Fathers, PNCC

December 15 – Philoxenus from the Ascetic Discourse

So then the remembrance of God is the life of the soul. And as all the motions of the body are constant, and it moveth and is moved throughout by all its nerves and members so long as it participateth in life, even so the soul which hath therein the knowledge of God, moveth and is moved at all times by the remembrance of God, and so long as it remembereth God, it sinneth not. And if it happeneth that for a brief space the light of its knowledge becometh obscured through the smoke of lust, the remembrance of God is straightway stirred up in it, and the fear which ariseth therefrom driveth it to repentance. For the fear of God worketh two things in the soul: it keepeth a man that he sin not, or if he sinneth, it urgeth him to heal his sin in repentance; for it is the habit of all those with whom the fear of God or the fear of man is found, that they either offend not, or when they have offended they rectify their wrongdoing. — The First Discourse on the Fear of God.