The History of Barlaam and Josaphat

this word or speech of God wishes the eternal, heavenly, and everlasting things to be understood through the things that are. Through the things that are not, however, it means the pleasure and false happiness of this perishable, non-abiding, temporal life. These have wickedly and unsuitably taken possession of your heart, O King. To these I also was once, alas, surrendered and held by them. But the power of this word has overcome my soul and has incessantly drawn my mind toward the goal of choosing the best part.

Yet the Gesetz der Sünden law of sin resisted the law of my mind and held me captive and bound as if with iron bands and with the desire for these temporal things. But when it pleased the mercy and goodness of God our Savior to release me from this strict imprisonment of desire, He strengthened my heart in such a way that it overcame the law of sin. He also opened my eyes so that I might separate and recognize the good from the evil. Then I saw, perceived, and considered that these temporal things are a pure Eytelkeit vanity and a torment and affliction of the spirit, as the wisest Solomon testifies in his proverbs.

Ecclesiastes 1.

Then the veil or covering of sin and the hideous blackness of my soul, which it received from the heaviness of the body, was taken away from my heart. I recognized for what purpose I was created and that I must ascend again to my beginning or Creator through the working and keeping of His commandments. Therefore, I left everything and followed Him. I give Him thanks through our Lord Jesus Christ that He has snatched and delivered me out of the Lachen der Trübsal puddle of tribulation and out of the mire of