anchors 41–50

First Century [00042] 33. Since self-love is, as I have said, the origin and mother of evil, when this is eradicated all the things which derive from it are eradicated as well. For when self-love is absent, not the slightest trace or form of evil can exist in any way at all. [00043] 34. We should care for ourselves and each other in the way that Christ Himself, who patiently suffered for us, has already shown us in His own person. [00044] 35. For the sake of love all the saints resisted sin, not showing any regard for this present life. And they endured many forms of death, in order to be separated from the world and united with themselves and with God, joining together in themselves the broken fragments of human nature. For this is the true and undefiled theosophy of the faithful. Its consummation is goodness and truth - if indeed goodness as compassion and truth as devotion to God in faith are the marks of love. It unites men to God and to one another, and on this account contains the unchanging permanence of all blessings. [00045] 36. The actualization and proof of perfect love for God is a genuine and -willing attitude of goodwill towards one’s neighbor. ‘For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen’, says St John, ‘cannot love God whom he has not seen’ (1 John 4:20). [00046] 37. The way of truth is love. The Logos of God called Himself the way (cf. John 14:6, 1 John 4:8); and those who travel on this way He presents, purified from every stain, to God the Father. [00047] 38. This is the door through which a man enters into the Holy of Holies and is brought to the vision of the unapproachable beauty of the Holy and Royal Trinity. [00048] 39. It is a fearful and heinous thing for us, because of our love for things corruptible, deliberately to kill the life that was given to us by God as the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who have trained themselves to prefer truth to selflove will certainly know this fear. [00049] 40. Let us use peace in the right way: repudiating our evil alliance with the world and its ruler, let us at last break off the war which we wage against God through the passions. Concluding an unbreakable covenant of peace with Him by destroying the body of sin within us (cf. Rom. 6:6), let us put an end to our hostility towards Him. [00050] 41. Rebelling as we do against God through the passions and agreeing to pay tribute in the form of evil to that cunning tyrant