For, when these virtues are yours, in increasing measure, they prevent your being indifferent to, or destitute of, a fuller knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Surely the man who has not these virtues is shortsighted even to blindness, and has chosen to forget that he has been purified from his sins of the past!

So I will do my best to enable you, at any time after my departure, to call these truths to mind.

For he received honour and glory from God the Father, when from the Glory of the Divine Majesty there were borne to his ears words such as these-- 'This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I delight.'

These were the words that we heard, borne to our ears from Heaven, when we were with him on that Sacred Mountain.

These men, however, like animals without reason, intended by nature to be caught and killed--these men, I say, malign those of whom they know nothing, and will assuredly perish through their own corruption,

These men are like springs without water, or mists driven before a gale; and for them the blackest darkness has been reserved.

Now, since all these things are in the process of dissolution, think what you yourselves ought to be--what holy and pious lives you ought to lead,

Therefore, dear friends, in expectation of these things, make every effort to be found by him spotless, blameless, and at peace.

It is the same in all his letters, when he speaks in them about these subjects. There are some things in them difficult to understand, which untaught and weak people distort, just as they do all other writings, to their own Ruin.