Sunday, August 9, 2015

Justice (δικαιοσύνη)

     "If you want to be just, assign to each part within you what it deserves, that is, to body and soul.  To the rational part of the soul give spiritual reading and meditation and prayer.  To the irascible part give spiritual love, which is opposed to hate.  To the affective part give temperance and self-mastery.  To the bodily part give food and clothing, and only what is necessary."

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 4.44, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings, Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 80.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 212, where "food and clothing [(διατροφὴν καὶ σκεπάσματα)]" is in italics, indicating the reference to 1 Timothy 6:8 (διατροφὰς καὶ σκεπάσματα) (cf. Mt 6:25, where the Greek is different); PG 90, col. .

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