is overturned, blows are heard - and the cold water is avenged by bloodshed. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away (Matt. 11:12). If you do not do violence to yourself, you will not rapture the Kingdom of Heaven. If you do not knock relentlessly, you will not receive the mysterious bread. Do you think that it is not violence when the flesh wants to be what God is, and where the Angels have fallen, it ascends to judge the Angels?

I beseech you, come out of prison for a while and present before your eyes those rewards for the present feat: eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man (1 Corinthians 2:9). What will be the day when Mary, the Mother of the Lord, will meet you with the faces of the virgins? When Mary, the sister of Aaron, as after crossing the Red Sea and after the drowning of Pharaoh and his army, holding the tympanum in her hand, begins to sing, and the choir answers her: I sing to the Lord, for He is exalted highly; did He cast his horse and rider into the sea (Exodus 15:1)? Then Thekla will happily throw herself into your arms. Then the Bridegroom Himself will come out to meet you and say: Arise, my beloved, my beautiful, come out! Behold, the winter is already past; the rain has passed, it has ceased (Song of Songs 2:10-11). Then the angels will be amazed and say: Who is this, shining like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun? (Song of Songs 6:10). Daughters will look at you, queens will praise you, married women will praise you. Then the other chaste faces will meet you: Sarah will go out with the wives; Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, with widows. In different faces will appear thine mother according to the flesh and spirit: she who gave birth shall rejoice; she who taught will rejoice. Then the Lord will indeed sit on the lot and enter the Heavenly Jerusalem. And the youths, of whom the Saviour speaks in Isaiah: "Behold, I am, and the children whom the Lord hath given me" (Isaiah 8:18), bringing forth the victorious branches, will sing with harmonious lips: Hosanna! blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, King of Israel! (John 12:13). Then the hundred, and the fourty, and the four thousand before the throne, and the elders, shall take up the harp and sing a new song. And no one can learn to sing, only this designated number of persons. they are those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:4). Whenever worldly vanity seduces you, no matter how glorious something in the world may seem to you, transport your mind to paradise: begin to be what you intend to be in the future, and you will hear from your Bridegroom: Put me as a seal on your heart, like a ring on your hand (Song of Songs 8:6), — and, protected both physically and spiritually together, thou shalt cry out and say: The great waters cannot quench love, neither shall the rivers flood it (Song of Songs 8:7).

To summer. On the upbringing of children

The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, instructing the young Church in the sacred rules, among other commandments, gave the following: A wife who has an unbelieving husband, and he agrees to live with her, must not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband. Otherwise your children would have been unclean, but now they are holy (1 Corinthians 7:13-14). If, perhaps, it has hitherto seemed to any one that the bonds of discipline are here exceedingly weakened, and that the teacher is immoderately lenient, let him look at the house of thy father, though a man of the greatest and most learned, but still walking in darkness (paganism), and he will see that the advice of the Apostle is directed to ensure that the bitterness of the root should be rewarded with the sweetness of the fruit, and that the ignoble vines should give a precious balm. You were born of an unequal marriage; from thee and from my Toxotius was born Paul. Who would have believed that Pontifex Albinus, as a result of his mother's vow, would have a granddaughter who, in the presence of his delighted grandfather, would sing Christ's "Alleluia" in the still babbling tongue of a child? Who would believe that an old man would raise a virgin of God in his bosom? But our hopes were true and happy. A holy and faithful house sanctifies an unfaithful man. He is already a hostage of faith, who is surrounded by a faithful crowd of sons and grandsons. I think even if he were still a young man and had such a kinship, he could have believed in Christ. Let him spit and ridicule my letter, let him shout that I am both stupid and extravagant; so did his son-in-law, until he believed. Christians are made, not born. The gilded Capitol is dirty. All the temples in Rome were sooty with soot and covered with cobwebs. Rome has moved from its foundations, and the people, who formerly flooded the half-ruined temples, are hastening to the tombs of the martyrs. If prudence does not compel us to believe, at least conscientiousness will.

I have told you this, Lethe, the most pious daughter in Christ, so that you do not despair of the salvation of your father; by the same faith with which you have gained your daughter, by the same faith you will gain your father, and you will enjoy the bliss of the whole family; remember the well-known promise of the Lord: "That which is impossible with men is possible with God" (Luke 18:27). Conversion can never be late. The thief entered paradise from the cross. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who turned into a beast in body and soul and lived with the beasts in the wilderness, again acquired human meaning. But I will leave the ancient examples, so that they do not seem too fabulous to unbelievers.

The gods, once the gods of the peoples, remain with only owls and owls on the rooftops. The sign of the cross became a sign of war. Scarlet robes and diadems of kings burning with precious stones are decorated with the image of the saving instrument of execution. Already the Egyptian Serapis had become a Christian. Merna, locked in Gaza, weeps and waits in terror for the destruction of the temple any day. Every day crowds of monks from India, Persia, and Ethiopia come to us. The Armenian laid down his quiver. The Huns study the Psalter, the Scythian frosts blaze with the fire of faith; The red-haired and blond army of the Getae carry tents everywhere with them, serving as churches, and perhaps because they fight against us with equal skill, that they equally profess the same religion.

