73. How many are they who have done all this, and for how long? Yet thou dost not admire the thousands and tens of thousands of similar examples on our side, of persons practising such philosophy during their whole life, and so to speak, over the whole world; men and women vying together in continence, and forgetting their nature only so far as it behoves them to propitiate God by means of chastity and endurance of hardships, and these not only common people, accustomed to toil through their original mean condition, but also persons, once of high rank and distinguished both for opulence, birth, and station; who now invent for themselves a life of sufferings, in imitation of Christ, of whom though there be no talk (by reason that religion is not placed in talk, and that "brief is the fruit of lip-wisdom," as is the sentiment of one of your own poets also), yet more abundant is the blessedness, and the edification in their actions.

ΟΓʹ. Πόσοι ταῦτα, καὶ μέχρι τίνος; Τὰς δὲ παρ' ἡμῖν οὐ θαυμάζεις χιλιάδας καὶ μυριάδας: καὶ ταῦτα καὶ τούτων ἔτι θαυμασιώτερα φιλοσοφούντων ἐν παντὶ τῷ βίῳ καὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τὴν οἰκουμένην, ἀνδρῶν τε ὁμοίως καὶ γυναικῶν, εἰς ἀνδρείαν ἁμιλλωμένων, κἀνταῦθα μόνον ἐπιλανθανομένων τῆς φύσεως, οὗ δεῖ Θεὸν οἰκειοῦσθαι δι' ἁγνείας καὶ καρτερίας: οὐ τῶν ἀγεννῶν μόνον, καὶ τῷ πονεῖν συνειθισμένων διὰ τὴν ἀπ' ἀρχῆς εὐτέλειαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν λίαν ὑψηλῶν ποτε καὶ λαμπρῶν, καὶ περιουσίᾳ, καὶ γένει, καὶ δυναστείᾳ, καινοτομούντων τὸ δυσπαθεῖν διὰ τὴν Χριστοῦ μίμησιν: ὧν, κἂν ὁ λόγος μὴ ᾖ (διὰ τὸ μηδ' ἐν λόγῳ τίθεσθαι τὴν εὐσέβειαν, καὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ στόματος σοφίας βραχὺν εἶναι τὸν καρπὸν, ὡς καὶ τῶν παρ' ὑμῖν τινι ποιητῶν ἔδοξεν), ἀλλὰ τὸ εὔλογον πλεῖον, καὶ ἡ ἐν τοῖς πράγμασι παίδευσις.