Letter 125

To Genethlius. "With bit and bridle he will constrain their jaws, like those of beasts" [Psalm 31:9 LXX] -- the jaws of those who flee from you, O God; so David cried out as he played the harp. For just as we tame a horse, even an unwilling one, with the bridle -- not out of hatred, but to establish for it an orderly course, restraining its unruliness by order, and reshaping its unseemly and undisciplined plunging into an orderly path -- so does God: if he sees a soul being broken in like a colt, careering this way and that, he leads it toward what is more becoming, even against its will.

Ἐν κημῷ καὶ χαλινῷ τὰς σιαγόνας αὐτῶν ἄξει; καθάπερ κτηνῶν, ὁ θεός, τῶν ἀποφευγόντων σε, ὁ Δαυῒδ κιθαρίζων ἐβόα. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡμεῖς ἵππον καὶ ἄκοντα χαλινῷ δαμάζομεν, οὐ μισοῦντες, ἀλλ’ εὐτακτον αὐτῷ τὴν δρόμον καθιστῶντες, καὶ τὴν ἄτακτον αὐτοῦ τῇ τάξει περιστέλλοντες, καὶ τὸ ἄκοσμον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀπαίδευτον πήδημα, εἰς εὔτακτον ὁδὸν μεταρρυθμίζοντες, οὕτως ὁ θεός; ἐὰν ἴδῃ ψυχὴν πωλευομένην ὧδε κἀκεῖσε, ἄγει αὐτὴν πρὸς τὸ εὐπρεπέστερον, καὶ μὴ θέλουσαν.