Miscellanies 6.12.103

For instance, Abraham, having become a believer, was credited with righteousness, having advanced to what is greater and more perfect than faith. For the one who only abstains from evil action is not righteous unless he also achieves doing good and knowing the reason why some things must be avoided and others done. “Through the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left,” says the apostle, the righteous man is escorted to the highest inheritance, protected by the one set and acting with the other. For the covering of the full armor and abstention from sins are not by themselves enough for perfection, unless one adds the work of righteousness, activity in doing good. Then the one who is dexterous on both sides, the one who knows, is revealed to us in righteousness, glorified already even here, like Moses, in the face of his soul—which, as we said earlier, is the characteristic mark of the righteous soul. For as the mordant of the dye, remaining in wool, gives it its distinctive quality and its difference from other wool, so in the soul the labor has passed, but the good remains; and the pleasure is left behind, but the shame is stamped in. For these are the characteristic qualities of each kind of soul, by which the one is known as glorified and the other as condemned.