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Let us neither value health too highly, nor condemn illness too much, let us not cleave to quickly flowing wealth (see Ps. 61:11) and more appropriately apply our heart to this flow, spending on it, so to speak, something from the essence of our soul. Let us not rebel against poverty as a lot deserving of contempt, curse and hatred. Let us learn better to despise insanely used health, the fruit of which is sin, and to respect piously endured illness, honoring those who have gained victory through suffering: who knows if there is not hidden among the sick some Job, who is incomparably more worthy of honor than the healthy, although he scrapes off pus from himself and languishes day and night in the open air, suffering from ulcers, and from his wife, and from friends. Let us learn to sweep away unrighteous wealth, for which the rich man righteously suffers in the flames (Luke 16:24), asking for a drop of water to cool him, and at the same time to please the grateful and wise poverty, with which Lazarus is saved and richly rewarded with rest in the bosom of Abraham (1). For a sick person, no wealth is preferable to health; and nature acts wisely in that it always desires health (2). How is your physical health? Or, of course, is it not of great importance to you, whatever it may be? I won’t ask about the soul, whether it is healthy. For I know that her health is excellent, because through bodily illnesses you are accustomed to noble wisdom, accepting them as a test of virtue, and not as a material disorder, why it is more bliss for you to suffer than for others to enjoy health 98 (2). From a letter to St. Gregory to Philagrios. – Approx. ed. You might be interested in: