Exhortation to the Greeks 10.99

So human life seemed to me to have become nothing but full of madness, busying itself with such zeal about matter. Custom, which gave you a taste of slavery and of senseless meddling, has been corrupted by empty opinion. And ignorance is the cause of lawless rites and deceitful pretenses; it † having furnished the human race with deadly fates and hateful idols, and having devised many forms of daemons, has stamped on those who follow it the stain of lasting death. Take, then, the water of the Word; wash, you who are defiled; sprinkle yourselves clean of custom with the true drops. We must go up to heaven pure. You are a human being, which is what is most common: seek the one who made you. You are a son, which is most your own: recognize your Father. But do you still remain in your sins, melted into pleasures? To whom will the Lord say, “Yours is the kingdom of heaven”? It is yours, if you are willing, you who have set your choice toward God; yours, if you are willing only to believe and follow the brevity of the proclamation, by obeying which the Ninevites, through genuine repentance, exchanged the capture they expected for a glorious salvation.