Discipline, Pride, and the Law

Those having sheep and goats, that is, those possessing passions and impasses. Thus also he brought forward those having weeds and those having grain having grain, naming them according to the best and worst skill. Such is also what is said by Paul, 'Love does not fail' (1 Cor 13:8), instead of 'He who has love.' A righteous king raises up a land: Christ raises up the rational nature, but the antichrist undermines it. And to a poor man there is no discerning mind: surely he is poor who does not have a discerning mind.

And a foolish man being angry is laughed at and does not fall: 'And upon him, says David, they will laugh and say, Behold a man who did not set God as his helper' (Ps 35:16; Ps 36:14). Men of blood hate the holy, but the upright seek its soul: this one seeks the soul of a righteous man, he who wishes to understand things as they have been thought. A wise man is stored up by parts: this one stores up his passion by parts, namely, he who is angry at things toward the righteous, or he who consumes his passion by parts through long-suffering; and toward the simple one the former should be spoken, but toward the diligent the latter.

There shall not be an interpreter for the nations to the lawless: to those who have kept the law there shall be an interpreter; but to those who have acted lawlessly, an interpreter there shall not be, but a punisher shall be; if indeed not a word but a rod is given to the lawless for the nations. A hard servant will not be instructed by words: because no one is hard by nature, it demonstrates, 'For even if he should understand, he will not obey' (Exod 7:22); for he who is hard by nature would never understand anything rightlylyly. I say this because of Pharaoh the hard...

Having been set upon Israel, and having been disciplined not with words but with punishmentishmentishment. He who squanders shall be a servant from childhood. If squandering makes one sin, and everyone doing the sin is a slave to sin, then everyone who squanders is a slave to sin.

Pride humbles a man: Now he calls the wickedness of the rational soul 'pride'. He who divides with a thief hates his own soul: The thief, he says, does not come except to steal and to sacrifice and to destroy. If, after an oath is proposed, hearing them do not announce: He spoke an oath according to the law; for just as the oath sets God in the soul, so also the law introduces God into the soul; and in whatever way perjury again removes God from the soul, so also lawlessness casts God out of it. If, therefore, he says, having heard the law being set, they do not confess their sins, having feared and been ashamed of men, they shall be tripped up.

So also David: 'I have sworn and I have stood to keep the judgments of your righteousness' (Ps 119:76). And again Solomon says: 'He who covers his impiety shall not prosper, but he who explains and reproves shall be loved.' And David said, he says: 'I said, I will confess my lawlessness to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart' (Ps 32:5). And 'Say, you first, your lawlessness.'

Many heal the faces of leaders: In doing what is right we heal the angels; for they themselves are the leaders of us, having taken us from the beginning, when the Most High divided the nations and set the borders of the nations according to the number of his angels. And that which is just from the judgment shall be for us from the Lord on that day, when he judges the inhabited world in righteousness; if indeed all the judgment