TRTR(I.3) Hidden Profits [Epigraph]

[Jed Kelestron]

The epigraph further conceals what God has concealed but Peter reveals
in Book 3 of the Clementine Recognitions:

Chapter LIII.—Self-Love the Foundation of Goodness.

“First of all, then, he is evil, in the judgment of God, who will not
inquire what is advantageous to himself.  For how can any one love
another, if he does not love himself?  Or to whom will that man not be
an enemy, who cannot be a friend to himself?  In order, therefore,
that there might be a distinction between those who choose good and
those who choose evil, God has concealed that which is profitable to
men, i.e., the possession of the kingdom of heaven, and has laid it up
and hidden it as a secret treasure, so that no one can easily attain
it by his own power or knowledge.  Yet He has brought the report of
it, under various names and opinions, through successive generations,
to the hearing of all:  so that whosoever should be lovers of good,
hearing it, might inquire and discover what is profitable and salutary
to them; but that they should ask it, not from themselves, but from
Him who has hidden it, and should pray that access and the way of
knowledge might be given to them:  which way is opened to those only
who love it above all the good things of this world; and on no other
condition can any one even understand it, however wise he may seem;
but that those who neglect to inquire what is profitable and salutary
to themselves, as self-haters and self-enemies, should be deprived of
its good things, as lovers of evil things."