¹ What is the best thing in the world? To please its Creator. What is His will? To fulfill what He has commanded—that is, to live rightly and piously and to seek eternity, for piety and righteousness are the will of the pious and the just. How does one attain this? Through diligence.

² Therefore, one must strive for piety and righteousness. What helps in preserving this? Understanding, which, after examining all other things and finding nothing firm to hold onto, turns by reason from what the world possesses to the one thing that is eternal. For the world will pass away and passes daily, revolving toward its end. What does it have that it does not assign to an end? It is, in a way, upheld by the pillars of vanity; but when the end of vanity comes, then it will fall and not stand. What does not end is not of the world. Therefore, all things pass away through death and decay and do not remain. What, then, should the wise love? A dead image, partly mute and partly resounding, which he sees but does not understand? If he understood it, perhaps he would love it. But he also errs in this—that it does not reveal itself. For who understands either himself or another, a flower of the earth and earth made from earth, whom the dignity of God makes His son and a citizen of heaven, yet who is destined soon to be dust and earth, and, unless through the mediation of the soul, will never be of any use?

³ If someone understands this, to whom God has granted it, by what life should he live so that he may be eternal from what is mortal, wise from what is foolish, heavenly from what is earthly? First, he should have a pure mind, which he should use for right living, and he should see not what is but what will be. For what will be is not yet, and by what he sees, he should contemplate what he does not see and strive to be what he was created to be, and he should call upon God’s grace with his effort. For it is impossible for anyone to attain by himself what was lost in Adam. But what good is it to receive understanding and not use it well? He uses it well who lives in such a way that he never regrets nor will have to regret. For late repentance proves that one has lived poorly, and a good conscience praises life. What, then, does a pure mind perceive as worthy of love? Surely that which created all things to be loved and always remains and never grows old. Nothing external should be loved according to true reason except the eternal and the eternal will, which is inspired and animated by the eternal, marvelous, ineffable, invisible, incomprehensible One, who fills all things, surpasses all things, is present and yet elusive. Nothing here should be loved by the wise, for nothing lasts; for what is eternal belongs there with the Eternal, and what is perishable belongs here with the mortal.

⁴ Therefore, it is dangerous to dwell among what deceives and is false and not to see the true things that one should love, and to see, moreover, things that provoke by their allurements and, as if in a dream, persuade one to sin with them. Rightly do pleasant deceits become hateful to you, and rightly do things that should be loved withdraw as if they did not exist. It follows, then, that one who dwells among deceivers should be vigilant, lest he be ensnared if he does not flee them and act cautiously yet rightly. How shall we flee the world, which we should not love, when we are in the world and are taught to die to it, yet contrariwise enclose it within us by a certain lustful desire, when we should have trampled it underfoot? He tramples the world who conquers himself, who dies to vices before nature, in mind before body. For no one who spares himself can hate the world, for in himself alone he either loves or hates the world. He has nothing to love of the world who has died to bodily pleasures. Let us die such a death, for the bodily death holds all, but this one holds few. It is the way of the few to live as if dead daily. Since one has not always existed and cannot always exist in the world, but lives in a brief middle state, each person should live as if he were dying daily, so that he may think only of what is eternal and heavenly, in which, if he is worthy, he will be eternal and heavenly. For what was before the world will be after the world and forever; and even now they exist, but are not visible, and are hidden from us so much that it is not permitted to speak of them to men. Indeed, they do not ascend into the heart or ears of man, nor do they enter, nor can they be perceived by human sight. O how lamentable a condition! The things we ought to have loved are so removed, so unknown, and so hidden from us that as long as we are human and confined in this prison of the body, it is utterly impossible for us to see, hear, or think upon the things that are truly good and eternal. What then shall we do? Let us love and seek what is unknown, in case we forever remain ignorant of them and lose them. For he is born in vain who will forever be ignorant of the things that are eternal.

⁵ O wretched man! You must hate what you see, and what you ought to love, you do not know. Your life is a snare for you; willingly or unwillingly, you are entangled. You have within yourself that which binds you, but you do not have within yourself that which frees you. Will you take care of yourself, O miserable one, and not trust in yourself, you who are ensnared by yourself and cannot free yourself? Having eyes, you are blind, you are bound, and willingly you are led to death. O intolerable blindness, O incomparable grief, O most wretched misery, you who cherish your adversaries, who willingly hand yourself over to your persecutors who will never spare you, who joyfully consent to those who bind you and deliver you to death! Who ever proceeds to death gladly? Who willingly goes to be slaughtered or beheaded? Woe to you, human misery! Would that you were only beheaded or slain and not tormented forever! What is blinder than you, O wretched humanity, who thus err, though you see? You see as far as the heavens, but no further; you have understanding within this world, but none beyond it. What hard and impenetrable ignorance! Who will tell you of the unspeakable? O unhappy humanity, what will aid you? Listen to what the wise man has said: “For him to whom little is not enough, more will not profit”. You have heard, I believe, the Lord in the Gospel saying: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire”. And do you know why one is sent into the fire, O wretched man? Be merciful, and perhaps you can be drawn away from the son of perdition. Do not spare food, do not spare frail clothing, do not prefer your possessions to yourself, love yourself more than your belongings, love your soul more than your wealth. For you are miserable, not your possessions. Love yourself more than what is foreign to you. What do you own besides your soul? Do not lose your one and only soul for nothing. Do not spare what is fleeting in case you lose what is eternal. The whole world is foreign to you, for you were born naked and will be buried naked. O incurable madness! Why do you love what is perishable so much that you lose what is eternal? Therefore, think upon death, which ends the pleasures of the world, and see where the delights of the rich have gone. Luxury, jesting, lust, and indulgence have fallen silent, and a naked corpse, destined to be dissolved by worms and rot, is received by the earth, while the most wretched soul is handed over to eternal torments. What is more lamentable than this condition, what more wretched than this misery? Truly, one hour of patience would have been better than an eternity of late repentance. Fear, then, death here below, and beyond heaven, dread the eternal fire. Believe in what you do not see, for He who has seen it has revealed it. For our Lord Jesus Christ is truthful, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.