34.
‘Wherefore there is no need to set much value on these things, nor for the sake of them to practise a life of discipline and labour; but that living well we may please God. And we neither ought to pray to know the future, nor to ask for it as the reward of our discipline; but our prayer should be that the Lord may be our fellow-helper for victory over the devil. And if even once we have a desire to know the future, let us be pure in mind, for I believe that if a soul is perfectly pure and in its natural state, it is able 1, being clear-sighted, to see more and further than the demons—for it has the Lord who reveals to it—like the soul of Elisha, which saw what was done 2 by Gehazi, and beheld the hosts 3 standing on its side.’
-
Compare below, §§59, 62, for examples. This quite goes beyond any teaching of Athanasius himself; at the same time it finds a point of contact in what he says about dreams inc. Gent.30 ( μαντευόμενος καὶ προγιγνώσκων ), and about the soul’s capacity for objective thought, ib. 33,de Incar.17. 3. ↩
-
2 Kings v. 26 . ↩
-
2 Kings vi. 17 . ↩
