For it weeps, as if bewailing life, at whose hands from the outset it tastes of deadly gifts. Wherefore also the child, on being born, wails, as if crying plaintively to its mother. Dreadful, O mother, is the course of life, which has death as the goal of the runner. Bitter is the road of life we travel, with the grave as the wayfarer's inn. II.-From the Same.
Calmness is a thing which, of all other things, is most to be prized.
As an example of this, the word proposes to us the blessed Job. For truly enviable, and, in my judgment, worthy of all admiration, a man is, if he has attained to such a degree of long-suffering as to be able with ease to grapple with the pain, truly keen, and not easily conquered by everybody, which arises from being wronged. III.-From Nicetas Catena on Matthew. Alms are to be given, but with judgment, and to the deserving, that we may Obtain a recompense from the Most Hitch. But woe to those who have and who take under false pretences, or who are able to help themselves and want to take from others.