“Now all those things are confirmed by the faith that is in Christ. ‘Come, ye children,’ says the Lord, ‘hearken to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man that desireth life, that loveth to see good days?’[609] Then He subjoins the gnostic mystery of the numbers seven and eight. ‘Stop thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it.’[610] For in these words He alludes to knowledge (_gnosis_), with abstinence from evil and the doing of what is good, teaching that it is to be perfected by word and deed. ‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are to their prayer. But the face of God is against those that do evil, to root out their memory from the earth. The righteous cried, and the Lord heard, and delivered him out of all his distresses.’[611] ‘Many are the stripes of sinners; but those who hope in the Lord, mercy shall compass about.’”[612] “A multitude of mercy,” he nobly says, “surrounds him that trusts in the Lord.” For it is written in the Epistle to the Corinthians, “Through Jesus Christ our foolish and darkened mind springs up to the light. By Him the Sovereign Lord wished us to taste the knowledge that is immortal.” And, showing more expressly the peculiar nature of knowledge, he added: “These things, then, being clear to us, looking into the depths of divine knowledge, we ought to do all things in order which the Sovereign Lord commanded us to perform at the appointed seasons. Let the wise man, then, show his wisdom not in words only, but in good deeds. Let the humble not testify to himself, but allow testimony to be borne to him by another. Let not him who is pure in the flesh boast, knowing that it is another who furnishes him with continence. Ye see, brethren, that the more we are subjected to peril, the more knowledge are we counted worthy of.” CHAPTER XVIII. ON LOVE, AND THE REPRESSING OF OUR DESIRES.