On the Twelve Abuses of the World, with extracts from On the Soul and its Origin and On the Divination of Demons against the Pagans

may he lose the treasure of the fatherland, to which treasure the Lord Jesus led the young man who asked Him about perfection. He imitated Him by responding thus: If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven, for no man can have a treasure here original: "hic" that provides solace to the poor, or who is poor by his own will. Do not, therefore, sleep upon your treasures, for they do not allow the poor to sleep. For a rich man, even if he has aggregated much, cannot enjoy it alone, because the nature of man does not run in this way with many things. What, therefore, is more foolish than to lose the joy of the whole heavenly kingdom for the sake of the life and clothing of a man, and to undergo the eternal tortures of hell without the hope of consolation? What, therefore, must be discarded by necessity should be distributed voluntarily for the sake of eternal retribution. For all things that are seen are temporal, but those that are not seen are eternal. For as long as we are temporal in man, temporal things serve the temporal; and when we are drawn from this life, they will provide eternal solace. Therefore, we ought not to love those things which we will not have forever, especially since the wise man knows the riches of his treasure, and his fields, and all things that he has, because he loves those things with his whole heart, even though they do not love him in return. For if he has loved gold and silver, and fields and clothing and food and metals, and brute animals, the very nature of those things answers that they cannot return to him the vice meaning: the reciprocal act of this love. Why, therefore, is it far from reason to love that which cannot love you in return, and to neglect Him who fulfills all things for your comfort with love? Therefore, the world is not to be loved; rather, the neighbor is commanded by God to be loved, because the neighbor can return the reciprocal of this love, which the world is not doubted to be entirely incapable of doing. For the Lord commands that the enemy is to be loved in such a way that by that love, that enemy is made from an enemy into a friend. Therefore, whoever is a covetous rich man who wishes to have eternal riches, let him distribute them to the needy, so that he may attain those that do not remain here. For if he who loves has not sold them, no one can buy what he desires. For the covetous are called cursed in the judgment by the most righteous Judge, because when they were able to help them, they did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we have blessed you in the name of the Lord. Unhappy, therefore, are the rich in gold who, for the sake of transitory things, drag themselves into eternal damnation and hellfire. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Happy, therefore, is the merciful one, because while in this life, he is ruled by God not in substance, but in affection.

A decorative red paragraph mark appears at the beginning of the final line.

Fifth degree of abuse: A woman without modesty.