221. [224.] 83. Known to me was one who in the world had, by many arguments, confirmed himself in faith alone. ¹ I told him to go and see the dwellings in the aforementioned desert areas, ² and when he arrived there he saw nothing but sandy ground and pebbles, surrounded by rocks, without any shrubbery or grass. Thus returning he grieved over the people's wretched lot. He also met and spoke there with some whom he had regarded in the world as learned, and when he tried still to defend faith alone, serpents appeared which flew at his feet and coiled themselves around them. After that he was taken to stretches of fields inhabited by people who possessed a similar faith, places which had grass, shrubbery, trees and buildings, and where the people were cheerful in spirit and diligent in their labors and business dealings. They confessed that they knew about that faith only from preachers, but gave no thought to it beyond its literal meaning and did not defend it further, and that they nevertheless lived their life according to the Word, so that that faith was only a matter of knowledge in their memory, but not a faith in life. They are afterward instructed and receive truths which they had not known in the world.

Бележки под линия: