| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore
if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?
MENO: I quite agree.
SOCRATES: And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we
were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do
not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides
and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul herself
are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly?
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul
wrongly.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: That is my conviction.
And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and
you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run
well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal:
they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking
away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but
the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.
And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every
action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off
the prize which men have to bestow.
True.
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: virtues. For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more
does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the
word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In
this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works,
is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth,
peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is
truly made the child of God, as it is said, "To them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name" (John i. 12).
>From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great
power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put
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