OS (Text) -- 4

13 Behold! I will not shrink from explaining to you with an unadorned and unintricate tongue how many ways according to me there are of sobriety which up to now are able little by little to purify the mind (nous) from impassioned thoughts (logismoi). For in times of war I did not judge that in this treatise I should hide the benefit through the use of words, and certainly for those who are more simple. He says: ‘You, then, Timothy, my child, attend to those things that you read.’ [1 Tim. 4, 13.]

14 One manner of sobriety: to watch densely over the imagination, that is to say, the assault, on account of the fact that without imagination Satan cannot create and display thoughts (logismoi) in the mind (nous) for the sake of a lying fraud.

15 The second: to have the heart deeply silent throughout, and still from every thought (logismos), and to pray.

16 Another: continually to call the Lord Jesus Christ to aid in humility.

17 The other way: to have in the soul the unceasing memory of death.

18 These are all the labours, beloved, which after the manner of doorkeepers [cf. Ps. 126, 5] impede the wicked conceptions (ennoies).

To look towards Heaven, then, and to regard the earth as nothing, which very way is efficacious along with the others, I will exhibit at greater length in another place, God giving me words.

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