But I turned aside, and while I was imagining making a jug on a revolving wheel, my hand made a bucket. Yielding to the entreaties of St. Marcella and yours, I intended to address my speech to my mother, that is, to you, and to teach how you should educate our Paula, who was consecrated to Christ before she was born, whom you doomed before you conceived in the womb. And before our eyes there is something of what is described in the books of the prophets: Hannah changed the barrenness of the womb into fertility (see 1 Sam. ch. 1) — you changed your unhappy fertility into a happy one, you received tenacious children. I say with full confidence that you will receive sons because you gave the first fruit of your womb to the Lord. This is the firstborn who was sacrificed according to the law. Thus was Samuel conceived; thus was born Samson; thus John the Baptist arose and leaped at the entrance of Mary; for he heard the words of the Lord, thundering through the mouth of the Virgin, and jumped up to burst out of his mother's womb to meet Him. Thus, that which is born as a result of a vow must also receive from its parents an upbringing worthy of its origin. Samuel is brought up in the temple; John is being prepared in the wilderness. He is honored with sacred hair, does not drink wine or strong drink; while still a child, he converses with God. This one flees the cities, girds himself with a leather belt, feeds on locusts and wild honey, and for the personification of repentance, which he was supposed to preach, he dresses himself in the skin of the most humpbacked animal.

The soul, which is to be the temple of God, must be educated in the following way. Let it learn to listen and say only that which pertains to the fear of God. Let her not understand shameful words, nor worldly songs; let her childish tongue learn sweet psalms. The company of frisky boys must be removed from her; The girls and maids themselves must refrain from talking to her in the world, lest they should teach her what they have badly understood themselves. For it, alphabetic letters should be made of beech wood or ivory and each should be called by its own name. Let her amuse herself with them, so that the amusement itself may be a study for her. And not only must she remember the order of the letters, and turn their names into songs for herself, but the alphabet must often be thrown into disorder, the last letters must be confused with the middle letters, and the middle letters with the first, so that she may recognize them not only by their sound, but also by their appearance. And when she begins to move the pen over the paper with a trembling hand, it is necessary either for someone to guide it with gentle fingers, or to cut out letters on the blackboard, so that the line drawn along the grooves stretches in the outskirts and cannot go beyond them. Let her join syllables in order to receive a reward, and let gifts that serve as amusement for this age be a stimulus for her. Let her study with friends whom she might envy, whose praise might incite her. If she is less understanding than them, she should not be scolded; but it is necessary to excite her faculties with praise, so that she may rejoice when she gets the better of them, and regret when they surpass her. Most of all, he must beware that she does not hate learning, so that the aversion to it, which was preoccupied in childhood, does not pass into his younger years. The names themselves, over which she will gradually become accustomed to compose words, should not be some accidental, but known and deliberately chosen, such as: the names of the prophets and apostles, and the whole series of names of the patriarchs, beginning with Adam, as he is given by Matthew and Luke; this is so that, by doing one thing, she would prepare her memory for another, the future. A person of mature years, a good life and with good information should be chosen as a teacher; I do not think that a learned man would be ashamed to assume the same duties to a relative or a noble maiden as Aristotle assumed to the son of Philip, in order to teach the alphabet himself at the same cheap price as scribes receive. One should not despise as unimportant that without which even great things are impossible. The very pronunciation of letters and the first rudiments of learning are taught differently by scholars and differently by the ignorant. Therefore, take care that your daughter does not learn the absurd custom of women to distort words out of caressing, and that she is not accustomed to amuse herself with gold and purple; the former harms the language, the latter the morals; Let him not learn in childhood what he will need to get out of the habit of later.

It is written that the eloquence of the Gracchi was greatly benefited by the speech of their mother, which they had listened to since childhood. Hortense's speech had grafted on him in his father's arms. It is difficult to exterminate that which is impressed by young souls. Who will restore the former whiteness of the wool dyed purple? A new jug retains the taste and smell of what it was first poured for a long time. Greek history tells us that Alexander, being the most powerful king and conqueror of the universe, was for a long time unable to free himself from the shortcomings in the character and gait of his teacher Leonidas, which he had contracted in childhood. It is very easy to compete with evil, and if you are not able to imitate the virtues of others, you soon assimilate their vices. The mother herself should not be a drunkard, not a wriggler, not a chatterbox; She must have a modest nurse, and a sedate tutor. When he sees his grandfather, let him throw himself on his chest, hang on his neck, and even if he does not want to, let him repeat: "Alleluia." The grandmother will carry it away by force; she will greet her father with smiles; everyone will love her; and all your generation will be comforted by the rose born of him. But at the same time, let her find out what other grandmother and aunt she has; so that she would understand for what emperor, for what army her little warrior was being brought up in her person. She must strive for them, and her departure to them will threaten you.

Its very appearance and clothing should prepare it for what it is intended for. Do not pierce, I warn you, her ears; do not paint with white and rouge a face dedicated to Christ; do not strangle her neck with gold and pearls; do not burden your heads with precious stones; Do not color her hair red, and do not remind her of the fire of hell in any way. Let her have other kinds of pearls, by selling which she will later buy herself a most precious pearl. It once happened that a noblewoman, a woman of the noblest family, by order of her husband Hymetius, who was the uncle of the virgin Eustochia, changed her clothes and clothes, and her hair, which had been neglected until that time, braided according to secular custom, hoping to defeat the intention of her daughter and the desire of her mother.