TPL (Text) -- 2

Treatise on the Practical Life

By the Same

100 Chapters

1 Christianity is the dogma of our Saviour Christ composed of practical, natural and theological parts.

2 The Kingdom of the Heavens is dispassion of soul with true gnosis of existent things.

3 The Kingdom of God is gnosis of the Holy Trinity coextensive with the constitution of the mind and exceeding its incorruptibility.

4 Whatever one loves (eros) he certainly aspires to, and what he aspires to he struggles to attain. And desire is the beginning of every pleasure; desire, then, begets sense-perception, for that which is without a share in sense-perception is also free of passion.

5 The demons wrestle nude with the hermits; they arm the more negligent of the brethren against those in monasteries and entourages who are working on virtue. The second war is much lighter than the first since it is not possible to find on earth men more bitter than demons, or accepting at one time all their villainy.

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