anchors 21–30

First Century realities, and let us not allow any physical limitation to compromise our resolve to be with God, who is by nature beyond all limitation. [00022] 16. The suffering of the saints lies in the struggle between malice and virtue, the former fighting to win control, the latter enduring all things to avoid defeat. The first struggles to nurture sin by chastising the righteous; the second to hold good men firm although they experience more than their share of misfortunes. [00023] 17. The task of virtue is to contend against hardship and suffering. The prize for victory, given to those who stand their ground, is the soul’s dispassion. In this state the soul is united with God through love, and in inward resolution it is separated from the body and the world. Those who stand their ground find that the soul’s strength lies in the body’s affliction. [00024] 18. Beguiled from our original state by the deceitfulness of sensual pleasure, we chose death rather than true life. Let us then gladly endure the bodily hardship which puts such pleasure to death. In this way the death of pleasure will destroy the death which came about through pleasure, and we shall receive back, purchased with but slight bodily hardship, the life which we sold for the sake of sensual pleasure. [00025] 19. If when the flesh has an easy life the force of sin tends to grow stronger. It is clear that when the flesh suffers affliction the force of virtue will also increase. So let us bravely endure the affliction of the flesh, which cleanses the soul’s stains and brings us future glory. For ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Rom. 8:18). [00026] 20. When physicians are treating the body they do not administer the same remedy in all cases. Neither does God, when treating the illnesses of the soul, regard a single kind of therapy as suitable for all conditions but He allots to each soul what is suitable for it and effects its cure. So let us give thanks while we are being created, however great our suffering, for the result is blessed. [00027] 21. Nothing disciplines the disposition of the soul so well as the protests of the afflicted flesh. If the soul gives way to them, it will be evident that it loves the flesh more than God. But if it remains unshaken by these disturbances, it will be shown to honor virtue more than the flesh. Through virtue God will come to dwell in it - God who for the soul’s sake patiently bears our human suffering – [00028] First Century and will say to it as He once did to the disciples, ‘Have courage, for I have overcome the world’ (John 16: 33). [00029] 22. If all the saints had their share of discipline, we too should thank God that we are disciplined with them, so that we may be found worthy to partake of their glory, ‘for whom the Lord loves He disciplines; He chastens every son He accepts’ (Prov. 3:12. LXX). [00030] 23. When Adam accepted the sensual pleasure offered to him by Eve, who had come from his side, he expelled humanity from paradise (cf. Gen. 3:24). But when the Lord in His agony was pierced in his side by the lance. He brought the robber into paradise (cf. Luke 23:43). Let us, then, love the suffering of the flesh and hate its pleasure; for the first brings us in and restores God’s blessings to us, while the second drives us out and separates us from those blessings.