NOTE: — 11 —

...the light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John iii. 19–21). Therefore, those who with utter stubbornness have estranged themselves from the graces of the divine light, and with hardness of heart have persisted in their dark-erring and evilly-disposed will, undoubtedly wander about constantly groping in the pathless wastes of fruitlessness as regards good deeds; and above all, they grievously seek, by deceitful discourse and treacherous wiles, to betray the feeble-minded, and to lead [them] astray and make [them] like unto themselves—strayed and perverted from the light-beaming path of truth, belonging to the orthodox Christian confession of faith and the goodness of God-pleasing deeds. Such [persons] can never render wholehearted faith unto the openly proclaimed truth, because the thoughts of their minds are corrupted and perverse, and they themselves have turned aside from the sound discernment of faith. Like unto these were the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, who constantly resisted and took up arms against the manifest and divinely-wrought miracles, the soul-vivifying evangelical doctrine, and the all-pervading, clearly-seen truth of the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Savior; whose lack of faith and the perversity of whose hearts and wills He frequently rebuked, saying: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in [yourselves], neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matt. xxiii. 13). “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luke xi. 52). And not only did He rebuke them, but He also commanded His disciples and all the faithful to beware with sober and watchful minds, and never to be deceived by their misleading counsels, the deceit of their words, and their perversely-preached, mind-beguiling, and false-fashioned doctrines, as the Evangelists write: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing...