Heroes vs. Saints
July 22, 2024
Dying Achilles in the gardens of the Achilleion
“THE heroes were men who, through the aid of a carnal passion excited to its utmost, did extraordinary things. The saints are men who, subduing all carnal passions, courageously stem, unaided by any carnal assistance, the tide of all sorrows. The heroes, exciting to feverish ebullition their own powers, attacked all who opposed them. The saints always began by distrusting their own powers, and, unaided by, and deprived of, all help from them, entered on the contest at once with themselves, and all the powers of earth and hell. The heroes proposed to attain high glory and great renown among nations. The saints regarded the vain talk of human generations as nothing, cared not for renown and glory, and leaving aside their own will, as something vile, placed themselves and their all in the hands of God, regarding it as excellent and glorious to put on the livery of His servants. This is what the heroes and saints were: the one and the other attained the opposite of what they intended; for the heroes, who thought to fill the earth with the glory of their name, have fallen into profound oblivion among all peoples, whilst the saints, who only fixed their eyes on heaven, [were] honoured and reverenced here below by peoples, emperors, pontiffs, and kings.”
