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THEONAS: If we weigh everything that we do, by a reasonable judgment of
the mind, and on the purity of our heart always consult not the opinions of
other people but our own conscience, that interval for refreshment is sure
not to interfere with our proper strictness, if only, as was said, our pure
mind impartially considers the right limits of indulgence and abstinence,
and fairly checks excess in either, and with real discrimination discerns
whether the weight of the delicacies is a burden upon our spirits, or
whether too much austerity in abstaining weighs down the other side, i.e.,
that of the body, and either depresses or raises that side which it sees to
be raised or weighed down. For our Lord would have nothing done to His
honour and glory without being tempered by judgment, for "the honour of a
king loveth judgment," and therefore Solomon, the wisest of men, urges
us not to let our judgment incline to either side, saying: "Honour God with
thy righteous labours and offer to Him of the fruits of thy
righteousness." For we have residing in our conscience an uncorrupt and
true judge who sometimes, when all are wrong, is the only person not
deceived as to the state of our purity. And so with all care and pains we
should preserve a constant purpose in our circumspect heart for fear lest
if the judgment of our discretion goes wrong, we may be fired with the
desire for an ill-considered abstinence, or allured by the wish for an
excessive relaxation, and so weigh the substance of our strength in the
tongue of an unfair balance; but we should place in one of the scales our
purity of soul, and in the other our bodily strength, and weigh them both
in the true judgment of conscience, so that we may not perversely incline
the scale of fairness to either side, either to undue strictness or to
excessive relaxation, from the preponderating desire for one or the other,
and so have this said to us by reason of excessive strictness or
relaxation: "If thou offerest rightly, but dost not divide rightly, hast
thou not sinned?" For those offerings of fasts, which we thoughtlessly
extort by violently tearing our bowels, and fancy that we rightly offer to
the Lord, these He execrates who "loves mercy and judgment" saying: "I the
Lord love judgment, but I hate robbery in a burnt offering." Those also
who take the main part of their offerings, i.e., their offices and actions,
to benefit the flesh for their own use, but leave the remains of them and a
tiny portion for the Lord, these the Divine Word thus condemns as
fraudulent workmen: "Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord
fraudulently." It is not then without reason that the Lord reproves him
who thus deceives himself by unfair considerations, saying: "But vain are
the children of men: the children of men are liars upon the balances that
they may deceive." And therefore the blessed Apostle warns us to keep
hold of the reins of discretion and not to be attracted by excess and
swerve to either side, saying: "Your reasonable service." And the giver
of the law similarly forbids the same thing, saying: "Let the balance be
just and the weights equal, the bushel just and the sextarius equal,"
and Solomon also gives a like opinion on this matter: "Great and small
weights and double measures are both unclean before the Lord, and one who
uses them shall be hindered in his contrivances." Further not only in
the way in which we have said, but also in this must we strive not to have
unfair weights in our hearts, nor double measures in the storehouse of our
conscience, i.e., not to overwhelm those, to whom we are to preach the word
of the Lord, with precepts that are too strict and heavier than we
ourselves can bear, while we take for granted that for ourselves those
things which have to do with the rule of strictness are to be softened by a
freer allowance of relaxation. For when we do this, what is it but to weigh
and measure the goods and fruits of the Lord's commands in a double weight
and measure? For if we dispense them in one way to ourselves and in another
to our brethren, we are rightly blamed by the Lord because we have unfair
balances and double measures, in accordance with the saying of Solomon
which tells us that "A double weight is an abomination to the Lord, and a
deceitful balance is not good in His sight." In this way also we
plainly incur the guilt of using a deceitful weight and a double measure,
if out of the desire for the praise of men, we make a show before the
brethren of greater strictness than what we practice in private in our own
cells, trying to appear more abstinent and holier in the sight of men than
in the sight of God, an evil which we should not only avoid but actually
loathe. But meanwhile as we have wandered some way from the question before
us, let us return to the point from which we started.
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