“To him who toils is due, As product of his toil, glory from the gods.” “For great Fates attain great destinies,” according to Heraclitus: “And what slave is there, who is careless of death?” “For God hath not given us the spirit of bondage again to fear; but of power, and love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me his prisoner,” he writes to Timothy.[541] Such shall he be “who cleaves to that which is good,” according to the apostle,[542] “who hates evil, having love unfeigned; for he that loveth another fulfilleth the law.”[543] If, then, this God, to whom we bear witness, be as He is, the God of hope, we acknowledge our hope, speeding on to hope, “saturated with goodness, filled with all knowledge.”[544] The Indian sages say to Alexander of Macedon: “You transport men’s bodies from place to place. But you shall not force our souls to do what we do not wish. Fire is to men the greatest torture, this we despise.” Hence Heraclitus preferred one thing, glory, to all else; and professes “that he allows the crowd to stuff themselves to satiety like cattle.” “For on account of the body are many toils, For it we have invented a roofed house, And discovered how to dig up silver, and sow the land, And all the rest which we know by names.” To the multitude, then, this vain labour is desirable. But to us the apostle says, “Now we know this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”[545] Does not the apostle then plainly add the following, to show the contempt for faith in the case of the multitude? “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as appointed to death: we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. Up to this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are beaten, and are feeble, and labour, working with our hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are become as it were the offscourings of the world.”[546] Such also are the words of Plato in the _Republic_: “The just man, though stretched on the rack, though his eyes are dug out, will be happy.” The Gnostic will never then have the chief end placed in life, but in being always happy and blessed, and a kingly friend of God. Although visited with ignominy and exile, and confiscation, and above all, death, he will never be wrenched from his freedom, and signal love to God. “The charity which bears all things, endures all things,”[547] is assured that Divine Providence orders all things well. “I exhort you,” therefore it is said, “Be followers of me.” The first step to salvation[548] is the instruction accompanied with fear, in consequence of which we abstain from what is wrong; and the second is hope, by reason of which we desire the best things; but love, as is fitting, perfects, by training now according to knowledge.