XIV. (2.93) On which account it is even now proper to praise those persons who do not yield to the president of vain opinion but who withstand him and say, “Shall you be a king and rule over Us?”{80}{#ge 37:8.} For they do not see him actually in possession of kingly power, they do not see him as yet kindled like a flame, and shining and blazing in the unlimited fuel, but only smouldering like a spark, dreaming of glory, and not visibly having attained to it; (2.94) for they also suggest favourable hopes to themselves as if they will not be able to be overcome by him; for which reason they say, “Shall you reign over us?” Which is equivalent to saying, Do you expect to be a king over us while we are living, existing, strong, and breathing? Perhaps, indeed, you may make yourself master of such as are weak people, but with respect to us who are strong you will be looked upon us as a subject. (2.95) And, indeed, this is the natural state of the case. For when right reason is powerful in the soul, vain opinion is put down; but when right reason is weak, vain opinion is strong. As long, therefore, as the soul has its own power still safe, and as long as it is not mutilated in any part of it, it may well have confidence to attack and aim its arrows at the pride which resists it, and it may indulge in freedom of speech, saying, “You shall not be a king, you shall not be a lord either over us, or during our lifetime over others; (2.96) but we, with our body-guards and shield-bearers, the offspring of wisdom, will overthrow your attacks and baffle your threats with one single sally of ours. In reference to which circumstances it is said, “They began to hate him because of his dreams and because of his words.” (2.97) But are not all the images which pride sets up and worships mere words and dreams, while, on the contrary, those things alone deserve to be called actions and real energies which are referable to correct life and right reason? And the one class are worthy of hatred as being false, and the other class deserve friendship as being full of desirable and lovely truth. (2.98) Let no one, therefore, venture to bring accusations against the virtues of such men, as if they exhibited a specimen of an inhuman and unbrotherly disposition; but let any one who is disposed to do so, learn that it is not a man who is now being judged of, but the disposition which exists in the soul of each individual, which is mad on the subject of glory and arrogant pride; let him embrace these men who have adopted irreconcileable enmity and hatred towards this disposition, and let him never love what is hated by them. (2.99) Knowing thoroughly that such judges are never deceived so as to wander from a sound opinion, but that, having learnt from the beginning to understand who is the true king, namely, the Lord, they indignantly refuse to worship him who deprives God of his honour, and seeks to appropriate it to himself, and who invites his fellow servants to do him service.
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