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Book VI. On the Spirit of Fornication. We Have Thought Best to Omit Altogether the Translation of This Book · Book IX. Of the Spirit of Dejection

Chapter XII

Page 459 of 1,144

That except that wholesome sorrow, which springs up in three ways, all sorrow and dejection should be resisted as hurtful.

Wherefore except that sorrow which is endured either for the sake of saving penitence, or for the sake of aiming at perfection, or for the desire of the future, all sorrow and dejection must equally be resisted, as belonging to this world, and being that which "worketh death," and must be entirely expelled from our hearts like the spirit of fornication and covetousness and anger.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 11, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.