{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/211/2110834.htm","path":"chr/ecf/211/2110834.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/211/2110834.htm","text":"How it is the perfection of love to pray for one\u2019s enemies and by what signs we may recognize a mind that is not yet purified.\nWhen then any one has acquired this love of goodness of which we have been speaking, and the imitation of God, then he will be endowed with the Lord\u2019s heart of compassion, and will pray also for his persecutors, saying in like manner: \u201cFather, forgive them, for they know not what they do.\u201d 1712 But it is a clear sign of a soul that is not yet thoroughly purged from the dregs of sin, not to sorrow with a feeling of pity at the offences of others, but to keep to the rigid censure of the judge: for how will he be able to obtain perfection of heart, who is without that by which, as the Apostle has pointed out, the full requirements of the law can be fulfilled, saying: \u201cBear one another\u2019s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ,\u201d 1713 and who has not that virtue of love, which \u201cis not grieved, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil,\u201d which \u201cendureth all things, beareth all things.\u201d 1714 For \u201ca righteous man pitieth the life of his beasts: but the heart of the ungodly is without pity.\u201d 1715 And so a monk is quite certain to fall into the same sins which he condemns in another with merciless and inhuman severity, for \u201ca stern king will fall into misfortunes,\u201d and \u201cone who stops his ears so as not to hear the weak, shall himself cry, and there shall be none to hear him.\u201d 1716\nS. Luke xxiii. 34.\n419:1713 419:1714 419:1715\nProv. xii. 10 (LXX.).\n419:1716","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XI: The Wor...","type":"page"}