Введение

Having a custom, known to you, most honorable Agathius, to avoid for the most part useless gatherings with boring people and, when need forces you to leave the house, to spend time in the quietest places, and yesterday I walked outside the city. And the sight of the grove, and the pleasant singing of the birds that harmoniously announced it, and the clean breath of the fresh wind calmed me, like a shaky cradle. At this time you are coming to me, however, hesitantly, like a man who constantly falls to his knee, then stands up. Based on my thoughtfulness, you concluded that my solitude (which was the actual truth) was not for nothing. “This silence,” you reasoned, “certainly has some important reason; There is no such silence without action if the mind is not brought into self-absorption by something worthy of reflection.” But, noticing that I am giving you a sign and waiting for you not without pleasure, you come up, greet me, walk with me and ask about the reason for my thoughtfulness; then, having learned that I am busy and preoccupied with researching the issue I am writing about, you take my hand, bring it to your lips, kiss it and, smiling very cheerfully, say to me: “And now I have brought you a new concern: I want to point out a subject that is worth writing about, can benefit many, can convert many from the now increased luxury to a chaste life.” Having an occupation sufficient for my strength - psalms, due to some greed not to miss the opportunity to write about something, not without care, I asked you, what kind of subject is this? What could be of benefit to both current and future readers? Vanity has spread its all-enveloping nets wide everywhere, it has captured everyone, it holds everyone even without a net in its power; like a snare she placed wealth, rank, domination, amusements, obscene pleasures all around; everyone remains enslaved to that passion to which vanity has found him most inclined. She not only forces him to serve the belly or some other bodily need, but also forces him to fill his treasuries with unjustly acquired property, forces him, when others are melting away from hunger, to carefully preserve what he has accumulated poorly, and save, perhaps, for those who will not use it for good; why the one who collects will be condemned to severe punishment, both as having offended the weak, instead of helping them, and as having taken away from them, having prepared a means for a dissolute life for those who, with moderate income, could often live chastely. For abundance, with the opportunity to spend a lot, increases a person’s attachment to unauthorized pleasures and gradually brings him to the extreme limit of intemperance, teaches him to glory in obscene deeds. But you began to passionately describe to me Peristeria, a woman, as the rumor goes, famous for her rank, and, as you claimed, even more famous for her spiritual virtues; and you listed in her many high good qualities: her abstinence, love of poverty, constant teaching in the words of God, diligent and tender prayer, generous extravagance of property on the needy, chastity even in her gaze and in her very thoughts, respectful care for deceased strangers and the poor, compassion for everyone who is in need for any reason, respect for to the pious, caring for those who have taken upon themselves the monastic life, sociability with them in what is necessary for their bodily needs, so that she, although the marital yoke prevents her from remaining silent and working with them, nevertheless participates in their lives, serving them in what is necessary for life and thereby freeing them from worldly cares, and devoting to herself a part of their undistracted service to God. Having recounted all this and even more, you then said that often, through the machinations of the devil, she falls into temptation and sorrow, making it clear through this that there is a strong opponent to her feat. At first I was perplexed whether it was really possible for such a plant to grow in our family as you are talking about; In our country, to speak the truth, instead of garden and fruitful trees, everything is filled with barren and wild forest; and new branches grow and turn green in it; it stands unshakably, holding on to its roots deeply sunk into the ground, spreading its long branches immeasurably wide and, covered with thick leaves, providing such shade that the ray of a good thought can never warm the depths of the heart, darkened by the sin that has permeated our deeds. Then, having thought it over and recognizing it as unnecessary to find out exactly whether there is such a person on earth or not, I eagerly began to write, convinced that the subject was useful in itself, even if there was no one to confirm this with their deeds. For when a word in its favor has evidence in the very essence of the matter, then it quickly convinces, and the listener is led to confirmation of what is being proven without any example by the truth and thoroughness of what is being proven, without giving the opportunity to contradict even those who are extremely accustomed to contradictions. Just as no one doubts that in a cloudy sky the sun exists and flows, that even in winter the fruit lies in the plant, because it has previous experience as a teacher worthy of respect, so everyone unquestioningly recognizes beauty as beautiful. Although poor skill apparently maintains an attachment to the bad in the soul, conscience is ashamed to persistently evade recognition of the truth, and considers it vile and extremely reprehensible to dispute the obvious. I also reasoned from the other side: what was possible for someone in ancient times is now possible for those who wish; because the same nature was then, and now continues to be, the same in everyone, and does not provide a plausible excuse to plead impotence for those who, due to their own long-term habit of not doing anything that serves the benefit, consider it impossible to succeed in the virtue of husbands and wives who lived in ancient times. I did not consider it reasonable to believe that it is possible for someone to arouse in himself the determination to compete with these blessed ones in a strict life according to the law and to grow the fruits of virtue, because the power of nature that was in them is sufficient to produce new and flourishing branches from an old stump. If Noah, of the entire modern race, condemned to final destruction in the flood and completely destroyed by the flood waters, was the only one who pleased God; if among the barbarians, who, due to long-term practice, were entrenched in lawlessness, like a white lily among the thorns that grew everywhere, the most truthful and true man Job flourished; if the Sodom country, burned by lightning fire, had within itself the wanderer Lot, who was honored with God’s mercy; if different times produced Rahab, and Deborah, and Esther, and Judith, Phoebe and Priscilla, Chamois and Lydia, and many others; if someone was distinguished in any way by his life, again painting in himself with bright colors the image of natural nobility erased by time, so that, having completely and completely faded away, the beginning of the ancient good life does not force one to recognize as completely incredible what is written about those who lived well; then wouldn’t it be strange to deny that just as in other times there were similar people, so now (although due to the prevailing seduction this seems unrealistic) there will be such a soul who, through its good deeds, will testify to its affinity with these ancient ones and is adorned with the advantages that have been calculated by you, O dear head? 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