Love your own soul, and comfort your heart, remove sorrow far from you: for sorrow has killed many, and there is no profit therein.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 30:23 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 30
Salvian the Presbyter
AD 429
"Have compassion on your own soul." Great is the mercy of God our Lord, who invites us to be charitable toward ourselves. He says, "Have compassion on your own soul," that is, "you also should have compassion on yourself, you for whom I feel an aching commiseration, for whom I experience an infinite compassion. If you see me so moved over the soul of another, you at least should have mercy on your own soul." O extremely wretched person, God acts toward you in this way, and you do not put faith in him. He beckons you to be charitable toward yourself, and you do not want to be so? He pleads your case with you, and he cannot win the decision from you?
