Miscellanies 7.12.74

Desires and the other sins have been called “thistles and thorns.” The one who knows, then, works in the Lord's vineyard, planting, pruning, watering, truly a divine farmer of those who have been planted in faith. Those who have not done evil think they deserve to receive a wage for idleness; but the one who has done good by free choice claims his wage as a good workman. Indeed, he will receive double, both for what he did not do and for the good he did. This one who knows is tempted by no one, unless God permits it, and this too for the benefit of those around him. They are strengthened in faith, at any rate, encouraged by his manly endurance. Indeed, for this reason too the blessed apostles were brought to trial and to a martyrdom of perfection, to fix and confirm the churches. The one who knows, then, having ringing in his ears the voice that says, “Whom I strike, you have mercy on,” asks even those who hate him to repent. For even children should not watch the punishment of criminals carried out in the stadiums. There is no way the one who knows could ever be educated or delighted by such things, since he has trained himself by choice to be good and noble, and so has become unsoftened by pleasures. Never falling into sins, he is not educated by the examples of others' evils. Far indeed is he from being pleased by earthly pleasures and spectacles, he who has looked down even on the worldly promises, although they are divine. “Not everyone, then, who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of God, but the one who does the will of God.” And this would be the knowing workman, who masters “worldly desires” while still in the flesh, and who is so exactly persuaded about what he has come to know, the things to come and still unseen, that he considers them more present than what lies at his feet.