Unit 4 rem mid

They will not go unpunished who persist in wickedness on the day of judgment; and those who, again, are overwhelmed by their own passions and consider virtue unattainable, these unjustly accuse the one who gave the law. The base do not honor worth but repay fear with flattery, being sycophants who show partiality; but the true person will not flatter evil, but will expose it. Everyone who hates their poor brother, according to the saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," will be far from the love of God and the angels; or, everyone who hates their brother who is poor in virtue, and alienates themselves from the friendship toward the passions, will be cut off from life. —He has called the knowledge of God a good conception, and to those who know it, the pure in heart, he is accustomed to draw near; but the one who obeys these things for the sake of learning is prudent and will find it. —One who does much evil through deeds and words accomplishes wickedness, which is every sin; but the one who crafts destruction with words against people, and blasphemies against God, will not be saved. Neither sensual pleasure nor bodily profit benefits the fool; for he will trample the former underfoot, being a swine devoted to pleasure, and under the influence of sensual indulgence his flesh will be moved to passions, and he will hurl blasphemies against God; even if he comes from slavery to freedom, he will do this. If one boasts rightly, they boast in the Lord; and our Lord is wisdom, so the one who boasts rightly boasts in wisdom; therefore the boast of the long-suffering and merciful one,

Wisdom and knowledge belong to him, yet they come upon the lawless, delivering them from wickedness—now possibly, in the age to come necessarily. Our Lord is fire consuming and a lion enraged; toward those who sin, he burns and devours, as wood, grass, and reed, the flesh marshaled against the Spirit; but light and dew are for those who persevere, showing them the words of what has happened, and quenching the fiery darts of the evil one, and cooling the heat arising from action. He called the unclean soul a companion; and of her, he declared the wages, the condition, from which pure prayers do not arise. To teach sons about virtue and the knowledge of God belongs to the fathers; but to give wisdom to the children belongs to the Lord, for he speaks of wisdom as a woman in these things: “Be enamored of wisdom, and she will keep you; honor her, that she may embrace you.” The commandments, as toward the God who enjoins them, are called commandments; but as toward the mind journeying within them, they are called ways; and the one who guards keeps the soul from death toward life, his own soul; but the one who is careless will encounter the endless death. Thus it is with sensible things; yet as much as the sun exceeds the moon in excellence, so much does the one who shows mercy to the poor in virtue and who recalls them through the Lord’s instruction and admonition exceed, and to give a gift to God, he has named the purity of the heart; for, according to analogy, we are deemed worthy of knowledge by God through our dispassion.

What he says amounts to this regarding the things of life: I believe, however, that great loss consists in the deprivation of the contemplation of events that have occurred; and the addition to the soul consists in the obliteration of natural conceptions concerning God, with the soul utterly falling into irrationality. And the Savior also says in the Gospels: What will it profit a person if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul and suffer loss? Here, the destruction reveals the ignorance of both bodily and incorporeal things; and the loss presents the ultimate irrationality. If the fear of the Lord is life for a person, and the fear of the Lord is wisdom and instruction, then the life of the person is therefore wisdom and instruction. Therefore, to know wisdom and instruction is to know Christ and his teaching. Thus, the fearless person will be in wickedness and ignorance, in which Christ is not present. Those who live in wickedness and ignorance do not seek the fear of God within themselves, nor do they hope for mercy upon themselves; and Christ is not in them, because they do not will to have him. The one who does not live rightly hides his unjust hands within his soul, unwilling to cultivate his own earth, that is, his body; nor does he wish to be filled with spiritual things. For the practical virtues have their reason in the hands, those which bring the bread to our mouths—the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world through inspired wisdom and knowledge. If the wrath of dragons is their wine,