which the Lord sware to your fathers.” And further, “And I will bring you into the holy mountain, and make you glad,” He says by Isaiah. And still another form of instruction is benediction. “And blessed is he,” He saith by David, “who has not sinned; and he shall be as the tree planted near the channels of the waters, which will yield its fruit in its season, and his leaf shall not wither” (by this He made an allusion to the resurrection); “and whatsoever he shall do shall prosper with him.” Such He wishes us to be, that we may be blessed. Again, showing the opposite scale of the balance of justice, He says, “But not so the ungodly—not so; but as the dust which the wind sweeps away from the face of the earth.” By showing the punishment of sinners, and their easy dispersion, and carrying off by the wind, the Instructor dissuades from crime by means of punishment; and by holding up the merited penalty, shows the benignity of His beneficence in the most skilful way, in order that we may possess and enjoy its blessings. He invites us to knowledge also, when He says by Jeremiah, “Hadst thou walked in the way of God, thou wouldst have dwelt for ever in peace;” for, exhibiting there the reward of knowledge, He calls the wise to the love of it. And, granting pardon to him who has erred, He says, “Turn, turn, as a grape-gatherer to his basket.” Do you see the goodness of justice, in that it counsels to repentance? And still further, by Jeremiah, He enlightens in the truth those who have erred. “Thus saith the Lord, Stand in the ways, and look, and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, what is the good path, and walk in it, and ye shall find purification for your souls.” And in order to promote our salvation, He leads us to repentance. Wherefore He says, “If thou repent, the Lord will purify thy heart, and the heart of thy seed.” We might have adduced, as supporters on this question, the philosophers who say that only the perfect man is worthy of praise, and the bad man of blame. But since some slander beatitude, as neither itself taking any trouble, nor giving any to any one else, thus not understanding its love to man; on their account, and on account of those who do not associate justice with goodness, the following remarks are added. For it were a legitimate inference to say, that rebuke and censure are suitable to men, since they say that all men are bad; but God alone is wise, from whom cometh wisdom, and alone perfect, and therefore alone worthy of praise. But I do not employ such language. I say, then, that praise or blame, or whatever resembles praise or blame, are medicines most essential of all to men. Some are ill to cure, and, like iron, are wrought into shape with fire, and hammer, and anvil, that is, with threatening, and reproof, and chastisement; while others, cleaving to faith itself, as self-taught, and as acting of their own free-will, grow by praise:—