St Peter of Damascus | ...most of us think that we are something...

Because of our great insensitivity most of us think that we are something while in fact we are nothing (cf. Gal. 6:3): as St Paul says, ‘When they are talking about peace... calamity falls on them’ (1 Thess. 5:3).

For they did not in fact possess peace but, as St John Chrysostom explains, only talked about it, thinking in their great insensitivity that they did possess it.

Such people, as James the brother of the Lord points out, have forgotten about their sins (cf. Jas. 1:24), and most of them in their pride deceive themselves, as St John Klimakos says, into thinking that they are dispassionate.

St Peter of Damascus