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  • Chapter XVII. To whom the method of perfection should be laid open.
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    Chapter XVII.

    To whom the method of perfection should be laid open.

    Take care too, when your riper age leads you to teach, lest you be led astray by the love of vainglory, and teach at random to the most impure persons these things which you have learnt not so much by reading as by the effects of experience, and so incur what Solomon, that wisest of men, denounced: “Attach not a wicked man to the pastures of the just, and be not led astray by the fulness of the belly,” for “delicacies are not good for a fool, nor is there room for wisdom where sense is wanting: for folly is the more led on, because a stubborn servant is not improved by words, for even though he understands, he will not obey.” And “Do not say anything in the ears of an imprudent man, lest haply he mock at thy wise speeches.”1926

    1926 Bible:Prov.23.9">Prov. xxiv. 15; xix. 10; xviii. 2; xxix. 19; xxiii. 9 (LXX.).

    And “give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest haply they trample them under foot and turn again and rend you.”1927

    1927 S. Matt. vii. 6.

    It is right then to hide the mysteries of spiritual meanings from men of this sort, that you may effectually sing: “Thy words have I hid within my heart: that I should not sin against Thee.”1928

    1928 Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 11.

    But you will perhaps say: And to whom are the mysteries of Holy Scripture to be dispensed? Solomon, the wisest of men, shall teach you: “Give, says he, strong drink to those who are in sorrow, and give wine to drink, to those who are in pain, that they may forget their poverty, and remember their pain no more,”1929

    1929 Prov. xxxi. 6, 7.

    i.e., to those who in consequence of the punishment of their past actions are oppressed with grief and sorrow, supply richly the joys of spiritual knowledge like “wine that maketh glad the heart of man,”1930

    1930 Ps. ciii. (civ.) 15.

    and restore them with the strong drink of the word of salvation, lest haply they be plunged in continual sorrow and a despair that brings death, and so those who are of this sort be “swallowed up in overmuch sorrow.”1931

    1931 2 Cor. ii. 7.

    But of those who remain in coldness and carelessness, and are smitten by no sorrow of heart we read as follows: “For one who is kindly and without sorrow, shall be in want.”1932

    1932 Prov. xiv. 23.

    With all possible care therefore avoid being puffed up with the love of vainglory, and so failing to become a partaker with him whom the prophet praises, “who hath not given his money upon usury.”1933

    1933 Ps. xiv. (xv.) 5.

    For every one who, from love of the praise of men dispenses the words of God, of which it is said “the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried by the fire, purged from the earth, refined seven times,”1934

    1934 Ps. xi. (xii.) 7.

    puts out his money upon usury, and will deserve for this not merely no reward, but rather punishment. For this reason he chose to use up his Lord’s money that he might be the garner from a temporal profit, and not that the Lord, as it is written, might “when He comes, receive His own with usury.”1935

    1935 S. Matt. xxv. 27.

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