The New Gospel

But upon His [God’s] individual works He has engraved unmistakable marks of His glory, so clear and so prominent that even unlettered and stupid folk cannot plead the excuse of ignorance … Wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of His glory.  You cannot in one glance survey this most vast and bountiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness … This skillful ordering of the universe is for us sort of a mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible.

Let the aim of believers in judging mortal life, then, be that while they understand it to be of itself nothing but misery, they may with greater eagerness and dispatch betake themselves wholly to meditate upon that eternal life to come.  When it comes to a comparison with the life to come, the present life can not only be safely neglected but, compared to the former, must be utterly despised and loathed.  For, if heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?  If departure from the world is entry into life, what else is the world but a sepulcher?  And what else is it for us to remain in life but to be immersed in death?

First, God lays down for us through the law what we should do; if we then fail in any part of it, that dreadful sentence of eternal death which it pronounces will rest upon us.  Second, it is not only hard, but above our strength and beyond all our abilities, to fulfill the law to the letter; thus if we look to ourselves only, and ponder what condition we deserve, no trace of good hope will remain; but cast away by God, we shall be under eternal death.  Thirdly, it has been explained that there is but one means of liberation that can rescue us from such miserable calamity: the appearance of Christ the Redeemer, through whose hand the Heavenly Father, pitying us out of his infinite goodness and mercy, willed to help us.  

If one comes to the New Testament, with what solid props its truth is supported!  Three Evangelists [apart from John] recount their history in a humble and lowly style; for many a proud folk, this simplicity arouses contempt … Yet the truth cries out openly that these men who … suddenly began to discourse so gloriously of the heavenly mysteries must have been instructed by the Spirit. 

Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition.   It is necessary that women recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband.  This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.