Previous PageTable Of ContentsNext Page  Philoxenus, Ascetic
Discourses (1894) pp.472-523. Discourse 12 -- First Discourse on
Fornication   Wise physicians, who desire to draw nigh with
knowledge unto the healing of the diseases which happen in the
bodies of the children of men, first of all learn the causes of
these diseases, and having withdrawn them, bring healing unto
their sicknesses without trouble. For when the cause from which
the diseases and sicknesses arise is removed, the sicknesses to
which it hath given birth are rooted out together with the cause
thereof, for when the root [of the tree] is taken up out of the
ground it is impossible for its branches or fruit to remain, [p.
495] and if it happen that plants and young trees [live] for a
short time afterwards by reason of their natural moisture, yet
they will soon dry up when once their roots are shaken free of
the earth and are taken up. And thus also is it with the
sicknesses am? diseases which happen unto the children of men,
for when the physi