The things that are painful for you are truly painful for us, too. For we make common property of all that belongs to friends, whether good or otherwise—this, surely, is the definition of friendship. Still, if we must philosophize a little about these things and discuss with you what seems right (and surely we must, as the law of friendship demands!), then I do not wish—I do not suppose it is a good thing—that you, Philagrius, a person unusually well schooled in the things of God, should experience the same feelings as ordinary people, or succumb to the weakness that affects your body, or that you should lament over your suffering as something incurable. You must find in your vulnerability a place to philosophize, and purify your mind now more than ever, and show yourself stronger than the things that hold you in check, and consider this illness a profitable training—namely, to look down on the body and bodily things, and on all that is fleeting and disturbing and passing away, and so ...
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