with nature; and such they still are to those `who walk not after
the flesh but after the Spirit.' But in you who are altogether
carnal, having nothing of the Spirit, they are adversaries, and
play the part of enemies and foemen. For Desire, working in you,
stirreth up pleasure, but, when made of none effect, Anger. To-
day therefore let these be banished from thee, and let Wisdom and
Righteousness sit to hear and judge that which we say. For if
thou put Anger and Desire out of court, and in their room bring
in Wisdom and Righteousness, I will truthfully tell thee all."
Then spake the king, "Lo I yield to thy request, and will banish
out of the assembly both Desire and Anger, and make Wisdom and
Righteousness to sit between us. So now, tell me without fear,
how wast thou so greatly taken with this error, to prefer the
bird in the bush to the bird already in the hand?"

The hermit answered and said, "O king, if thou askest the cause
how I came to despise things temporal, and to devote my whole
self to the hope of things eternal, hearken unto me. In former
days, when I was still but a stripling, I heard a certain good
and wholesome saying, which, by its three took my soul by storm;
and the remembrance of it, like some divine seed, being planted
in my heart, unmoved, was preserved ever until it took root,
blossomed, and bare that fruit which thou seest in me. Now the
meaning of that sentence was this: `It seemed good to the foolish
to despise the things that are, as though they were not, and to
cleave and cling to the things that are not, as though they were.
So he, that hath never tasted the sweetness of the things that
are, will not be able to understand the nature of the things that
are not. And never having understood them, how shall he despise
them?' Now that saying meant by `things that are' the things