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& 27.]
14. ... a stranger poorer and more humble than others!
[These are the great virtues if you would accomplish them.]
15. May you be entirely an imitator of your master.
--Ephesians 5, 1.
[And what is better than this?]
16. May daily mourning** achieve everything, ...
[For this is sweeter beyond food and drink.] [FI notes:
**mourning = repentance with tears]
17. ... teaching you the knowledge of things that perish
and things that remain.
[Because first one keeps away from all the world.]
18. Practice the habit of silence, which guards all these
virtues.
[For it cuts off all sorts of roots.]
19. Keep at all times the memory of death.
[For this is the source of humility.]
20. By these means one is purified and enlightened at
heart.
[Oh marvel sought by all.]
21. May you merit** to see clearly the divine light.
[For the light is an immaterial missile from the Immaterial.] [FI
notes: **merit = we gain healing or salvation in Christ by
our participation in receiving and affirming God's grace
through our repentance and practical amendment of
thoughts and conduct. By God's grace, as well, our
participation increases our progress toward purification
and vision --theoria-- of the mind of Christ. Symeon
portrays human "merit" or "willing participation" as corequisite with God's grace to disclose the rightly-ordered
Commonwealth/Household/Kingdom of God here and now
on earth as it is in the heaven(s) -- May Your Kingdom
come and Your will be done on earth as it is in the
heavens / , ,
.
22. But Christ is perfect love; ...[One who has this love is (in)
God by adoption.]
23. He enlightens souls who seek Him.
[These alone shall live, let no one be deceived!] (Psalm 67/68,
33 -- 67 refers to the Septuagint or Greek text, and 68 to the
Hebrew or Masoretic text of the Psalms. Symeon read from the