Miscellanies 7.12.77

And they are truly brothers according to the chosen creation, in likeness of character and in the substance of their works, doing, thinking, and speaking the same holy and good actions, which the Lord wished them, as elect, to have in mind. For faith lies in choosing the same things, knowledge in having learned and thinking the same things, and hope in longing for the same things. And even if, by the necessity of life, he spends a little time on food, he thinks he is being cheated, distracted by the business. So he never sees, even in a dream, anything unfitting for one of the elect. Truly, every such person is “a stranger and sojourner” throughout his life: living in a city, he has despised what others in the city admire, and he lives in the city as in a desert, so that the place may not compel him, but his own choice may show him to be righteous. This one who knows, to put it briefly, makes up for the absence of the apostles, living rightly, knowing precisely, benefiting those who are fit, “removing the mountains” of his neighbors and casting out the unevenness of their souls. And yet each of us is his own vineyard and his own workman. Even when he does the best things, he wishes to escape the notice of human beings, persuading the Lord and himself that he lives according to the commandments, and preferring the things to which he believes he belongs (“for where a person's mind is,” it says, “there too is his treasure”). He deprives himself so as never to overlook a brother who has fallen into affliction, because of his perfection in love, especially if he knows that he himself will bear want more easily than his brother.