lessen

Of sea their measure lessen, setting bounds

Let the people alway take care about the early dawn, that arising and washing their hands they immediately pray. And so let each one go to the work which he willeth. Let all take care to pray at the third hour with mourning and labour, either in the church, or in the house because they cannot go (to the church). For this is the hour of the fixing of the Only-begotten on the cross. But at the sixth hour similarly let there be prayer with sorrow. For then the daylight was divided by the darkness. Let there be then that voice which is like to the prophets, and to creation mourning. At the ninth hour also let prayer be protracted, as with a hymn of praise that is like to the souls of those who give praise to God that lieth not, as one who hath remembered His saints, and hath sent His Word and Wisdom to enlighten them. For in that hour life was opened to the faithful, and blood and water were shed from the side of our Lord. But at evening, when it is the beginning of another day, shewing an image of the resurrection, He hath caused us to give praise. But at midnight let them arise praising and lauding because of the resurrection. But at dawn [let them arise] praising with psalms, because after He rose He glorified the Father while they were singing psalms. But if any have a consort or wife [not] faithful, let the husband who is faithful go and pray at these times without fail. Let those who are chaste not lessen [them]. For the adornments of heaven give praise, the lights, the sun, the moon, the stars, the lightnings, the thunders, the clouds, the angels, the archangels, the glories, the dominions, the whole [heavenly] army, the depths, the sea, the rivers, the wells, fire, dew, and all nature that produceth rain. All the saints also give praise and all the souls of the righteous. These, then, who pray are numbered together in the remembrance of God.

For this is that which our Lord taught us when we pray to say to His Father, Your will be done, as in heaven, so upon earth; that as the heavenly natures of the incorporeal powers do all glorify God with one consent, so also upon earth all men with one mouth and one purpose may glorify the only, the one, and the true God, by Christ His only-begotten. It is therefore His will that men should praise Him with unanimity, and adore Him with one consent. For this is His will in Christ, that those who are saved by Him may be many; but that you do not occasion any loss or diminution to Him, nor to the Church, or lessen the number by one soul of man, as destroyed by you, which might have been saved by repentance; and which therefore perishes not only by its own sin, but also by your treachery besides, whereby you fulfil that which is written, He that gathers not with me, scatters. Such a one is a disperser of the sheep, an adversary, an enemy of God, a destroyer of those lambs whose Shepherd was the Lord, and we were the collectors out of various nations and tongues, by much pains and danger, and perpetual labour, by watchings, by fastings, by lyings on the ground, by persecutions, by stripes, by imprisonments, that we might do the will of God, and fill the feast-chamber with guests to sit down at His table, that is, the holy and Catholic Church, with joyful and chosen people, singing hymns and praises to God that has called them by us to life. And you, as much as in you lies, have dispersed them. Do you also of the laity be at peace with one another, endeavouring like wise men to increase the Church, and to turn back, and tame, and restore those which seem wild. For this is the greatest reward by His promise from God, If you fetch out the worthy and precious from the unworthy, you shall be as my mouth.

And the children of Israel did the work of the men of Egypt day by day, and the Egyptians afflicted the children of Israel in order to lessen them in the land.

But this is the advice counselled by which you may lessen them, if it seems good to the king to afflict them.

For if thou thinkest to lessen them by the flaming fire, thou canst not prevail over them, for surely their God delivered Abraham their father from Ur of the Chaldeans; and if thou thinkest to destroy them with a sword, surely Isaac their father was delivered from it, and a ram was placed in his stead.

And if with hard and rigorous labor thou thinkest to lessen them, thou wilt not prevail even in this, for their father Jacob served Laban in all manner of hard work, and prospered.

It is true, these writers have the confidence to call their accounts histories; wherein yet they seem to me to fail of their own purpose, as well as to relate nothing that is sound. For they have a mind to demonstrate the greatness of the Romans, while they still diminish and lessen the actions of the Jews, as not discerning how it cannot be that those must appear to be great who have only conquered those that were little. Nor are they ashamed to overlook the length of the war, the multitude of the Roman forces who so greatly suffered in it, or the might of the commanders, whose great labors about Jerusalem will be deemed inglorious, if what they achieved be reckoned but a small matter.