NOTE: — 17 —

With exhortations he warneth him against the insolence and craftiness of the perverted lovers of evil, who have turned aside and become alienated from the truth of the Orthodox faith and from the infallible doctrine of Jesus Christ, and [against] the obstinate deniers of infallible Christian duties; from such as are corrupted in mind and depraved in errant conduct, [Paul] saith: Withdraw entirely and beware, O Timothy, my beloved co-worker: “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, [even the words] of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself” (1 Tim. 6:3–5). Here do we pronounce blessed the prudent, true-born sons of our holy Orthodox Church, who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit of God, were never found partakers in the perverted counsels of the ungodly, nor joined themselves to the evilly-disposed actions and vile conduct of the lovers of sin, nor yet, being deceived in mind, consented to receive the venomous errors and vices of the pestilent. May there therefore fitly rest upon their souls, like a crown of glory, that desirable beatitude which the spiritually-melodious prophet David setteth forth at the beginning of the Psalm, saying: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (1:1).

NOTE: 3