Didaskalia De nobili dicto Davidis

XIX.
"The leaves do not fall from the Cedar, but it flourishes with perpetual foliage: if it is castrated by being decapitated, it immediately, as they say, dies, and does not regerminate afterwards."

The righteous man never loses the honesty and ornament of his sanctification in every respect, although it may sometimes be sprinkled with offenses, by which even Saints are sometimes preoccupied. But he always meditates on that of the Apostle: "Thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear." Therefore, joined by the bond of the Holy Spirit to Christ the head, they seek and obtain the gift of perseverance from Him (Rom. 11:20).

XX.
"The marrow of the Cedar is red and fragrant."

The faithful heart is red and excels in the sweetest fragrance, because it has been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and cleansed from every sin by His merit.

XXI.
"Pliny condemns the use of Cedar because of its ambiguous nature, of corrupting living things and preserving dead ones; since it takes away life from those that breathe, and is for life to the dead. For this reason, he thinks it should not be used internally. However, Galen very beautifully explains the reason for this diversity: because even though it burns, so that it deserves to be counted in the fourth order of heating medicines, yet among all eroding medicines, which the Greeks name both septika corrosive/putrefying and septas rot-causing, it is established to be the weakest. Therefore, when applied to the living, with the vital heat added, it takes on strength and is as if kindled, and thus it kills; but when added to the dead, it wipes away putrefaction and consumes vicious humors, and with these removed, it asserts bodies from the stain of corruption."

What Ruellius, following the opinion of Galen, has eruditely explained concerning the Cedar and its dynamei physikē natural power/virtue, we refer in this way to the mystical Cedar, namely the righteous man, considered pathetikōs passionately/in terms of undergoing suffering. In him the Flesh is mortified so that the Spirit may be vivified. Therefore,