(and although I may have often said this to you, it nowise hinders me from saying it now) this bodily infirmity availed for his salvation; and he departed to the bosom of the man who possessed a dwelling which he shared with all who passed by,939 and was continually shifting his home on account of God’s command, and sacrificed his own son, his only begotten, who had been given him in extreme old age; although Lazarus had done none of these things yet he obtained this blessing inasmuch as he cheerfully endured poverty, and infirmity, and friendlessness. For this is so great a good to those who bear anything bravely that it releases any one who may have committed the greatest sins from the heaviest burden of them; or if any one is an upright and just man it becomes an additional ground of the greatest confid- ence. For it is a bright wreath of victory for the just, shining far above the brightness of the sun, and it is the greatest means of purification for those who have sinned. On this account Paul delivers the man who had made the incestuous marriage to “destruction of the flesh,” purifying him by this means. For as a proof that what was done did purify even from so great a stain hear his words “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”940 And when he was accusing others of another very awful sin, that of partaking unworthily of the holy table and those secret mysteries, and had said that such a person will be “guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,”941 observe how he says that they also are purified from that grievous stain—“therefore are many weak and sickly among you.”942 And then by way of proving that they will not be confined to this condition of punishment, but that some profit will be derived from it, namely release from the penalties to which the sin is liable, he added: “for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But now when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”943 Moreover that they who have lived very righteously derive much benefit from such chastisement is plain from the case of Job, who was more illustrious after it than before, and from the case of Timothy, who although he was such a good man, and entrusted with such an important ministry, and made the circuit of the world with Paul passed not two or three days, nor ten or twenty, or a hundred, but many in succession in ill health, his body being very seriously enfeebled. Paul shows this where he said “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thine often infirmities.”944 And he who raised the dead did not cure this man’s infirmity, but left him in the furnace of his sickness so that he might therefrom contract a very great abundance of confidence. For the lessons which Paul himself had enjoyed from his Master, and the 939 Referring to the hospitality of Abraham as illustrated by his reception of the divine visitors, Gen. xviii. 940 1 Cor. v. 5. 941 1 Cor. xi. 27. 942 1 Cor. xi. 30. 943 1 Cor. xi. 31, 32. 944 1 Tim. v. 23. 407 To Olympias.