Mystery of the Cross

TO THEOPHILUS.

one is honored by it; [or to speak] of patience in sickness, in losses and misfortunes, while one enjoys constant health, keeping one's wealth and the favor of one's benefactors. For my part, I esteem Job in his losses and upon his dungheap, even if he complained a bit too strongly of God's conduct; I love the gentleness of David persecuted by Saul and by his son This refers to David's flight from King Saul and his later trials during the rebellion of his son, Absalom., and cursed by Shimei Shimei, a relative of Saul, famously cursed David as he fled Jerusalem. David's refusal to retaliate was seen by spiritual writers as a model of patient submission to God’s will.; I see with pleasure the good man Tobias patient in the deprivation of the light of his eyes, and so with the others: these are the real cross-bearers.

V.

If therefore you find, my dear Theophilus, in this little Treatise, something worthy of consideration, or which bears some mark of unction unction: a spiritual quality of "smoothness" or "anointing" in writing that moves the heart to devotion rather than just informing the mind, I recognize it as belonging absolutely and entirely to the source of all good, and of all grace and truth, which is JESUS, who, Lamb though he be, sacrificed since the