In the same place. — And sending, they invited their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 46. To the feast of the virtues are to be invited hope, faith, and charity. — When our virtues in all that they do carry with them hope, faith, and charity, then, as sons who are workers, they invite the three sisters to the feast, that faith, hope, and charity may rejoice in the good work which each virtue administers. And these, as it were, receive strength from the food, while they grow more confident in good works; and while after the food they desire to be steeped with the dew of contemplation, they are, as it were, made drunk from the cup. [Old numbering XXXIV.] 47. By the very good things we do, we draw near to the worse. — But what is there that in this life is carried out without any defilement of the slightest contagion?
For sometimes by the very good things we do we draw near to the worse; because, while they bring gladness to the mind, they also beget a certain security; and while the mind is rendered secure, it is relaxed into sloth. And sometimes indeed they defile us with a certain elation; and they make us the more cast down before God the more they render us puffed up in our own eyes. Whence it is well added: