Oddparts Press

follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and
the tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding
(plucked by some other's, not his own, guilt) had some Manichaean
saint eaten, and mingled with his bowels, he should breathe out of
it angels, yea, there shall burst forth particles of divinity, at
every moan or groan in his prayer, which particles of the most high
and true God had remained bound in that fig, unless they had been
set at liberty by the teeth or belly of some "Elect" saint! And I,
miserable, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of
the earth than men, for whom they were created. For if any one an
hungered, not a Manichaean, should ask for any, that morsel would seem
as it were condemned to capital punishment, which should be given him.

And Thou sentest Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul out of
that profound darkness, my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee
for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children.
For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned
the death wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou
heardest her, and despisedst not her tears, when streaming down,
they watered the ground under her eyes in every place where she
prayed; yea Thou heardest her. For whence was that dream whereby
Thou comfortedst her; so that she allowed me to live with her, and
to eat at the same table in the house, which she had begun to shrink
from, abhorring and detesting the blasphemies of my error? For she saw
herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a shining youth
coming towards her, cheerful and smiling upon her, herself grieving,
and overwhelmed with grief. But he having (in order to instruct, as is
their wont not to be instructed) enquired of her the causes of her
grief and daily tears, and she answering that she was bewailing my
perdition, he bade her rest contented, and told her to look and
observe, "That where she was, there was I also." And when she
looked, she saw me standing by her in the same rule. Whence was
this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart? O Thou Good
omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou caredst
for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one!