99 speech tion you ought to forsake the continuation of remaining studies, however laudable. What I shall now say, follow with devoted attention. But so that my speech from this moment take on a convincing power, I say first, that God is not so ungracious that He would allow that those who set aside their own interests on account of giving themselves to Him would suffer some loss [for doing so]. His generosity knows how to reward most abundantly even the smallest intentions of human actions. Therefore, you can persuade yourselves, dear students desirous of learning, that those, who in the course of their schooling, are drawn to His ranks, will never be deprived of the good of wisdom, they will never be deprived of the gifts of knowledge. Resigning, however, on account of love for God from the vain knowledge of this passing world, they receive from Him a more lasting, better, and more perfect [knowledge], and offering Him so little — if one who can speak about dedicating oneself entirely to God can be called “little” — they are filled with an immense magnitude of heavenly gifts from the treasury of Eternal Wisdom. For whether they abandon [the study] of eloquence, or of the stars, or of numbers, or of measurements or even the study of all philosophy, they learn a more excellent philosophy and the knowledge of God Himself. And thus the Treasure, which they thought themselves to have lost, they find with the profit of a far more excellent knowledge. What could perhaps be most worthy, more useful, more desirable than the knowledge of oneself? Which of the arts and sciences is able to surpass this? This knowledge is precisely what that man — the most devout and at the same time most wise — praises and gives priority to, as he has written: “The highest and most useful knowledge is the knowledge of oneself and the despising of oneself.” And now, I come directly to you, dear students desirous of learning, and I wonder, whether you will be eagerly obedient to the divine vocation, deciding not only to throw away the con-
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