Letter 471

To Eupsychius the Vicar [vicarius, a senior Roman administrative official]. You asked me who, then, is the one indicated in the Gospels as having entered the wedding feast without a garment [Matthew 22:11]. Do not look around you on the outside, but examine your own heart; for we Christians have all been called to the divine wedding feast. If, therefore, we enter clothed in a reasoning that is avaricious, or fornicating, or envious, or the like, it is plain that we have dared to enter dressed in a robe foreign to the radiant and spotless wedding. But if we change our former mind and clothe ourselves, in our understanding, with a heart of compassion and mercy, with kindness and pure love, and gentleness, and humility of mind, and the things like these, it is plain that we have put on the garments worthy of the wedding. Let us therefore make haste to put on the saving garment of the spiritual wedding. For it lies within our own power to clothe ourselves and to strip ourselves, and to change our garments, now well, now badly, and to choose now this, now that; since man was created with free will.

Ἠρώτησάς με, τίς ἐστιν ἄρα ὁ δηλούμενος ἐν τοῖς Εὐαγγελίοις εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὸν γάμον μὴ ἔχων ἔνδυμα. Μὴ ἔξω περιβλέπου, ἀλλὰ τὴν σεαυτοῦ περισκόπει καρδίαν · πάντες γὰρ Χριστιανοὶ εἰς τὸν γάμον τὸν θεῖον κεκλήμεθα. Ἐὰν τοίνυν εἰσέλθωμεν λογισμὸν ἠμφιεσμένοι φιλάργυρον, ἢ φιλόπορνον, ἢ βάσκανον, ἢ τὰ ἑξῆς, δηλονότι ἀλλοτρίαν τοῦ φαιδροῦ καὶ ἀμωμήτου γάμου ἐνδεδυμένοι στολήν, εἰσελθεῖν τετολμήκαμεν. Ἐὰν δὲ μεταβαλόντες τὴν ἐπίλογον γνώμην, ἐνδυσώμεθα κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ καὶ ἐλεημοσύνης, χρηστότητά τε καὶ ἀγάπην καθαράν, καὶ πραότητα, καὶ ταπεινοφροσύνην, καὶ τὰ ὅμοια τούτοις, δῆλον ὅτι ἐνεδυσάμεθα τὰ ἄξια τοῦ γάμου ἱμάτια. Περιβαλέσθαι τοίνυν σπεύσωμεν τὸ τοῦ νοητοῦ γάμου σωτήριον ἔνδυμα. Τῶν γὰρ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν ἐστιν ἐνδύεσθαι, καὶ ἐκδύεσθαι, καὶ τὰς ἐσθῆτας ἀμείβειν, ποτὲ μὲν καλῶς, ποτὲ δὲ κακῶς, καὶ νῦν μὲν τοῦτο, νῦν δὲ ἐκεῖνο αἱρεῖσθαι · ἐπειδὴ αὐτεξούσιος ἐκτίσθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος.