The Life of the Holy and Right-Believing Stefan the Tall, Despot of Serbia

and for the meadows, their expanses, and for the fields, their breadth; and the humming of the delicate air with certain wondrous voices; and the earth’s offerings of sweet-scented flowers, and of grasses; but the renewal and gladness of man’s own nature, who can worthily express?

All this, however, and the other wondrous works of God, which even the sharp-sighted mind cannot behold, love surpasses. And it is no wonder, for God is love, as John, the son of thunder, said.

No deceit has any place in love. For Cain, a stranger to love, said to Abel: “Let us go out into the field.”

Keen in some way and swift-flowing is the work of love; it surpasses every virtue.

Love David beautifully adorns, saying: “Like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard of Aaron, and like the dew of Hermon, that descends upon the mountains of Zion.”

Love love, young men and maidens, you who are fitted for love; but rightly and blamelessly, that you may not wound youth and virginity, by which our nature is joined to the Divine, lest the Godhead be displeased. For the Apostle said: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,