Nisibene Hymn 16: The Mirror

In this a mirror is to blame:

if its clearness is darkened

because there are spots on its substance;

for the dirt that is on it becomes

a covering before those who look into it.

Refrain: Blessed be he who polished our mirror!

For since beauty is not adorned in it,

and blemishes are not brought to view in it,

it is wholly a loss to lovely things,

since their loveliness does not gain

adornments for its profit.

Blemishes are not rooted out by it,

and likewise adornments are not multiplied by it.

A blemish that remains is a loss;

that there is no adornment is a lack;

loss is joined to lack.

If our mirror is darkness,

it is pure joy to the hateful,

because their blemishes are not reproved;

but if it is polished and shining,

it is our freedom that is adorned.

Twofold is the loss in the lack,

for the hateful and for the lovely:

the lovely win no crown,

and likewise the hateful get no adorning;

the mirror divides the loss.

Never does the mirror drive

by compulsion the one who looks into it;

so likewise grace, which followed

upon the righteousness of the Law,

does not have the compulsion of the Law.

For childhood, righteousness was

an adorner by compulsion;

for when mankind was in its childhood,

she adorned it by compulsion,

while she did not rob it of its freedom.

Righteousness used coaxing

and the rod to deal with childhood;

when she struck it she roused it;

her rod restrained its willfulness,

her coaxing softened its minds.

If anyone turns from the gospel

with which we are adorned today, my brothers and sisters,

to another gospel, he is a child;

in a time of grown understanding

he has become without understanding.

For in the rank of full age

he has gone down to childhood;

and he loves the law of slaves,

which strikes him when he is confident

and beats him when he rejoices.

Whatever ornament comes by compulsion

is not true but borrowed.

This is a great thing in God’s eyes:

that a person should be adorned by himself;

so he took compulsion away.

For just as in his prudence

he used compulsion in its own time,

so likewise in his prudence

he took it away at a time

when gentleness was wanted in its place.

For as it is fitting for Youth

to be made to hurry under the rod,

so it is very hateful that Wisdom

should be brought to serve under the rod,

and compulsion be master over her.

See, then, how God has likewise

ordered my successions:

in the pastors I have had,

in the teachers he has given me,

and in the fathers he has counted out to me!

For the helps of their qualities

were weighed out according to their times:

in the one in whom it was needed, fear;

in the one in whom it was profitable, encouragement;

and in the one in whom it was fitting, meekness.

He made my steps advance by measure:

to my childhood he assigned terror, and likewise to my youth, fear;

to my age of wisdom and prudence

he assigned and gave meekness.

In the willfulness of childhood’s rank,

my instructor was a fear to me:

his rod restrained me from wantonness,

the terror of him from mischief,

and the fear of him from indulgence.

He gave another father to my youth:

whatever childishness there was in me,

that was in him as hardness;

whatever maturity there was in me,

that was in him as meekness.

When I rose from the ranks

of childhood and of youth,

the terror that was first passed away,

the fear that was second passed away;

he gave me a kind pastor.

See! For my full age, his food;

for my wisdom, his interpretations;

for my peace, his meekness;

for my rest, his kindness;

and for my chastity, his gravity!

Blessed is he who, as in a balance,

weighed out fathers and gave them to me:

for my helps were according to my times,

my medicines according to my sicknesses,

and my adornments according to my beauties!

It is we, then, who have disturbed

the succession and its fair order;

for in a time of mildness,

see, we crave hardness,

that you should rebuke us as though we were children!