On Faith.

give hope, strengthen the weak, advise the doubting, and accomplish other similar things, which I deem no less significant than if someone performed external miracles and things that only pertained to the body. If someone himself does not possess these things, nor can bring them to pass in others, I cannot see by what right he can claim faith for himself, unless it were possible for that faith which the devils also possess—who believe there is a God and tremble—to be what he means. But I am speaking of the true and justifying faith, which makes humans partakers of the Divine nature and causes all things to be possible for them. Furthermore, I have shown what great power faith has in human affairs; this one can also see in religion, whether it be false or true.

The power of false faith.

The Turks believe that one may not drink wine, and they are able to abstain from wine on account of this. The Jews believe that one must abandon the things which the Law forbids, and one finds those who ruin themselves with long fasts; one finds some who treat their bodies strictly, indeed, quite cruelly, making them bloody with whips; others undertake distant pilgrimages out of devotion, during which they endure begging along with many other evils and dangers. What shall I say of those who have castrated themselves, and also of the Circoncelliones a group of radical North African ascetics in the 4th century, who (as is written of them) in order to become martyrs themselves, and also to make others martyrs, killed themselves through various methods of death, with