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AND So we know that we ought therefore to bestow attention on bodily
abstinence, that we may by this fasting attain to purity of heart.
Otherwise our labours will be spent in vain, if we endure this without
weariness, in contemplating the end, but are unable to reach the end for
which we have endured such trials; and it would have been better to have
abstained from the forbidden foods of the soul than to have fasted with the
body from things indifferent and harmless, for in the case of these latter
there is a simple and harmless reception of a creature of God, which in
itself has nothing wrong about it: but in the case of the former there is
at the very first a dangerous tendency to devour the brethren; of which it
is said, "Do not love backbiting lest thou be rooted out." And
concerning anger and jealousy the blessed Job says: "For anger slayeth a
fool, and envy killeth a child." And at the same time it should be
noticed that he who is angered is set down as a fool; and he who is
jealous, as a child. For the former is not undeservedly considered a fool,
since of his own accord he brings death upon himself, being goaded by the
stings of anger; and the latter, while he is envious, proves that he is a
child and a minor, for while he envies another he shows that the one at
whose prosperity he is vexed, is greater than he.
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