Letter 234

To the Same Person. Even though we are in the winter of our many trials, we shall not be hindered from celebrating the feast of the Dedication [the Encaenia, the rededication of the Temple] in Jerusalem, and from singing to the Lord, as David says, a new song, that is, a gospel one. For let Jerusalem now be understood by me as the soul, in which we celebrate the feast of the knowledge of God and of every kind of virtue, putting off the old man and clothing ourselves anew with the new man, the one created according to the image and likeness of the Lord: "For your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's" [Psalm 102:5 LXX]. "There came to pass, then," he says, "the Dedication at Jerusalem, and it was winter" [John 10:22].

Κἂν ἐν χειμῶνι ἔσμεν τῶν πολλῶν περιστάσεων οὐ κωλυθησόμεθα ἐπιτελεῖν τὴν ἑορτὴν τῶν ἐγκαι- νίων ἐν τῇ Ἰερουσαλήμ, καὶ ᾄδειν τῷ κυρίῳ, καθά φησιν ὁ Δαυΐδ, ἆσμα καινόν, δηλαδὴ εὐαγγελικόν. Ἰερουσαλὴμ γὰρ νῦν νοείσθω μοι ἡ ψυχή, ἐν ᾗ ἐπιτε- λοῦμεν τὴν ἑορτὴν τῆς θεογνωσίας, καὶ παντοίας ἀρετῆς, διωθούμενοι μὲν τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον, ἐπαμφιεσόμενοι δὲ τὸν νέον τὸν κατ’ εἰκόνα, καὶ ὁ- μοιώσειν τοῦ κυρίου κτισθέντα· « Ἀνακαινισθήσεται γὰρ ὡς ἀετοῦ ἡ νεότης σου. » Ἐγένετο οὖν, φησί, τὰ ἐγκαίνια ἐν Ἰεροσολύμοις, καὶ χειμὼν ἦν.