On the Faith ("The Pearl")

¹ O gift that camest up without price with the diver! You laid hold upon this visible light, that without price rises for the children of men: a parable of the hidden One that without price gives the hidden Dayspring!

And the painter too paints a likeness of you with colours. Yet by you is faith painted in types and emblems for colours, and in the place of the image by you and your colours is your Creator painted.

O you frankincense without smell, who breathes types from out of you! You are not to be eaten, yet you give a sweet smell unto them that hear you! You are not to be drunk, yet by your story, a fountain of types are you made unto the ears!

2. It is you which are great in your littleness, O pearl! Small is your measure and little your compass with your weight; but great is your glory: to that crown alone in which you are placed, there is none like.

And who has not perceived of your littleness, how great it is; if one despises you and throws you away, he would blame himself for his clownishness, for when he saw you in a king's crown he would be attracted to you.

3. Men stripped their clothes off and dived and drew you out, pearl! It was not kings that put you before men, but those naked ones who were a type of the poor and the fishers and the Galileans.

For clothed bodies were not able to come to you; they came that were stript as children; they plunged their bodies and came down to you; and you much desired them, and you aided them who thus loved you.

Glad tidings did they give for you: their tongues before their bosoms did the poor [fishers] open, and produced and showed the new riches among the merchants: upon the wrists of men they put you as a medicine of life.

4. The naked ones in a type saw your rising again by the sea-shore; and by the side of the lake they, the Apostles of a truth, saw the rising again of the Son of your Creator. By you and by your Lord the sea and the lake were beautified.

The diver came up from the sea and put on his clothing; and from the lake too Simon Peter came up swimming and put on his coat; clad as with coats, with the love of both of you, were these two.

5. And since I have wandered in you, pearl, I will gather up my mind, and by having contemplated you, would become like you, in that you are all gathered up into yourself; and as you in all times are one, one let me become by you!

Pearls have I gathered together that I might make a crown for the Son in the place of stains which are in my members. Receive my offering, not that You are shortcoming; it is because of my own shortcoming that I have offered it to You. Whiten my stains!

This crown is all spiritual pearls, which instead of gold are set in love, and instead of ouches in faith; and instead of hands, let praise offer it up to the Highest!