Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.
-Psalm 1:1
“For since [there have been] many laborious efforts, and countless have dripped their sweat and had their fill of distress in exhorting about what is soon to come, the foregoing word is for those struggling for piety. The one who has received the Holy Spirit shows the blessed end, so that, in hope of the laid up good of painless life, we may bear the painful things.”
This is an excerpt of Basil the Great’s commentary on Psalm 1:1 (taken from a catena manuscript of the Middle Ages). Basil lived in the 4th century CE.
Brian P. Baucom 