Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book XII/Chapter 10

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter X.

How no one can obtain perfect virtue and the promised bliss by his own strength alone.

For the will and course of no one, however eager and anxious,^[1] is sufficiently ready for him, while still enclosed in the flesh which warreth against the spirit, to reach so great a prize of perfection, and the palm of uprightness and purity, unless he is protected by the divine compassion, so that he is privileged to attain to that which he greatly desires and to which he runs. For “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.”^[2] “For what hast thou which thou didst not receive? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?”^[3]

Footnotes

1. Quamvis ferventis et cupientis (Petschenig): Quamvis volentis et currentis (Gazæus).
2. S. James i. 17.
3. 1 Cor. iv. 7.