The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: grim, with terrible wide jaws, all agape to swallow him. Again
looking closely at the ledge whereon his feet rested, he
discerned four heads of asps projecting from the wall whereon he
was perched. Then he lift up his eyes and saw that from the
branches of the tree there dropped a little honey. And thereat
he ceased to think of the troubles whereby he was surrounded;
how, outside, the unicorn was madly raging to devour him: how,
below, the fierce dragon was yawning to swallow him: how the
tree, which he had clutched, was all but severed; and how his
feet rested on slippery, treacherous ground. Yea, he forgat,
without care, all those sights of awe and terror, and his whole
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