Letter 383

To Gallus the Monk. What profit is there for you in your exile, and in the labor of ascetic discipline, and in all your great hardship, when your heart turns back again toward Egypt, and almost every single day you converse with your kinsfolk through letters, and through the burning affection of family ties you fall away from perfection? For perhaps you have not heard the Lord rebuking Mary when she sought him among his kinsfolk [Luke 2:48-49], and judging the one who loves father or mother above him to be unworthy of himself [Matthew 10:37], and through these words enjoining, without disorder, a severing of the bonds of kinship. If, then, you have left behind Haran -- which is interpreted "holes" [Greek trytle, a hollow or socket], and this signifies the senses -- and have come out from the valley of Hebron, that is, from the lowly works of sin, and from the wilderness in which wanderings occur, then hasten to migrate, as the patriarchs did, to Dothaim, that is, to the sufficient ceasing of carnal attachment; for Dothaim is interpreted "a sufficient ceasing," which all those strive to attain who reach out for the most blessed state of dispassion [apatheia].

Τί σοι ὄφελος τῆς ξενιτείας, καὶ τοῦ πόνου τῆς ἀσκήσεως, καὶ τῆς πολλῆς ταλαιπωρίας, πάλιν τῇ καρδίᾳ εἰς Αἴγυπτον στρεφομένῃ, καὶ καθεκάστην σχεδὸν ἡμέραν διὰ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν τοῖς οἰκείοις προσομιλοῦντι, καὶ τῷ διαπύρῳ φίλτρῳ τῆς συγγενείας ἀποσφαλλομένῳ τῆς τελειότητος; Τάχα γὰρ οὐκ ἤκουσας τοῦ Κυρίου ἐπιτιμῶντος τῇ Μαρίᾳ ἐν τοῖς συγγενέσιν ἐζητούσῃ αὐτὸν, καὶ τὸν φιλοῦντα πατέρα, ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ αὐτὸν, κρίνοντος ἀνάξιον ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ διὰ τῶν λόγων τούτων ἀσαρότως ἔκλειψιν τῶν συγγενικῶν ὑποτιθεμένου δεσμῶν; Εἰ γοῦν καταλέλοιπας τὴν Χαῤῥὰν, ὅπερ ἑρμηνεύεται τρύτλη, τοῦτο δὲ σημαίνει τὰς αἰσθήσεις, καὶ ἐκ τῆς κοιλάδος Χεβρὼν ἐξῆλθες, τουτέστι τῶν ταπεινῶν ἔργων τῆς ἁμαρτίας, καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἐρήμου, καθ’ ἣν γίνονται πλάναι, σπεῦσον μετοικισθῆναι κατὰ τοὺς πατριάρχας, εἰς Δωθαείμ, τουτέστι εἰς τὴν ἱκανὴν ἔκλειψιν τῆς σαρκικῆς προσπαθείας· Δωθαεὶμ γὰρ ἱκανὴ ἔκλειψις ἑρμηνεύεται, ὅπερ ἐπιτυχεῖν ἀγωνίζονται πάντες, ὅσοι ὀρέγονται τῆς μακαριωτάτης ἀπαθείας.