The History of Barlaam and Josaphat

error come, that you value that which stands in vain hope higher than that which one can grasp with hands and see? To this, the Einsidel hermit answered as follows:

How the King's highest advisor, who had left the court and become a hermit, was brought back from his flight before the King, exhorted the King to turn away from the service of idols, and recounted the reason for his flight; but as he could prevail nothing with the King, he was dismissed from the court and went again into the wilderness.

The Second Chapter.

An ornamental drop cap 'S' is decorated with floral and foliate patterns.

SINCE you, O King, desire to know the cause of why or from where this has happened to me, that I have despised zeitliche Ding temporal things and have given myself entirely and completely into the hope of the eternal, then hear: In times past, when I was still in my early youth, I heard a good and soul-healing word. Its power and virtue took hold of me entirely and was planted in my heart like a Göttlicher Samen divine seed in such a way that I could never forget it. It took root in me, sprouted, and brought forth such fruit as you now see in me. The power of this word is this: It seems to be a Thorheit folly to despise these present things as if they were not, while grasping and holding those things which are not as if they were present. For whoever has not tasted the sweetness of these things that are, will not be able to learn the nature of those that are not. Since he has no experience of them, how then will he despise these things and hold them for nothing? For

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