A Pure Life for Understanding the Scriptures

But to search the Scriptures and truly know them, one needs an honorable life, a pure soul, and the virtue that is according to Christ, so that the mind, guiding its path by it, may be able to reach what it longs for and grasp it, as far as human nature can learn about the Word of God. For without a pure mind and a life modeled on the saints, no one could possibly understand the words of the saints. [a]

Anyone who wanted to see the light of the sun would certainly wipe and clear his eye, purifying himself to be something like what he desires, so that the eye, becoming light in this way, may see the light of the sun. Or anyone who wants to see a city or a country certainly goes to the place to see it. In the same way, the one who wants to understand the mind of those who speak of God must begin by washing and cleansing his soul by his way of life, and approach the saints themselves by imitating their works. That way, joined with them in the conduct of a common life, he may understand also what God has revealed to them, and from then on, as one closely bound to them, may escape the peril of the sinners and their fire on the day of judgment, and receive what is stored up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven, which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man,” all that is prepared for those who live a virtuous life and love the God and Father, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through him and with him, to the Father himself, with the Son himself, in the Holy Spirit, be honor and might and glory forever and ever. Amen.