Page:Isaac of nineveh mystical treatises.djvu/10

 When thou art in a state of subjection and languid and dejected, and thou art hound and fettered before thy foe in mournful wretchedness and laborious service of sin, then recall to thy mind the previous times of firmness: how thou shewest painstaking even concerning small things and how thou wert moved with zeal against the obstructors in thy course: how thou utteredst sighs on account of the small things which were despised by thee as accidental and thy whole person was winding a wreath of victory over these things. Then, by these and similar recollections, thy soul will be aroused as from the depth, and be clad with the flame of zeal; and it will rise from its immersion as if from the dead, and stretch itself and return to its former state, in hot strife against Satan and sin.

Recollect the fall of the strong, that thou mayest remain humble under thy virtues. And think of the heavy sins of those who fell and repented; and of the praise and honour they received afterwards, so that thou mayest acquire courage during thy repentance.

Be a persecutor of thy self; then thy foe will be driven away from thee.

He on peaceful terms with thy soul; then heaven and earth will be on peaceful terms with thee Be zealous to enter the treasury within thee; then thou wilt see that which is in heaven. For the former and the latter are one, and entering thou wilt see both. The ladder unto the Kingdom is hidden within thee and within thy soul. Dive into thyself [freed] from sin; there thou wilt find steps along which thou canst ascend.

What the things of the world-to-be are, the scriptures do not explain. Mow we may acquire the faculty to perceive their delight even now, without change of nature or local transition, they teach us plainly.

Though they call these things by beloved names of glorious things which are delightful and esteemed by us, in order to spur us on, still by saying that the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard and so on, they show us that the things-to-be are not equal to any of the present things, by their being incomprehensible. They have to be reckoned by us as giving us even now spiritual delight, not the enjoyment of those things in themselves, such as are found outside the being of the