Casting Out One’s Own Faults Is the Greater Wonder

And in truth it is a greater miracle to root out from one’s own flesh the incitements to lust than to cast unclean spirits out of the bodies of others. It is a grander sign to hold back the fierce passions of anger by the virtue of patience than to command the powers of the air. It is a greater thing to have shut out the devouring pangs of gloom from one’s own heart than to have driven out another man’s sickness and the fever of his body. In short, it is in many ways a grander virtue and a more splendid achievement to cure the weaknesses of one’s own soul than those of another man’s body. For just as the soul is higher than the flesh, so its salvation matters more; and as its nature is more precious and excellent, so its destruction is more grievous and dangerous. [a]