| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: [94] See "Mem." I. vii. 1, passim; II. vi. 39; "Econ." x. 9.
[95] Cf. Thuc. ii. 42, {andragathia}, "true courage in the public
service covers a multitude of private shortcomings."
[96] {en tais praxesi}. Cf. Plat. "Phaedr." 271 D, "in actual life."
IX
On such a note he ended his discourse.
At that, Autolycus, whose hour for walking exercise had now come,
arose. His father, Lycon, was about to leave the room along with him,
but before so doing, turned to Socrates, remarking:
By Hera, Socrates, if ever any one deserved the appellation "beautiful
and good,"[1] you are that man!
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: sun cannot help a blind person see, the night and darkness must
help him see.
It astounds me that one can be offended by something as obvious as
this! Just tell me, is Christ's death and resurrection our work,
what we do, or not? It is obviously not our work, nor is it the
work of the law. Now it is Christ's death and resurrection alone
which saves and frees us from sin, as Paul writes in Rom. 4: "He
died for our sin and arose for our righteousness." Tell me more!
What is the work by which we take hold of Christ's death and
resurrection? It must not be an external work but only the
eternal faith in the heart that alone, indeed all alone, which
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: of the earth.' Had Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever
a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he
has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of
danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And
this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.
Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was
ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and
Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man,
facing death--if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to
fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I
were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would
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