XVII. AS the good of the body
is health, so the good of the soul is knowledge, which is indeed a kind
of health of soul, by which a likeness to God is attained. —From
the writings of John of Damascus.
XVIII. TO yield and give way
to our passions is the lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the
only liberty. The greatest of all good is to be free from sin, the next
is to be justified; but he must be reckoned the most unfortunate of men,
who, while living unrighteously, remains for a long time unpunished. Animals
in harness cannot but be carried over a precipice by the inexperience and
badness of their driver, even as by his skilfulness and excellence they
will be saved. The end contemplated by a philosopher is likeness to God,
so far as that is possible. —From the writings of Antonius
Melissa.
XIX. [THE words] of St. Justin,
philosopher and martyr, from the fifth part of his Apology:—I reckon
prosperity, O men, to consist in nothing else than in living according
to truth. But we do not live properly, or according to truth, unless we
understand the nature of things. It escapes them apparently, that he who
has by a true faith come forth from error to the truth, has truly known
himself, not, as they say, as being in a state of frenzy, but as free from
the unstable and (as to every variety of error) changeable corruption,
by the simple and ever identical truth.—From the writings
of John of Damascus.
