More feeble than a shadow

[py3ak]

At the end of Theodoret's History of the Monks of Syria there is included a moving address, On Divine Love. Here is a little extract from that:

He who arranged the marriage and presented the bride—I mean the inspired Paul—was also enamored of this beauty, and uttered this expression of desire: ‘Who will separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being put to death all the day long; we have been reckoned as sheep for slaughter.’ He then indicates the cause of endurance: ‘in all these things,’ he says, ‘we more than conquer, through God who has loved us’. Let us examine who we are and what benefits we have enjoyed, and that it was not we who loved first, but being loved we gave love in return; while hating we were loved, and ‘while enemies we were reconciled.’ We did not ourselves beg to obtain reconciliation, but received the Only-begotten as intercessor; those who had wronged were consoled by him they had wronged. In addition to this, let us reflect upon him who was crucified for us, the saving passion, the repose of death, the hope of resurrection that has been given to us.
When we examine these and the like, we overcome the melancholy things that fall to our lot; and by applying the memory of benefits to the temporary hardships of the body we gladly bear the attack of things distressing. When we weigh up against longing for the Master all the sorrows of life, we find them light indeed. Even if we assemble together all that is pleasurable and seems delightful, divine yearning, when put in the balance, shows them to be more feeble than a shadow and more perishable than spring blossoms.​