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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: defilement of flesh and spirit. But, as they perceived that this
could only be accomplished by the keeping of the commandments of
Christ, and that the keeping of his commandments and the practice
of the virtues was difficult to attain in the midst of the
turmoils of the world, they adopted for themselves a strange and
changed manner of life, and, obedient to the voice divine,
forsook all, parents, children, friends, kinsfolk, riches and
luxury, and, hating everything in the world, withdrew, as exiles,
into the deserts, being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated,
wandering in wildernesses and mountains, and in dens and caves of
the earth, self-banished from all the pleasures and delights upon
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